Florida Construction Law

As consumer demand for sustainable building products continues to grow, the Metal Roofing Alliance reports another market share gain for metal in the residential retrofit market. New independent research conducted by Dodge Data & Analytics on behalf of the MRA shows the total market share of metal roofing gained another 3 points in 2016, growing from 11% market share in 2015 to 14% in 2016. Between 2015 and 2016, the total demand for metal roofing increased from 17.7 million squares to 19.4 million squares. Metal roofing is second only to asphalt shingle roofing in the remodeling market. In 1998, when the Metal Roofing Alliance (MRA) began educating homeowners with a national consumer awareness campaign, metal roofing market share was just 3.7% of the consumer re-roofing market. “MRA members’ commitment to growing the industry through ongoing focus and effort has clearly made a big difference. This latest surge brings us closer to hitting our goal of having metal comprise 20% of ...

Rules to protect construction workers from falls remained the most commonly violated standards on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA's) list of most-cited violations for fiscal year 2017, which ended Sept. 30, according to Bloomberg BNA. However, the number of safety violations demonstrated a widespread decrease after years of dropping total inspection numbers. There were about 9,000 fewer inspections in fiscal year 2016 compared with fiscal year 2011. The preliminary violation numbers for last fiscal year also were calculated during a period that was three to four weeks longer than for this year's preliminary numbers. The numbers are preliminary because OSHA inspectors have up to six months following an inspection to issue citations. Construction violations were the most commonly cited, which is not surprising considering construction site visits account for about half of OSHA's inspections. Other construction fall-related violations were lad...

FONTANA, Calif. — At a steel factory dwarfed by the adjacent Auto Club Speedway, Fernando Esparza is working toward his next promotion. Esparza is a 46-year-old mechanic for Evolution Fresh, a subsidiary of Starbucks that makes juices and smoothies. He’s taking a class in industrial computing taught by a community college at a local manufacturing plant in the hope it will bump up his wages. It’s a pretty safe bet. The skills being taught here are in high demand. That’s in part because so much effort has been put into encouraging high school graduates to go to college for academic degrees rather than for training in industrial and other trades that many fields like his face worker shortages. Now California is spending $6 million on a campaign to revive the reputation of vocational education, and $200 million to improve the delivery of it. “It’s a cultural rebuild,” said Randy Emery, a welding instructor at the College of the Sequoias in California’s Central Valley. Standing in...