GlassTalk

By Anton Van Dyk’s count, there are now up to 15 separate areas where fenestration products have to demonstrate compliance to one regulatory regime or another. Embodied carbon will soon become another, yet both end users and manufacturers have been slow to understand things like Environmental Product Declarations and how they will affect product development. Van Dyk and Layton think the approach t...

When information technology is the topic, media outlets across the country turn to Carmi Levy to explain what is going on and give them the deep background on the issues. So we invited him to Glass Talk to share some very practical advice on how to think about your IT department and personnel and how to source and vet providers that will make your life and business better, not worse. Choosing the...

When Andrew Haring announced he was leaving his role as business development director for the National Glass Association, it set off a mini-storm on social media. Why? Because in his time with the NGA Haring became one of the better known and respected personalities on the North American glass scene. His blend of humour, honesty and deep familiarity with our business has made him someone we’d all...

It’s happened – a Canadian jurisdiction has mandated a maximum allowable temperature inside a dwelling space. The Vancouver rule is related to health and safety rather than energy efficiency, but it seems likely that requirements for cooling homes will soon put pressure on fenestration designers to restrict solar heat gain in addition to insulating against heat loss. Is the market reacting? How wi...

Our fast-changing world of tightening energy standards and embodied carbon is challenging us all to look at different design approaches and different materials. Enter a true Canadian glass innovator – Advanced Glazings in Sydney, N.S., and their Solera and SoleraWall products that use an aerogel fill to make translucent architectural glass products with energy performance similar to vacuum insulat...

Storm clouds are gathering over the architectural glass industry as 2024 starts. FenCan Commercial business development director and Glass Canada columnist Rich Porayko joins GlassTalk for a New Year episode looking back at the top stories from 2023 and ahead to what they might mean for 2024. Embodied carbon, bankruptcies, VIG, new organizations and events, labour…it’s all on the table in our wide...

Another year has gone by and it’s time for a high-level view of our business conditions and results in 2023. Marvin Cruz, research director, and Christina Santini, national affairs director, for the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses join Glass Talk to tell us what they are hearing from small and medium-sized businesses across the country. We hit inflation, labour shortages, regulations...

Jeff Dalaba, program director for North American Contractor Certification and Architectural Glass and Metal Technician, joins Glass Talk to update us on recent developments with these important certification organizations. Interest and participation in these certification programs continues to grow, with U.S. states demanding it for public project bids and major general contractors joining the boa...

It’s everyone’s least favourite part of the project – the value engineering phase. When general contractors and project owners turn to finding ways to save cost while preserving specs, we often feel the squeeze. But there’s a difference between the way it is supposed to work and how it gets implemented when people are just looking to save costs without regard for other considerations. And, surpris...

Specialty Fenestration Group makes commercial fenestration for two of the toughest applications there are: security glazing and drive-through windows. Marketing director Brian Hanson joins GlassTalk to tell us all about ballistic and blast-resistant glass – what it is; what the standards are; how it’s made; how it’s tested and what works in what situation. And yes, they do get to shoot, smash and...

When you look at the big picture for yourself and your business, what do you see? Dawn Bloomer is a business consultant who helps small business owners get out from under the day-to-day grind of putting out fires and fixing leaks to take a look at their goals and find ways to organize their businesses to meet them. She joins Glass Talk to offer some sage advice on issues like delegation, successio...

It’s safe to say Kelly Doran is one of the people driving Canada’s approach to limiting the carbon dioxide emissions in our built environment. He’s an architect by training who has counseled Toronto on embodied carbon standards for its Green Building Standard, worked with NRCan on its plans for meeting Canada’s Paris Agreement commitments, attended UN climate conferences and is speaking to archite...

Suhel Kachwala’s last name means “glass man” in Parsi. It doesn’t get a lot more fitting than that, because Kachwala is the second-generation managing director of FG Glass, one of India’s largest glass fabricators. His father and uncle started the business in 1976, the year he was born, and now he runs it alongside his brother and two cousins – all engineers. Kachwala’s business brings him to Nort...

