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 will this change our designs? Guardian’s Pacific Northwest ADM, Geoff Shellard, returns to Glass Talk to shed some light on the topic ..read more

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-ranging conversation ..read more

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 and red tape, credit card fees, housing and more. Happy holidays to everyone and all the best for 2024 ..read more

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, surprisingly, tightening sustainability standards might create an environment where there’s less pressure for us to sharpen pencils. Geoff Shellard has been advising on and supplying glazing projects for a l ..read more

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 blow up their samples in labs. As concerns about occupant security and extreme weather rise here in Canada, Hanson brings some key information we will all want to bear in mind ..read more

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, succession planning, strategic thinking, maximizing Episode value, effective hiring and planning for the future. Take Dawn’s advice and take an hour out of your day to hear what she has to say…we promise you w ..read more

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 architecture and construction groups across the country. So who better to give us the heads up on what the new focus on embodied carbon may mean for those of us who build with two of the highest embodied car ..read more

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 North America several times each year, so he is in a perfect position to tell us about the Indian glass industry, what is trending in Asian façade design and how the North American and Indian businesses a ..read more

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, train and pay new entrants into your workforce. Especially if those workers are from under-represented groups. She joins the podcast to discuss what that challenges are in finding the staff we need; w ..read more

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 building engineer with a PhD in structural glass, who is the program manager for the Carbon Leadership Forum, a non-profit group assisting the B.C. construction industry to meet sustainable building ..read more