Jim Glover, president of Glover Construction, in Pierre, S.D., created a binder of installation instructions for all the company’s construction products, such as roofing, windows, siding, and framing, so that if the crew have a question, they can quickly look it up and don’t have to call Glover or leave the jobsite to figure out what to do.
All in One Place
Most of the installation sheets come directly from manufacturers, but Glover has also included a few details he sketched himself. For example, he prefers to frame exterior walls flat on the ground, then stand them up using a jack or forklift. The binder includes sketches showing how to lift the wall, seal the plate to the floor, and how to square the wall.
The binder also includes:
- A basic code check manual of the International Code Council’s residential building code
- A list of required inspections
- Supplier, dealer, and subcontractor phone numbers
- Material product data sheets that explain health issues and instructions on safely handling certain construction materials (e.g., wearing a dust mask when cutting cement-board siding)
There are two copies of the binder: one is kept in the trailer on site, the other at the office. Most of the 100 pages are in plastic sleeves. Glover adds installation sheets for new products as needed and reviews the binder annually to make sure it is complete. —Nina Patel, senior editor, REMODELING.
