Episode #94: Falling Through Skylights - John Westerfield, Crystalite

Glass balcony balustrades are the beautiful and property owners and architects love the chance to give occupants an unbroken view of the skyline. But the material spec, anchoring system and installation method have to be specific to the location, especially when it's a location where water will freeze and thaw in the components. Toni Manchisi has seen it all in 25 years in the industry and joins GlassTalk to share his advice for how to execute successful glass balcony installs here in the frozen north.

Canadian jurisdictions treat skylights as holes in the roof, unless there are engineering papers showing otherwise. Workers and property owners going on the roof are expected to act as if there's nothing preventing them from falling through, and to take appropriate fall arrest precautions. But U.S. safety authorities are now saying this isn't enough and calling for skylights to be able to take the impact of 400 pounds being dropped on them. OHSA standards sometimes cross borders, and Canadian skylight exporters of course need to pay attention. Veteran skylight manufacturer, John Westerfield of Crystalite, joins the podcast to explain it all and outline his attempts to get an industry standard for skylight fall protection.

Architectural glazing contracts feel a bit special because everything we do is engineered. No cookie-cutter, mass-produced, one-size-fits-all commodity products here: each design is tailored with love and ingenuity to the specific demands of the project. We take pride in starting from first principles and delivering the exact right thing for the task at hand. But what if (gulp) we're hurting our margins with this approach? Kawneer has put a lot of work into finding the sweet spot between standardization and flexibility. Director of global product management, Chris Giovannielli, joins GlassTalk for a conceptual discussion of how you leave wiggle room for specific glazing and facade designs in an out-of-the-box profile package, and how doing so can speed fabrication and installation, delivering more profits to the glazier.

SPIL Glass Software makes software for glass and fenestration manufacturing companies, and Janith and Odara know a thing or two about how manufacturing processes can run better with advanced controls. They join GlassTalk to share their insights, gained from optimizing many plants in Asia and Australia, into what kinds of important information manufacturers tend to leave on the shop floor. And they have concrete tips for how to collect the right data to leverage AI and find efficiencies in your process. We all know we're supposed to be collecting lots of data. Janith and Odara are here to tell you what to do with it.

Lorrie Rand, co-founder of ReCover (a Halifax-based building science research non-profit), has completed a big study into how much deep retrofits might help the envelope performance of 10 different types of Part 3 buildings in Atlantic Canada. Crucially, her team also looked at total cost of ownership to evaluate whether upgrading commercial buildings would ever pay off through energy savings. Betsy Agar of Efficiency Canada joins the conversation to put Rand's findings into a national context and add her insights on how we can make energy retrofits feasible.

Much has been said about the promise of AI and its possible threat to jobs. But how might this powerful new technology affect an old concern: your company's data security? David Mill, CEO and founder of Scelta, a Windsor, Ont., construction software provider, joins GlassTalk to talk about the ways AI might empower bad actors to produce better scams, steal data from your systems, spoof your reviews and even damage your processes if allowed inside. We also discuss how AI-powered security might thwart these threats and allow you to operate with less worries about the old challenges.

Paul Amato of Tallinn Advisory brings 20 years' of professional experience advising construction companies to the question of how to get the different parts of your organization working better together. He joins The Hammer to talk about what he means by “alignment”; the elements of a good mindset; the barriers to great customer service and quality; and how to build a culture that succeeds. Take some time with Paul to think about how you do business!

Amanda Spann is the author of I Have an App Idea – The Essential Guide to Building an App Without Tech Skills and she has good news for all of us. You don’t need to spend in the five figures or burn hundreds of hours of staff time to develop an app any more, thanks to new AI-powered tools and reasonably priced professional services. The even better news is, as experts in touch with the needs of their businesses, building trades professionals are in a position to make more useful and targeted apps than anything coming out of Silicone Valley. Whether developing something to help your team internally or making a product you hope to post on the App Store, there’s an opportunity here to help your efficiency and potentially add a revenue stream to your business.

As the president and founder of DPI Lab, an industrial printer manufacturer, Lon Riley knows a lot about the chemistry and technology that makes it possible to produce remarkable images on glass. He joins GlassTalk for a deep dive into the technology and what makes glass printing a special challenge. He addresses the considerations we need to have when seeking the highest productivity and uptime for our printing process, and reviews how things have advanced in the last few years. It's a great overview for experienced fabricators and those looking to get into the process for the first time.

With his degrees in engineering and business, and his fascinating LinkedIn posts discussing everything about glazing and facade engineering, Adrian Lowenstein is most accurately described as a building engineering influencer. He joins Glass Canada editor Pat Flannery for a wide-ranging discussion of Flannery's One Number hobby horse; the differences between the Canadian and American glass markets; economic conditions; emerging technology and just about anything else that came to mind.