Industry

Finger Pointing 101 Well, it happened again! A major fire struck a high-rise building, resulting in fatalities to civilians and injuries to firefighters. Who is to blame? Some wanted to blame the fire service because the building was lacking built-in fire protection equipment. Others wanted to blame the building for …

Associated General Contractors of America Looks at 2018 to be a “Strong Year” Forty states added construction jobs between November 2016 and November 2017, while 39 states added construction jobs between October and November, according to an analysis by the Associated General Contractors of America of Labor Department data. Association …

Ferguson Fire & Fabrication Celebrates 30 Years in the Industry In 1988, gas was 91 cents a gallon, the Redskins won the Super Bowl, and the most advanced technology for designing a sprinkler system was a blueprint, a pencil and a cup of coffee. Around this time, there were also …

It’s the Biggest Little Trade Show in the West! The Sacramento Valley Chapter of the American Fire Sprinkler Association (AFSA) hosted a hugely successful trade show in 2017 and is gearing up to do it all again in March 2018. These shows have quickly established themselves as the region’s premier …

Dodge Data & Analytics Predicts Deceleration but Still Growth Dodge Data & Analytics has released its 2018 Dodge Construction Outlook, a mainstay in construction industry forecasting and business planning. The report predicts that total U.S. construction starts for 2018 will climb 3 percent to $765 billion. “The U.S. construction industry …

Better Business Climate Expectations Help Drive Asset Prices Higher If someone were casting roles for a production of The Tortoise and the Hare, the U.S. economy would be a favorite to play the tortoise. While this analogy may be a bit harsh, economic growth remains mostly slow, but persistent. It …

Increase of 5 Percent in 2018 Predicted FMI Corporation has released its latest construction forecast, the FMI Outlook, in a new streamlined format, designed to improve user experience and access to important data. FMI’s Q3 2017 forecast predicts an increase of 4 percent for total construction put in place for …

Concerns for Fire Sprinkler Installers On March 25, 2016, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published its final rule on respirable crystalline silica exposures in construction. Most of the standard came into effect on June 23, 2017, with a few technical details going into effect on June 23, 2018. …

Fire Sprinkler Industry Looks Back and Ahead As the fire sprinkler industry settles into 2018, it’s an opportunity to look back on business in 2017 and look ahead to the coming year’s potential. While forecasters predicted 2017 to be a year of slow growth with a bigger jump in 2018, it …

Greetings, As we enter into another new year, it is not hard to just take a moment to reflect back on 2017. I think we can all look back at ‘17 and agree it was a pretty good year. The economy around the country was all-in-all robust. Most of us …