The Hammer

CHBA is doing more than ever to serve, assist and represent its renovation sector members. Renovation Services director, Sarah Caron, joins The Hammer to talk about the special nature of renovation contracting as a sub-sector of the home building business. She explains the various member benefits and services to the industry that Renovation Services is offering, including the Renomark https://reno...

The effort to get our industry to fully embrace the latest technology tools grinds on. Amy Vilis is the director of housing growth innovation at DIGITAL , a Vancouver-based non-profit working on bringing technology and construction companies together for mutual benefit. Working with Vilis is John Reid from Faber Technologies , the developer of Faber Connect, an AI-powered software tool that connec...

After decades in the commercial facade business building whole sections of skyscrapers in factories before shipping them to jobsites, Antonio Manchisi of Sapphire Balconies knows a thing or two about prefabricating construction components. He joins The Hammer to talk about how offsite and modular building are the norm in other parts of the world; how they can save costs, improve quality, efficienc...

Paul Amato of Tallinn Advisory brings 20 years' of professional experience advising construction companies to the question of how to get the different parts of your organization working better together. He joins The Hammer to talk about what he means by “alignment”; the elements of a good mindset; the barriers to great customer service and quality; and how to build a culture that succeeds. Take so...

Contractors work in a high-stress jobs for sure, where frustration, time pressure, conflict and long hours can grind us down. We view workplace stress as part of the lifestyle, but Sandra Primiano from online mental health services provider, Dialogue, says it has very real and measurable effects on productivity and quality. Those effects can include workplace accidents and addiction problems, so i...

Skylights are a feature that transform an interior space when done right and risk a lifetime of headaches when done wrong. Modern designs have come a long way from the old plexiglass domes and now offer great energy efficiency, smart home options and the ability to improve the environment throughout a home. Mark Taylor, national Canadian sales manager for Velux and 27-year veteran of the business,...

Amanda Spann is the author of I Have an App Idea - The Essential Guide to Building an App Without Tech Skills and she has good news for all of us. You don't need to spend in the five figures or burn hundreds of hours of staff time to develop an app any more, thanks to new AI-powered tools and reasonably priced professional services. The even better news is, as experts in touch with the needs of th...

Embodied carbon and an increased focus on building resiliency are coming soon to a building code near you. When they do, we're going to need a lot of information about the amount of greenhouse gasses embodied in our building products and how to build structures that will last longer in the extreme weather events happening in the regions where we build. Kelly Doran and his team at Half Climate Desi...

Building resiliency is the hot focus for sustainable building regulators developing the next wave of codes and standards we will all have to follow. Resiliency impacts our designs two ways: making buildings last longer with less maintenance, and making them resist extreme weather and natural disasters better. Both are related to climate change in that buildings that last longer prevent new carbon...

Bryan Reid, president of Kindred Construction and Kindred Custom Homes, joins The Hammer to discuss B.C.’s latest attempts to make it easier to build homes. He covers the recent prompt payment legislation and a large attempt to streamline B.C.’s approval processes with 187 amendments to legislation. He also offers his perspective on whether these moves will make life easier for B.C. contractors an...

Growing concern over building emissions and occupant health has led experts to re-evaluate how we insulate and protect our homes. Spray foam insulation, once valued mainly for its high R-value, is now at the center of discussions about sustainability, environmental impact, and indoor air quality. How does spray foam contribute to lower carbon footprints? What innovations are shaping the next gener...

In an business where trust is perhaps our most valuable commodity, the ongoing presence of dishonest contractors and outright fraudsters hurts us all. Alex Kimmich left the tools to do something about it, establishing the BetterBid online service that connects homeowners to a vetted list of reputable local contractors. He joins The Hammer to discuss the scale of the scamming problem in Canada toda...

Toronto construction software developer CMiC has commissioned a study examining uptake in Enterprise Resource Planning software in the American construction industry and come away with many insights relevant to our market, too. Weiss has been working with contractors to provide digital solutions since the early ‘90s and has lots to say about how the tools and interfaces have changed between then a...

