News

by David Mercer Boston, MA – 26th October 2017 – The Internet of Things continues to expand rapidly, and the smart home will be one of the keys to further growth through the 2020s, according to new research from Strategy Analytics. The report, Connected World: Smart Home Is Key To Tomorrow’s Internet Of Things, found that nearly 20 […]

Five years ago, Jennifer Johnson, founder and CEO of the Construction Trade School in Dallas, started to talk to home building and remodeling organizations about a looming labor shortage in the residential construction trades. She called it a crisis, but industry leaders were focused elsewhere. Their No. 1 priority at the time was recovering from the recession, […]

By Gary Thill Like a lot of contractors who use a fleet of trucks in their business, Chris Brown had no idea what happened when his workers went into the field. “You’ve got all these guys out there and you don’t know where they are or what they’re doing,” said Brown, owner of Rescon Basement Solutions, a 2017 […]

The National Association of Home Builders’ (NAHB) Remodeling Market Index (RMI) posted a reading of 57 in the third quarter of 2017, up two points from the previous quarter. For 18 consecutive quarters, the RMI has been at or above 50, which indicates that more remodelers report market activity is higher compared to the prior […]

By Kelly McSweeney for Robotics | September 26, 2017  This year’s extraordinary hurricane season marks a milestone for drones, as unmanned aircraft are becoming critical tools for rescue teams. After so much talk about how drones could potentially change ecommerce, infrastructure management, and search & rescue, now we’re actually seeing drones in action. Fleets of drones headed to Texas, Florida, Mexico, and […]

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 26, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Today, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced the preliminary Top 10 most frequently cited workplace safety violations for fiscal year 2017. Patrick Kapust, deputy director of OSHA’s Directorate of Enforcement Programs, presented the Top 10 on the Expo floor as part of the 2017 NSC Congress & Expo, the world’s largest […]

By Gary Thill Look online and you’ll quickly see that when it comes to hurricane restoration work, all the warnings are for homeowners to watch out for unscrupulous contractors. In the wake of hurricanes Irma and Harvey, that’s a legitimate concern. But experts says restoration contractors need to be on guard against homeowners as well — […]

September 27, 2017 One third of builders surveyed say green building is a significant share of overall activity, and many have built a net zero home. Green construction is rapidly gaining traction among both single family and multifamily home builders, according to new research published in the Green Multifamily and Single Family Homes 2017 SmartMarket Brief. […]

A Connecticut tech company has introduced a wearable device that alerts a workplace supervisor when an employee has fallen and needs help. Triax Technologies COO Peter Schermerhorn said the device is designed to be worn on a worker’s belt. It tracks the worker’s location and has an emergency locator button for use in the event of […]

Texas’ already tight housing market is going to feel a bigger pinch as a result of Hurricane Harvey. The damage from the storm will add to shortages of labor and push up prices on building materials as Gulf Coast communities recover. Thousands of homes and apartments were either destroyed or damaged as Harvey moved inland […]