It seems everywhere you look today someone is marketing their company or product as being Green, that is, ‘environmentally friendly,’ ‘carbon neutral,’ or any of the many other names embedded in commercials to help sell more widgets, regardless whether they’re actually any better for the environment or not. In fact, so prevalent has this advertising become it won’t be long before the word ‘Green’ will have about as much meaning as ‘New and Improved’ or ‘State of the Art’ both at one time meaningful when attached to a product and now completely irrelevant and ignored. But even more worrying is the fact that the ‘Green’ moniker can give companies the cover of being eco-friendly when in fact their business practices are anything but. In other words, it’s not enough to consider the one specific product or ingredient in a particular product a company is offering, as this may have little or no impact on the environment in general, but rather to find out what kind of company you’re actually dealing with. Most people are smart enough to know who the worst offenders are—known polluters, companies that fight tooth and nail to defeat environmental protection laws—and know how to avoid them (or at least ignore their false claims regarding their environmental awareness), but when it comes to the average company how can you be sure they are who they say they are, that is, genuinely concerned about the environment, worker safety, reducing one’s carbon footprint, finding and developing materials that are truly safer and more friendly to customers as well as the earth?

As with most things, the best way to tell is by looking at the company’s track record. How have they treated their workers in the past; are they genuinely concerned with the safety of each person who works for them, and how can a consumer verify this?

When it comes to products, have they proactively looked for materials that are safer for homeowners as well as the environment, or have they only complied once the law mandated specific changes or banned certain products, causing them to scramble trying to make up for lost time, working with materials they aren’t familiar with and which they may or may not know how to apply properly?

Most importantly, what do potential customers know about these companies: are they civic minded; are they good neighbors to the other businesses, residents, schools and public institutions in their area?

Without verifiable data on these fronts, it may be impossible to tell the difference between who’s genuinely concerned with creating a better world, and whose passing themselves off as environmentally conscious just to make more money.

The Armstrong ethos has always been to view our company and how we interact with the public as a microcosm for the greater world around us. From the way we treat our employees, to the care and concern we take in the products we develop and select, we feel that if we can make it work internally there’s every reason to hope it will have an impact on a larger scale.

When it comes to our workforce, we have always gone to the greatest lengths to ensure worker safety, either when at the warehouse or on the job, in both their practices and with the materials and equipment provided for them. As a painting contractor this involves making sure we test every building built prior to 1978 for lead, as well as making sure all of our painters and foremen are lead certified. And though this is the law, in fact an OSHA regulation, the percentage of painters who comply with this is shamefully low, too low to even consider seriously. And unlike most companies, who are obviously trying to avoid the issue, our General Manager (and son of founder Howard Fine) Mitch Fine, has actively worked to strengthen these laws and to see that they are not blatantly ignored, by both the contractors and those responsible for enforcing them.

As for proof that a contractor is protecting his workers, contractors who actually carry Worker’s Compensation insurance for each one of their employees pay a higher or lower overall percentage based on their safety record. This varies depending on the nature of the installation, but whether for window installers, painters or roofers there is an identifiable rate scale and corresponding discount for those companies with a proven track record for protecting their workers. Any company can provide this information, assuming of course they’re operating legitimately (an assumption no home or business owner should ever make), and will be happy to if they’re honest and proud of how they treat their employees.

It was also Mitch Fine who, all the way back in 1991, long before the word Green or the concept of eco-friendly business practices were on anyone’s radar, was one of the first to introduce and actively promote low- and non-toxic paints for use on interiors in the Bay Area. Read the San Francisco Bay Guardian Article here. Concerned about the toxic chemicals found in most interior paint products, and the potential health hazards associated with these products, especially to children, Mitch researched and procured materials for Armstrong to apply in the home to ensure the safety of homeowners and their families.