As new custom homebuilders working in the Toronto area, Joshua and his partner, Alvaro, were getting more and calls to build outbuildings on existing residential yards, home additions to add space for family and rentals, and fully separated basement living space – so-called Alternative Dwelling Units. The work has proven to be lucrative and relatively uncomplicated, with municipalities speeding up...

As executive director of Career Colleges of Ontario, Kate Bartz wants us to know that career colleges play a vital role in providing the skilled workforce of the future and will be an important part of the province’s mighty effort to build hundreds of thousands of homes in the years ahead. She spoke to Pat Flannery about what career colleges have to offer and how she hopes to partner with the prov...

Achieving good indoor air quality for our clients is something we probably need to think about more than they do. A homeowner may not give the topic a second thought…until their throat starts scratching and their nose starts itching from a poorly designed HVAC system. Mohamed Fouda sits on ASHRAE committees writing indoor air quality standards and joins The Hammer to advise us on how to protect ho...

Silica is one of the most common hazards at construction sites. Workers exposed to airborne respirable silica are at an increased risk of developing lung diseases like silicosis, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Meghan Friesen, Occupational Hygienist with the Ontario Health Clinics for Ontario Workers, discusses the hazards and health effects of silica, exposures in the const...

High-profile wildfires doing substantial property damage to urban areas in B.C. and Alberta have spurred NRCan to look at creating Canadian building standards for wildfire resistance. The consultation process has just begun, but it seems likely that some day soon we may see new codes requiring resistant windows, doors and other components in wildfire-prone areas. What might these rules look like?...

The difficulty, expense and delay in getting projects approved has been identified as one of the big reasons Ontario is nowhere near its homebuilding goals and not likely to be any time soon. Enter Arash Shahi and his non-profit One Ontario initiative to offer a database of municipal zoning bylaws and regulations that shows where building can happen and whether your project qualifies. One Ontario...

Gil Yaron of Light House is spearheading the launch of the Building Materials Exchange on Vancouver Island and Lower Mainland, B.C., with plans to expand. It’s a website where members can post excess materials from inventory or jobsites and offer them for sale or free to whomever wants them. The important wrinkle is the business-to-business nature of the site, allowing contractors to deal with oth...

Canada, and especially Ontario, faces a housing crisis in which we are building less than half the new homes each year we are expected to need. But even so, housing starts dropped in Ontario in 2024. Radical action is clearly needed, and RESCON CEO Richard Lyall has some ideas. He joins The Hammer for some tough talk about the need for big cuts to development fees and taxes; new investment in infr...

Jared Kress of Metropolitan Floors and Chris Maskell of the National Floor Covering Association of Canada join The Hammer to set us straight on the impact insulation class (IIC) for flooring. This is the number that tells us how much a flooring product prevents sound transmission to the space below from footsteps. Some condo boards and architects are specifying crazy numbers for these ratings, but...

Steve Johnston of Omnigence, a private equity firm investing in the construction sector, has a stark warning. He sees a real risk of long-term stagflation (inflation coupled with low productivity and high unemployment) in our present conditions and government policies. His white paper lays out the broad details, but he joins The Hammer to talk about the specific effects in Canada’s homebuilding se...

Movember is back with an added focus. The popular fundraising drive for men’s health has added support for mental health to its efforts along with prostate and testicular cancer. Mitch Hermansen joined Annex Business Media publisher/editor, Patrick Flannery, to talk about why these issues are important and what we in the construction community can do to help the guys who work for us. When you’re d...

We had a great conversation with Damon Gray, owner of B.C.’s NZ Builders, about their innovative insulated concrete panels and some of the great things they can achieve with them. NZ is making high-performance homes, even Passive House homes, on Vancouver Island out of concrete and finding the material generates a more comfortable and healthy environment for their customers.