Greenville Magazine - April 2008 - (Page 62) A Short History of Hazardous Building by beCky mann here’s a new generation of construction worries on the horizon, but these worries haven’t replaced concerns of longer standing. So, while the industry comes to grips with new regulations surrounding employment and the environment, older worries are pre-built into the construction process. Asbestos was once favored for use in building construction materials for its insulation and fire-retardant properties. Banned in the eighties, it is still found, according to the Environmental Protec62 T tion Agency, in insulation surrounding pipes and furnaces, shingles, millboard, textured paints and floor tiles of older homes and buildings. When those structures are renovated, the materials containing asbestos are disturbed and the asbestos becomes airborne, endangering those working on the building and those living or working in it. Lead is another substance targeted since the late seventies when the EPA began limiting lead content in consumer products including paint. Deteriorating lead-based paint remains a health hazard, especially to children under the age of six. And when homes or other buildings undergo renovation, the dust created by disturbing leadbased paint is a major concern. Even though radon is no longer on the radar screen as a danger for most Americans, the danger still looms, we just don’t hear as much about it as we once did. “Radon’s still a concern,” says Robert Markel, president of Hadrian Construction. “With new homes, radon vents are installed as part of the building code. In an existing home, the danger is still there. It’s not something related to the construction of the home. It’s a gas that seeps up from the ground underneath the house.” Asbestos, lead and radon are dangers that have been around and will continue to be around for some time. Along with them is another ongoing concern for the construction industry that is far more basic: the problem of finding qualified people. Mac Carpenter, a senior vice president with BE&K Building Group, says one of his company’s greatest concerns is finding good people who want to make the field a career. Years ago, he says, many people grew up in the field, starting as craftspeople and moving up. Today, he says, it’s more difficult to find people who want to join the ranks and grow through that process. Part of the difficulty is an image of the industry, Carpenter says, and part is the nature of the industry, with some of those employed in the industry experiencing periods of unemployment due to the short-term nature of many construction projects. “Especially in the manufacturing environment that we live in here, the image hurts us as far as attracting people, since we build a building and we have to go somewhere else. That makes it really hard to keep people with us,” he says. Mold is another concern that’s received widespread news coverage. Mold situations are a rising problem, especially with newer homes and buildings that are often tightly sealed for Greenville MaGazine | april 2008
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