More recently, Armstrong has been involved with the implementation of a safer generation of blowing agents for our Foam Roofing applications. Well ahead of the required dates for compliance, Armstrong started to use a blowing agent, HFC-245fa, to replace the more commonly used HCFC-141b, to aid in the conversion to zero ozone depleting potential (ODP) materials. This proactive move was initiated because of our long term commitment to environmental issues but has also had an interesting side benefit, for us and our customers. As is often the case when formulas change, whether in paint, coatings, extruded vinyl, and certainly with foam blowing agents (the key element to properly applied foam materials), there is a learning curve involved, as the applicators have to experience how these changes have affected the material application, and the newer components have to be refined by the manufacturer as they hear back from contractors regarding issues arising out in the field. Fortunately for our customers, we tested out these new materials prior to applying them and have now been using them long enough to have worked out all the bugs. Not so fortunate are all those companies and their suppliers (not to mention their potential customers) who procrastinated, and who are now faced with the same learning curve we mastered some time ago. For many of them this could take years and in the mean time will mean improperly applied roofs for their clients. The primary issue involved is the difficulty some of these blowing agents have in parts of the country with a high concentration of moisture in the air, such as the Bay Area, affecting the proper rise of the foam, leaving it soft and the interior cell structure not fully formed. Unfortunately for most homeowners there will be no way for them to tell whether they’ve had a proper installation until the roof fails, leaving them in the unenviable position of having to the address the issue after the fact.

If these companies had really been concerned with environmental issues, they would have put the money and the time into researching and working with these products long before bringing them to market. Instead of worrying about short-term profits (clearly a nationwide problem), they wouldn’t have waited to experiment on their customer’s homes and businesses with the application of materials they haven’t been using long enough to install properly.

And that’s the main issue, namely, whether companies take the initiative out of a deeper sense of commitment to their customers and the environment, or whether they wait until forced to do so by changes in the law, leaving them scrambling to make up for lost time and their customers with a questionable application of materials on their homes.

When it comes to being a responsible business, there’s more to it than just making claims about what products are being used, or whether you’ve joined some organization that allows you to use their Green friendly logo to give the appearance of genuine concern. The plain fact is, either a company has the intention of acting in an ethical manner, towards its employees as well as the environment, because the people who own and operate it incorporate this ethic into their personal lives, or more than likely the idea of being eco-friendly is an after-thought, or worse a cynical ploy to make more money and appear environmentally conscious.

At Armstrong we’ve been involved with these issues for years, and simply because it’s the right thing to do—right for our employees, right for our customers, and right for the Bay Area. We will continue to work and learn as we move forward, striving to do our best for the community in which we live and the people who we serve.

If you get a chance, drop by our office/showroom, where you can see how serious we are about the environment. Read the Oakland Tribune article here. Outside we transformed a parking lot into a native garden and bioswale by planting up to 40 native species all indigenous to the Temescal Creek Basin.  By choosing plants and trees in harmony with nature’s cycle such as redwood, manzanita, oak, grape and sage, we not only reduce irrigation requirements but help bring ourselves back into accord with our natural environment. Inside, we chose low VOC paints, recycled carpets, energy efficient lighting and u. v. reducing windows. On top of it all are solar panels and an Armstrong solid core “sustainable” foam roof. If you do decide to come by, hopefully there won’t be too much green fog by then to prevent you from finding us, but the way things are going in the world of eco advertising you never know.

Learn more about our environmental impact here: http://www.armstrong1234.com/articles.html

In fact, it’s even worse than one might suspect. By now most people have heeded the advice to get three estimates, make sure the contractor is licensed and bonded, and to check with some outside agency that registers customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction; unfortunately all this may add up to very little if certain factors aren’t taken into consideration.

Getting three estimates only has relevance if all three contractors are equal in every aspect regarding general liability coverage, Worker’s Compensation Insurance, length of time in business, overall assets, as well as their ability and willingness to provide a legitimate warranty.

Given the amount of roofers that go into and out of business every year (approximately 80% in five years), having a license is little assurance that a roofer is in any way competent or will be around if and when you need him after the roof is installed.

As to the outside sources one can turn to for recommendations, these must be checked out quite thoroughly, as many of them require payment from contractors to be listed and get rated, most have a very small sampling of jobs from which to draw, and several of these companies have gone in and out of business over the years as well; not to mention that these so-called “rating” agencies take no responsibility whatsoever if your job turns out badly.

So what are the proper criteria?

All the items listed above have their place if expanded upon, and if the additional information is available from the contractor in question, but there is more you must do in order to protect yourself.

