Fairfield Connecticut Building Expert Directory

Washington State Updates the Contractor Registration Statute

June 17, 2015 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Ryan W. Sternoff of Ahlers & Cressman PLLC, analyzed SHB 1749, which recently amended RCW 18.27.010, Washington State’s legislature’s contractor’s registration statute. According to Sternoff, “a broad reading of the contractor’s registration statute, RCW Ch. 18.27, would require just about any person or entity, other than a residential homeowner, who is involved at any level in improving real property to be registered as a ‘Contractor,’ irrespective if that person or entity hired a licensed contractor to perform work on real property that they own.” SHB 1749 amended the statute “so that those who ‘offer to sell their property without occupying or using the structures, projects, developments or improvements’ are excluded from the definition of ‘contractor’ and not required to be registered, provided that the person or entity ‘contracts with a registered general contractor and does not superintend the work.’” Read the court decision
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Building the Secondary Market for Reclaimed Building Materials

August 30, 2021 — Christopher G. Hill - Construction Law Musings
For this week’s guest post Friday, Musings welcomes Mark Rabkin of Deconstruction Management, Inc., the first, dedicated, for-profit deconstruction management firm in the country. Based in Northeast Ohio, it through all stages of building removal from property acquisition to deconstruction to recycling and architectural salvage. With 10 years of professional experience as an independent risk advisor focusing on sustainable real estate and development, Mark counsels his clients on effective strategies to reduce hazards and mitigate losses. Mark oversees the marketing and administrative functions of Deconstruction Management, Inc. and is responsible for managing the architectural salvage and the upcycled material reuse and resale side of the business. Mark is a leader in the advocacy of sustainable building strategies both locally and nationally. Mark serves as the volunteer Director of Advocacy for the Northeast Ohio Chapter of the United States Green Building Council. He is also an active contributor on many of the chapter’s strategic implementation teams. Mark is a member of Entrepreneurs for Sustainability, the Council of Smaller Enterprises’ Sustainability Task Force and is an active participant in the Sustainable Cleveland 2019 Initiative. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of The Law Office of Christopher G. Hill
Mr. Hill may be contacted at chrisghill@constructionlawva.com

Carbon Sequestration Can Combat Global Warming, Sometimes in Unexpected Ways

April 02, 2024 — Michael S. McDonough, Robert A. James & Amanda G. Halter - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law Blog
Whether by land, by sea or through human innovation, carbon sequestration is likely coming to (or already happening in) a destination near you. As our planet, overdosed on greenhouse gases, battles climate disasters, a logical solution is to simply stop pumping carbon dioxide into the air. Legislation worldwide is aimed at that target, but reducing output alone may not be enough. There are still billions of tons of extra CO2 already in the atmosphere—this crossroads is where sequestration comes into play. Carbon sequestration is exactly what it sounds like—the storage of CO2. Once carbon is sucked out of the air, or in some cases pulled directly from industrial smokestacks, sequestration can be undertaken in a lot of different ways. Carbon storage happens naturally, when forests and oceans absorb and convert CO2 into organic matter, but carbon dioxide can also be artificially injected into deep underground rock formations (or wells), or in some cases technological approaches repurpose carbon into a resource like concrete, or as a catalyst in a closed-loop industrial system. However it’s accomplished, the point of sequestration is to stabilize carbon and ensure it doesn’t creep back into our atmosphere. Researchers, like those at the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, now say that CO2 removal is vital to keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (past that threshold, climate change could reach catastrophic levels). A 2023 University of Oxford study estimated that, currently, about two billion metric tons of carbon dioxide are being removed each year, primarily through land management (i.e., planting trees), and suggested that we need to double that amount to avoid dangerous global warming levels. Reprinted courtesy of Michael S. McDonough, Pillsbury, Robert A. James, Pillsbury and Amanda G. Halter, Pillsbury Mr. McDonough may be contacted at michael.mcdonough@pillsburylaw.com Mr. James may be contacted at rob.james@pillsburylaw.com Ms. Halter may be contacted at amanda.halter@pillsburylaw.com Read the court decision
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The Benefits of Incorporating AI Into the Construction Lifecycle

