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 other contractors and not so much the general public. There are the obvious environmental benefits of reducing waste, but avoiding charges at the landfill and being able to find free or inexpensive mater ..read more

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 infrastructure; harmonization of codes and standards; slashing of red tape in approvals process; the need to fight U.S. tariffs and more ..read more

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 what you get in a lab is often not what you get in the field. Kress and Maskell take us through how the rating is calculated, what impacts the actual performance in your project and what you need to ..read more

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 sector and what will be needed to avoid them ..read more

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 sector and what will be needed to avoid them ..read more

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 done, check out Movember’s hilarious video Shit Mos Save Lives ..read more

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 ..read more

Espisito and Koblik, the husband and wife owners of Otis Interiors in Guelph, Ont., have discovered a better way of doing business. They leverage their creative and operational expertise with a careful design plan including intensive homeowner consultation, milestones, acquisition of all permits and drawings and a payment and procurement schedule to achieve a high level of preparation before anyone swings a hammer. The process could take as long as a year, but the result is happier clients, a smoother and more profitable process for the organization and higher quality results. Listen to them t ..read more

New standards for energy efficiency and low carbon impact in construction are demanding new skills in the trades – skills your young workers might be more familiar with than you are. Chad Flinn, associate vice-president of academics at Red Deer Polytechnic, and Judi Varga-Toth, manager of the ImpAct-Climate program at Colleges and Institutes Canada, are working to educate today’s construction industry in how to design and install the elements of net zero homes, including the unique considerations for heat pumps, solar panels, EV chargers, continuous insulation and high-performance fenestration ..read more

Ceiling systems have come a long way from basic white grids and tiles. No longer flat and forgettable, modern ceiling designs enhance aesthetics and can impact health and safety concerns. These days, many integrated ceiling solutions are also manufactured with sustainable and recyclable materials.  Listen to our conversation with Jamie Wright - Product Specialist in Ceiling Systems at Kenroc Building Materials. His career spans 20  years in the building construction industry and he prides himself in providing innovative solutions for his customers. He joins The Hammer to share his kn ..read more