After checking on the status of a contractor’s license the next step is to see when the license was issued, under whose name, what this person’s relationship is to the company, and has the license always been under this name. The next step is to check on the Worker’s Compensation history, this will say a lot about how the company has been operating over the time it’s been in business. Prior to January 1st, 2007 companies were allowed to claim exemption from carrying Worker’s Comp by stating they had no employees, which is interesting because it’s very hard to install a roof without people to install it. What this usually meant was that companies were hiring day laborers to do the work and paying them under the table, not withholding taxes, and not paying anything into Worker’s Comp to protect and provide for them should they get injured on the job, a practice I’m sorry to say continues to this day for the majority of roofing being done in the Bay Area. In fact, as is sometimes the case, the change in the law made matters worse: the law now states that, in order for a contractor to renew his license he must show that he has at least one fulltime employee making $25,000.00 who has Worker’s Comp insurance, giving the appearance to people checking out the license that everyone working for the company is also covered, which, as I said, is not the norm. In order to protect yourself, you should require the contractor to provide proof that everyone coming to work on your property has the necessary coverage for Worker’s Comp. It is up to each contractor to determine how they will accomplish this, but one possibility is by providing a copy of the Worker’s Comp Insurance payroll receipt. To take one example: on this form, under the claim code for roofers, will be stated the declared roofing payroll portion of the overall bill; if this portion is missing, or is obviously too small to cover a crew of three or more roofers (the minimum needed to re-roof a home), it will be plain enough to see. More importantly, if a contractor is willing to provide this information he’s probably operating legitimately, as most illegitimate contractors wouldn’t comply with this request, or even have the necessary forms to do so in the first place. Any contractor not willing to provide this information is a liability to you and your property.

Once this has been established, you must next check to see if the contractor carries liability insurance: as surprising as it may seem, the State of California does NOT require contractors to carry this insurance, leaving you responsible if damage is done to your property or your neighbor’s during the course of the work, especially if the contractor doesn’t have significant assets that can back up any claims made against his company, which, again, is most often the case.

Over the years I’ve been surprised at how little concern people pay to these issues once made aware of them, but if you’d been around this business for thirty years as I have you’d appreciate how significant they are. The frequency with which things go wrong with roofing jobs, including the injuries suffered by workers, is well known to all in the industry, especially for those companies skirting the law to maximize profit, which, unfortunately, is most of them. In order to protect yourself as a customer it is essential that these things be taken into consideration.

As to the outside agencies people turn to to gauge the performance of potential candidates for the job, I know of only one with a track record long enough to consider valid, and that is The Better Business Bureau. As I mentioned above, all the rest are rather dubious based on their practice of requiring companies to pay to belong to their organization, the short length of time they’ve been in business, and the limited pool from which they take their surveys.

So what assurance do you have that the job will be done in a satisfactory and professional manner?

Beyond the length of time a company has been in business, the number of jobs it’s done, or the reputation it has for doing quality work, the only real assurance you have is the warranty offered by the company. This however comes with its own set of rules, all of which will determine whether or not you have any legitimate legal recourse should there be a problem after the job has been completed. It has been my experience that, when reading the warranties offered by most contractors they most often are designed to protect the contractor and not the customer. For the most part they are ambiguous in their wording, consist of only a few lines stating what they cover, and leave a lot to the imagination. Unfortunately, this is not enough to fall back on if it becomes necessary to hold the contractor liable. Usually these appear on the very front of the contract, giving the appearance of addressing the issue in a forthright manner, but as always the devil is in the details. Notwithstanding the fact that most contractors are not providing the legal contract information required by the state (which is a very important issue I hope to address in the coming months on this blog), somewhere in the paperwork, usually on the back in fine print, will be a list of everything the contractor is not responsible for, a list far more comprehensive than the one or two lines given as the warranty, and most often negating what was written in the warranty in the first place. Even when one comes across what appears to be a legitimate warranty, without an understanding of who the company is, what their volume of business is, or, again, what their assets are, there’s no way to know whether the warranty is worth anything, or whether you have any legal recourse.

