AWCI’s 2013 awards program has ended (see the winners on AWCI’s website at www.awci.org/awards), so it must be time to begin the 2014 program.
At its March meeting during AWCI’s Convention, the AWCI Industry Awards Committee agreed to close the AWCI Excellence in Construction Innovation Awards in July, so AWCI member manufacturers and other inventor-members should look for nomination information in late May/early June. Those who submitted nominations to the 2013 program may re-submit the same products in 2014.
AWCI’s Excellence in Construction Quality Award will open soon after the innovation award. Contractors looking for national recognition for their work completed on jobs that started on or later than Jan. 1, 2012, and will be at least 90 percent finished by the end of this year are eligible. AWCI members should look for the nomination forms to be delivered to their e-mailboxes later this month. The deadline for this award will be in August.
Finally, nominations for AWCI’s 2013 Excellence in Construction Safety Award will open at the end of this year. (OSHA Logs must be completed before the nomination forms can be properly completed.)
Nomination forms for all of AWCI’s awards will be sent to AWCI members via email at the appropriate times.
More information about all of AWCI’s awards, including deadlines and links to nomination forms, will be updated on the Awards page of AWCI’s website at www.awci.org/awards.
AWCI Has Joined the buildingSMART alliance™
AWCI has joined the buildingSMART alliance™. The bSa was created to spearhead technical, political and financial support for use of advanced digital technology in the real property industry-from concept, design and construction through operations and management. By leading the development and promotion of open data standards, the bSa helps facilitate the most effective capture and ongoing management of information for facilities and infrastructure, from inception to demolition.
The buildingSMART alliance is a public/private initiative that operates within the independent nonprofit National Institute of Building Sciences. The group promotes the use of Building Information Modeling. Effective use of BIM has the potential to eliminate enormous waste in the industry resulting from the recollection and recreation of project information and data. The bSa has a goal of helping the building sector eliminate 31 percent of current waste, or almost $400 million, by 2020.
AWCI Tests Stucco over Continuous Insulation for IECC Requirements
In response to requirements in the International Energy Conservation Code for continuous insulation over exterior surfaces, AWCI’s recently retired Director of Technical Services Don Smith devised and conducted with the help of AWCI members a preliminary test to determine whether three-coat stucco could be installed successfully over several varieties of exterior insulation without excessive deflection or “creep” of the stucco system.
A test panel was constructed with three sections separated by casing bead. Each panel received a different insulation material—2 1/2 inch poly-iso board, 3 inch XPS board or 4 inch EPS board—to provide the properties necessary in climate zone seven. Self-furring metal lath was attached to each panel using number 10 screws long enough to pass through the insulation and the required depth into the steel framing. In the case of the EPS panel, this created 4 inch moment arms bearing 17 pounds per square foot.
Flat metal rods were then perpendicularly installed through the foam into the substrate. The distance from the bottom of the panel was measured and recorded. A scratch coat was applied, and measurements of the height of the metal rods were taken again and recorded while the scratch coat was wet and dry. A brown coat was applied; measurements were taken again, wet and dry. Final measurements were taken a month later.
The final measurements revealed that there was no deflection at most of the metal rods, and the greatest amount of deflection measured was 1/8 inch. The test indicates that three-coat stucco can be successfully applied over 4 inches of EPS foam. What is yet unknown is how the panels will perform in a fire test. Plans to have the panels built and fire-tested are currently under development.
