Cleanup for Christmas!

We are approaching the Christmas Season 
and it seems that rain is now the order of the day, every day;
great for agriculture, but not so good for construction,
as sites become much more difficult to control.

As projects move to get the last major tasks complete before the holidays, spare a thought for good site management, which in the long run, will protect the new work, increase efficiency moving forward, improve security, save useful materials and reduce the incidence of mosquitoes, or vermin on building sites.

Excess materials and off cuts which are re-usable, should be secured from the weather, while new materials such as roofing sheets, flashing, rebar, welded mesh and guttering should be securely stored and appropriately stacked, either in a lockup or container.

Off cut plywood, timber planks and lengths should again be stacked securely in a dry, protected environment for later use. Even those previously used for casting can be scraped or knocked to remove dried cement and stacked.

Sand, chip-stone or ready-mix mounds should be heaped up and boxed around with boards and short staves, to avoid unnecessary runaways, due to rains or wind.  Concrete blocks and pavings, when being used site wide, tend to become strewn in all corners, as anchors, weights or seats, with a fair chance of becoming broken and unusable. These should be collected to a single, unobtrusive location, which is preferably dry and stacked for easy counting and tidiness.

Water drums, wheelbarrows, containers and makeshift ladders should not be left to the elements or in plain sight.
They collect rainwater and attract mosquitoes, or the interest of thieves.

While it is not always practical or possible to temporarily rectify the holes, dips or trenches created during the building process, every effort should be made to avoid the accumulation of stagnant water in soakaways, chambers, trenches and run offs.  This can also reduce the possibility of trapped animals who do forage on building sites,or large toads looking for water and spawning areas.

Almost every site has young laborers, who work in spurts, often having to wait extended periods of time, for tradesmen to complete their work before they are needed. Site foremen are often at a loss to find work for these temporarily idle hands. This is the time to clean up with available labor. Find a large bucket and collect up gashed or loose nails, screws or short ends of rebar and create a new source of ‘lost‘ materials.

Five years after we built our home, I am still finding nails and screws while digging the garden!

I say all of this because January is like an old car - hard to start and because good housekeeping and self imposed best practices are the most credible route to efficiency, productivity and budget control.  
The costs and interruption caused by spoiled or stolen materials, mount up rapidly on an active building site, which is poorly managed and in a confusing mess; difficult to resolve and get back on track.

One of the most effective ways to combat this, from the very start, is to develop a culture of tidying up at the end of each working day, creating designated areas for the protection of materials and the collection of scrap and waste.

Shipping pallets around a stand pipe and a small run off trench can avoid considerable mud and puddling on the building area. Washing down the casting route, and bridging boards, as well as wheelbarrows will make the future job that much easier.

The king of site storage and security is without a doubt, the 20’ shipping container.

This is the ‘bread and butter’ of ECMIL shipping. It not only creates material protection and security, but makes a ready made short or long term site storage, if you have made the appropriate arrangements to rent or purchase the container.

With ease, ECMIL can deliver all roofing and accessories, rebar, welded mesh, nails and PVC pipes and conduits, even wheelbarrows, all in the same package.  This translates to greater efficiency in supply and security, saving on time and inevitably, your budget.

Contact your ECMIL sales representative today and discuss
a consolidated package of building materials for your next project.

We hope that you have enjoyed our stories, product details, commentary and suggestions in our monthly newsletter, during 2016. Thanks for being such a receptive audience and don’t just read it, pass it on and urge your colleagues and friends to join our list. We look forward to bringing you much more about your Caribbean steel supplier in the coming year.

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