While writing this entry so many other important issues came to mind, issues I will expand upon in the future, which crystallized for me to how confusing all this must be to consumers unaware of the many things that go into choosing the right contractor; for though I talk to customers every day, it’s easy to forget what they may or may not know about such a decision. It is a lesson well worth remembering. In the long run there’s simply no escaping the fact that consumers have a very important role to play when choosing a contractor, and if they don’t hold a contractor’s feet to the fire, they might find themselves getting burned.
Until next time…

By Dirk Benthien, CPI

The world has always gone through major trends, from fashion and art to science and business. I have to confess, I was not the first to see “going green” as a viable business opportunity — but that has changed. The core of CPI’s business is foam insulation in a broad sense. More narrowly, we are in the business of servicing contractors who are in the foam business by providing spray equipment, spray rigs, parts, training,

repair services, and, of course, foam. When CPI was started, foam was sold on the basis of certain of its merits such as energy savings or sound control. Times have changed: now we need to start marketing foam for its environmental benefits. To put it in perspective, consider these revolutionary changes taking place everywhere:

Would Wal-Mart strike you as a green company? Go check walmart.com and see that they have a page called “Wal-Mart Sustainability”. By the way, they just announced their “Global Responsible Sourcing Initiative” which includes tough environmental goals suppliers must meet if they wish to do business with Wal-Mart.

Looking at the presidential candidates, McCain has a page devoted to Climate Change  which calls for a “market-based system to curb greenhouse gases”. Likewise, Barack Obama promises to “reduce our greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050”

Just randomly searching the internet, it seems that everybody is on board: Continental Airlines offers a carbon offset program. General Motors is developing an electric car, the Chevy Volt. New buildings are LEED certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. Consumers buy Energy Star rated appliances. The list goes on and on.

What does it mean to us, the foam applicators?

It’s all good news, because foam really is green. The general challenge is for us to tread lightly on our planet by saving emissions while we allow ourselves to maintain our lifestyle by keeping everything affordable. Foam does exactly that: it helps save the planet by reducing emissions by 50% compared to traditional methods, and also by saving 50% of the associated energy bill. The problem is that we as an industry don’t tell the world how good we are. Imagine if Ford had a new truck using 50% less energy. It would be all over the news!

So, this is what CPI does for its customers, our industry, and ultimately, in our small way, for our planet:

1. We’re putting out the message to home owners and builders that foam is green, and saves money and the planet in one step.
2. We’re helping our customers (the contractors) gain market share by cultivating the E:zero foam brand. E:zero addresses home owners’ big concerns:
   • Being able to afford future energy bills by cutting energy consumption by 50% today
   • Installing only comfortable, reliable and performing materials without health concerns
   • Keeping the planet healthy for our children and grandchildren.
3. We admit that we’re a green company, meaning that long-term sustainability is a huge goal for us and for our customers.
4. We are helping our customers to get ready to capitalize on the coming green revolution. We believe that there will be intense green pressure from consumers, businesses and the government. The good news: the foam industry is already there. If all homes were foamed, many good things would happen:
   • Total national energy consumption would be reduced by at least 20%
   • Personal and public debt would sharply decrease as our nation would save billions annually
   • We would make huge progress in our effort to reduce carbon emissions

Please join us in foaming the world!

Links

www.cpifoam.com

www.cpifoam.com/going-green.aspx

The benefits of having a foam roofing system in the winter include:

Energy Savings in Winter

One of the great aspects of Armstrong’s Foam Roofing Systems is that is has the highest R-Value of any roofing material at 6.7 per inch at 75°F.  The R-Value improves  as the temperature outside decreases, whereas other roofing systems (tar & gravel, etc) either remain the same or actually decrease in R-Value.  The R-Value of an Armstrong foam roof is up to 7.5 at temperatures up to 40F. So since heat rises, our foam roofing systems are very efficient at the prevention of heat loss through your roof, providing energy-savings on your home heating.

Waterproofing/Reparing Leaks

Since application of the roofing system is sprayed foam, the system is seamless which eliminates most of the seams or joints which are the major source of leaks  in a typical roof.  Your whole roof becomes a solid membrane that is sealed from water/moisture penetration.

Severe Weather Resistance

Armstrong’s foam roofing systems have a high wind-uplift resistance, preventing gusts of wind from compromising your roof.   Hail isn’t typically a huge issue in the Bay Area, but it’s also worth mentioning that foam roofing is impact-resistant.

If you would like to know more about Armstrong’s foam roof systems, please feel free to contact us or call us today at 777-1234 (no area code needed in the Bay Area).

Most people see pictures of foam roofing and think that the material is soft and fluffy.  Foam roofs are anything but soft.  It is more like walking on concrete.  You can walk on these roofs without the worry of creating a leak.  These roofs are made to withstand construction traffic as well without damaging the surface.