December 23, 2024 — Ian Warner - Construction Executive
Interest in artificial intelligence has been spreading like wildfire over the past few years. AI is not a new term for Trimble, which has been capturing and leveraging construction data for decades. From hardware to software, the field to the office or among stakeholders, harnessing and making meaning out of data is the crux of Trimble’s business. Generative AI is simply a new set of tools that provide a richer narrative around data, making it more insightful and actionable. As a company that helps connect stakeholders across the entire construction lifecycle—design, construction and operations/ maintenance—AI has been woven in and leveraged across a number of Trimble solutions to help contractors do more with less, while also giving them greater decision-making power and the ability to focus on other key challenges. While the use cases for AI are diverse and ever-changing, below are a few key areas where Trimble has doubled down on AI, with the goal of making contractors’ jobs less cumbersome and repetitive, safer and more capable of being upskilled—efforts which will only continue to grow in the coming years. Reprinted courtesy of Ian Warner, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved. Read the court decision
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Read Her Lips: “No New Buildings”

November 18, 2011 — CDJ STAFF

Martha Johnson, the head of the General Services Administration, has said that her agency will not be building any new buildings in the near future. Among other duties, the GSA is responsible for the building, renovating, and leasing of federal office space. The White House had proposed $840 million in new construction, the Senate only $56 million. The House did not appropriate any money for the agency to use for new construction.

In addition to cutbacks on new buildings, Congress is suggesting only $280 million in repairs of existing government buildings. In order to cut back, the GSA has dropped plans to renovate their own offices in favor of renovations at the Department of Homeland Security and the Food and Drug Administration.

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Floating Crane on Job in NYC's East River Has a Storied Past of Cold War Intrigue

March 22, 2017 — Nadine M. Post – Engineering News-Record
The complex maneuver of lifting heavy prefabricated modules out of New York City's East River to build a university laboratory took careful planning and the work of one particular floating crane with a complicated past. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Nadine M. Post, Engineering News-Record
Ms. Post may be contacted at postn@enr.com

Over a Hundred Thousand Superstorm Sandy Cases Re-Opened

March 12, 2015 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced yesterday that they will be reopening 144,000 flood insurance claims, reported the New Jersey Law Journal. The announcement comes weeks after reports that “some insurance companies denied thousands of claims after fraudulently altering engineering reports, as well as complaints that insurance companies systematically underpay on claims because they fear a backlash from FEMA.” Read the court decision
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Pancakes Decision Survives Challenge Before Hawaii Appellate Court

March 12, 2015 — Tred R. Eyerly – Insurance Law Hawaii
In 1997, the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) decided Pancakes of Hawaii, Inc. v. Pomare Prop. Corp., 85 Haw. 286, 944 P.2d 83 (Haw. Ct. App. 1997). Although not an insurance coverage case, Pancakes addressed the duty to defend in terms of a contractual indemnity obligation. Under challenge in a recent appeal before the ICA, the Court reaffirmed the holding in Pancakes. Arthur v. State of Hawaii, Dept. of Hawaiian Home Lands, 2015 Haw. App. LEXIS 109 (Haw. Ct. App. Feb. 27, 2015). The decision is long with detailed facts complicated and many indemnities running in favor of various parties. This post focuses on the decision's discussion of Pancakes. A resident, Mona Arthur, of the Kalawahine Streamside Housing Development, was killed when she apparently slipped and fell from a hillside adjacent to the project. She was on the hillside tending to her garden there. At the bottom of the hill was a two foot fence in front of a drainage ditch, where Mona allegedly hit her head. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tred R. Eyerly, Insurance Law Hawaii
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES