Air Quality in Placerville this week.

Not sure what Air Quality is? Well here is a definition that is avaailable at the Weatherbug site.

What is AQI?

The AQI is an index for reporting daily air quality. It tells you how clean or polluted your air is, and what associated health concerns you should be aware of. The AQI focuses on health effects that can happen within a few hours or days after breathing polluted air. EPA uses the AQI for five major air pollutants regulated by the Clean Air Act: ground-level ozone, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. For each of these pollutants, EPA has established national air quality standards to protect against harmful health. (EPA-454K-03-002, August 2003, http://www.airnow.gov/)

 

The need for dry rot and water damage repair in the Sacramento, Ca area is strong . This type of work often brings us into some unpleasant places. We don”t mind, that’s what we do. While we are general contractors, virtually all our work is dry rot and water damage related.

Need this type of contractor? Give us a call. We are located in Placerville, Ca but regularly work throughout the Sacramento area.

Enjoy this day,

Tom Arstingstall
(916) 765-5366

We have been given the opportunity to do some property improvements at several Apartment communities in the Sacramento area this year. We specialize in water damage and dry rot problem, and that is exactly what we have been doing. It’s not exactly a glamorous job but it is what we have been doing as a general contractor for many years now.

Most of the calls that we get are out of necessity. Repairs are needed before painting, moisture intrusion problem, or safety concerns top the list of reasons why property owners and managers call Tromler Construction. But you don’t have to wait until things are a necessity. We have looked at several communities to find potential problem areas. If we can help determine what can be changed now to prevent future dry rot or water damage, we can help with that too.

We look forward to an ongoing relationship with apartment community owners and property managers that can use our services. Maybe we can be helpful to someone you know.

Keep us in mind.

Enjoy this day!

Give me a hand full of repeat customers any day. Those loyal owners that will call whenever your services are needed. The ones that would rather not use someone else.  Think of all your past customers, wouldn’t it be nice if all of them called you the next time they needed to buy or sell your product or service? It is probably best to keep an eye on these people. Satisfy them over and over. Sure, you will probably get new business and new referrals too, but getting and satisfying the loyal, repeat customer should be the ultimate task. Find and keep them.

So how do you find these loyal, repeat customers? You don’t, they will find you!

In business, we do our best the give the customer value. That value can be in many different forms. To some it may be getting a great price for and expensive project. For others, it may be in the form of saving time, knowing that things will be done without a lot of supervision. Some may even value “peace of mind”,  knowing that you will come through with a solution to the problem. Whatever form this value possesses is determined by the customer. If I do the same job for two different customers – each will value that job differently. The work is the same, the value to the customer is their own. The loyal, repeat customers will come back because of the value that they received.

So then the question is this: What value do you want to give to your customer?

That is where you must concentrate your efforts. By doing this, those loyal, repeat customers will find and keep you because you give them the value that they are looking for in a service. It’s that simple.

Enjoy this day!

Du Pont, the maker of Corian, has a web site for the estimation of cost for their product.

Here is a link to that site:

Corian® Kitchen Countertop Installed Price Estimator

General Contractor can catch problems early!

I recently was called to repair some drywall in a storage closet that had some discoloration. Opening the wall exposed a leak in the unit above. The leak was coming through the exterior concrete decking, the hot mopped tar had failed. It was raining at the time and I noticed that the gutters had a small hole and water was streaming onto the concrete deck. In examining the hole, I noticed that the gutter was full of water because the downspout was clogged.

All of these things need to be addressed by the owner. Whether they do or not is not up to me. The clogged downspout causes water to flow in the wrong places – like down the wall and inside the building. The small hole caused splashing water to hit the building, doors and trim. The failed hot mopped tar will allow water to leak inside that storage closet until it is fixed. The drywall will continue to get wet, produce mildew and mold, and will need to be replaced regularly.

Most water intrusion problems can be done at minimal cost if detected and addressed in the early stages – before the damages have grown. This requires owners and managers to regularly inspect the property. A qualified contractor can help point out the areas that need to be watched. There are qualified contractors in your area that would probably be willing to do this type of inspection for you at no cost to you. It certainly would not hurt to give them a call.

It is not impossible to find a general contractor willing to work on stairs and decks in an apartment community, but it can be difficult sometimes.

Experience in doing the work, liability insurance, ability to plan project and frustration in working in busy work environments can eliminate many contractors from the pool of available tradesmen. If you are in need of a general contractor and manage a community what can you do?

Well, you can start by contacting other communities in your area, they may have contractors on a list that they can pass on to you. Contact these businesses and ask all the right questions. Are you insured? Do you have experience in doing this work? Do you have references? If you find someone, get started. A good general contractor can go a long way in making your job a lot easier.

Good Luck in you search.

There are many issues with working within the apartments. Safety is high on that list. It’s not unusual for people to walk up, cross barricades, signs, and caution tape just to see what you are doing. their intension is not to get hurt but they are in an unsafe work zone. Constant observation of the surrounding work space is necessary.

People are coming and going at all times of the day. Where you park, what is on the ground, and being available to move out of the way is another burden that the general contractor must face on a daily basis.

Also, scheduling with the office, notifying the residents in advance, planning the work crew to best serve the management of the community is vitally inportant. If it is not an emergency situation, the contractor can not just drop by and start a project.

The list can go on and on. Some general contractor are willing to do this sort of work. Working under pressure to complete in a timely fashion. Planning out the job to produce the least amount of disruption to the management and residents of the apartment complex. And be grateful for the work.

Sometimes we just need to rest.

It is common for an upstairs toilet to share the same drain line as the downstairs. Two bathrooms, one above the other, very common in apartment because they have the same floorplan. This drain line is centered on the toilet. I recently came across an apartment unit that was moist on the wall above the toilet.

The previous tenant had hung something centered above the toilet with a screw that drove through the plastic drain pipe. What are the odds of this happening? Well this pipe had 4 holes in it at different spots, I’d say the odds are higher than I originally thought.

Usually the pipes are set back far enough to eliminate this problem with the drain pipe, but that’s not always possible. The real “kicker” is that the problem does not start until the screw of nail is removed. In most homes and apartments, that means when the tenant or homeowner moves out.

The good news is that this can be fixed.

Problem solved!