Amy Roberts, Canadian operations and glass technical director for the Fenestration and Glazing Industry Alliance, has been looking into where we might find the skilled and unskilled labour we are all lacking in our operations. Roberts’ research has revealed that there are several provincial and federal programs – some with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding – aimed at helping you recruit,...

A new world of sustainable building practices is bearing down upon us, with embodied carbon considerations pushing to the fore. Air/water tightness and insulating factors are so last century. Vancouver will begin asking for environmental product declarations on new builds this summer, with limits on the allowed embodied carbon coming within two years. Here to explain it all is Caroline Butchart, a...

There are two industries putting glass on buildings: the residential side working mostly with vinyl in punched openings and the commercial side working mostly with aluminum to produce engineered facades. Even 20 years ago, the distinctions between the two were fairly clear and few companies did both. Today, there’s vinyl going on to high rises and aluminum windows going into suburban tract housing...

New concepts are emerging in construction contracts aimed at bringing project owners, contractors and subcontractors closer together as partners rather than bosses and hirelings. But to navigate these new structures, especially on today’s larger P3 projects, glazing contractors are going to need to be prepared for a world of enhanced transparency, data collection and communication. Michelle Thross...

Glass Talk host Patrick Flannery reconnects with an old friend who is now a lecturer in mechanical engineering with a focus on fenestration technology at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Thomas Simko has travelled the world researching the latest concepts in glass, glazing and building facades and he joins the podcast to give us the view from Down Under. Simko’s message is compelling: Aust...

Glass Canada’s That’s Rich columnist, Rich Porayko, joins the podcast to look over some of the top stories from 2022 and engage in general industry gossip. Glass prices – should we be surprised? Embodied carbon – are we going to end up going back to monolithic? Contracts – who’s the dog and who’s the tail? Associations – what are they good for? And more. Happy New Year!

Ontario’s Bill 23 has attracted some hot reaction from environmental groups, up to and including claims it has taken away municipalities’ ability to enforce environmental regulations on construction. In the glass industry, most of the questions are concerning Toronto’s bird-friendly glazing rules. As one of North America’s preeminent bird-friendly glass suppliers, Walker Glass is keeping a close e...

Dr. Mukhopadhya is a building science professor researching thermal testing and modeling at the University of Victoria and he joined Glass Talk to explain his latest work on thermal testing that may open the door to understanding thermal performance of facades based on smaller test sample sizes. He also discusses measuring thermal transmission through building materials and what the future may hol...

The Ontario government has announced a string of programs and restructurings aimed at improving and promoting skilled trades training. Robert Bronk is CEO of the Ontario Construction Secretariat, an agency that acts as a forum for construction contractors and construction unions to work together. As such, he has some great perspectives on the state of skilled trades learning and the apprenticeship...

The Fenestration and Glazing Industry Alliance continues to evolve into a truly North American organization for the architectural glass and window and door industries. It’s most recent move is the absorption of Fenestration BC, the association created 10 years ago out of the merger of the Canadian Window and Door Manufacturers Association of BC and the Glazing Contractors Association of BC. With t...

The August issue of Glass Canada magazine featured Canada’s Top 10 Under 40 young professionals in the architectural glass industry, and four of them joined Glass Talk to help us get to know them even better. Corey and Blake Sanders of SpandrelTech, Ameet Balilty of High Performance Glazing and Vincent Couturier of Unicel talked about what’s changed since their fathers’ day; where things are likel...

Thermal modeling for façade component certification is going to become a bigger and bigger part of our business as energy efficiency standards continue to tighten. Jonathan “JoMo” Layton and Taylor Wight join GlassTalk to talk about the importance and uses of modelling in today’s design process and how it might influence our efforts in the future. We discuss the new NBC tiered codes; Layton’s expe...