Just call me Mac. The Makita Mac Series Air Compressors

Mac isn’t like some of the other guys on site. He’s a little smaller, a little lighter and best of all, he’s kinda quiet. Oh, he gets the job done…like fast. Just without all the noise and running off at the mouth. When he’s working, you barely even notice it. And when the job’s done…well, lets just say you can get him on to the next one without a cattle prod.  

The Stiletto TiBone Titanium Hammer: The closest thing to Mjöllnir you’ll ever own.

‘Crushing it’ like Thor

In Norse mythology, Mjöllnir, was the hammer of the gods wielded by Thor, god of thunder (and possibly of total framing pwnage). It was capable of leveling mountains and able to strike firmly, whatever the aim. Were the ancients completely delusional?  Or were the Norse myths simply foretelling the creation of the Stiletto TiBone titanium hammer in Winton California several Millennium later?  

Multi Family Housing Starts Up Significantly in Vancouver Area for March

March 2011 Starts are Up for Multi Family over 2010

The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation has released their statistics for March 2011 and the news is great for those involved in the construction and construction supply and service sectors. Overall, the Vancouver CMA (Census Metropolitan Area) saw the start of 958 residential units in total with Vancouver, Surrey and Richmond receiving the lions share. Of these starts, 716 were homes in multiple family developments.  Robyn Adamache, CMHC’s senior market analyst, noted that for the first quarter of 2011 “Multiple family home starts made up the majority of housing starts in the CMA,”

Want to get decked without taking a hit? Choose the best materials for your climate.

Weather can hurt even the hardest of woods

I had wanted to do a post on this for some time now but as it turns out that Rob Jones and the innovators at the BuildDirect blog beat me to the punch. (Forgive all the pugilistic references but I’m feeling a little like I’m going 10 rounds with the market these days.)

Getting the most out of the wood you’ve got. 4 ways to protect one of the most precious resources on earth.

Credit - Fusion of Horizons

Anyone claiming that steel is the worlds most recycled building product obviously didn’t spend their teenage weekends working with my old man. He’d always set me to work yanking nails out of used lumber with a rusty pry bar and a set of pliers. I didn’t get it at the time but it taught me a valuable lesson. (doesn’t it always) Although, as a commodity, lumber is highly undervalued, we shouldn’t always let the materials replacement cost influence our conservatory behavior. Or “What are you throwing that piece out for? It’s still good.”