'Conversations in Construction' Episode 2: Occupied Renovation (Transcription)

CONVERSATIONS IN CONSTRUCTION EPISODE 2: OCCUPIED RENOVATION Paul Kraunelis: Hello, my name is Paul Kraunelis, and welcome to the next episode of Harkins Builders new podcast, Conversations in Construction. For those of you who don't know, Harkins Builders is an employee-owned general contractor specializing in commercial, government and multifamily projects. Harkins services the MidAtlantic region with three locations and has over 55 years of construction experience. At Harkins, we share our successes and our failures because we learn, grow, and become closer to one another by telling our stories and lessons learned.

With me today, I've got Eduardo Castro, who is one of Harkins site managers/superintendents, or lead superintendent. He's going to be there soon. I appreciate you coming in.

Eduardo Castro: Thank you for inviting me.

Paul Kraunelis: Taking the time. We'll have a nice little conversation about renovation, occupied renovation, specifically. But first off, give us a little bit of background on yourself. So you've been with Harkins over 10, maybe 15 years?

Eduardo Castro: Actually, it has been 14 years this past August. Time flies.

Paul Kraunelis: That's crazy.

Eduardo Castro: Yeah. I was affiliated with Harkins for a little more than that. I was working with a sister company. Harkins had a carpentry division before. I think it used to be called Harkins Carpentry.

Paul Kraunelis: Yep. Eduardo Castro: Then that became Carpentry and Hardware Services, so I was part of that since 2000.

Paul Kraunelis: Ok, so are you a carpenter by trade?

Eduardo Castro: Yes. I went through a four-year apprenticeship with the Carpenters Union in Baltimore. I achieved the journeyman status through that.

Paul Kraunelis: All right.

Eduardo Castro: Through four years of school.

Paul Kraunelis: Right now, you're working with Rick Kottke, right?

Eduardo Castro: Yes. Paul Kraunelis: And Tony (Del Nunzio) and that renovation team. What was the first renovation, if you remember?

Eduardo Castro: So, it was a mix new and renovation building. The part I came to work in was an existing. We had to put in an addition, a new addition, to convert them into double the size of what they were. The exterior of the existing building became the corridor of the newly renovated building and the new building. It's kind of interesting.

Paul Kraunelis: And that was occupied?

Eduardo Castro: Occupied. We had to move sections at a time.

Paul Kraunelis: Okay.

Eduardo Castro: That was my first experience in dealing with residents, but it was a large community. While you're working, some of the corridors have to stay active to the public.

Paul Kraunelis: Gotcha.

Eduardo Castro: To the tenants, and also to probably to whoever comes and visit. That was kind of my first experience on putting temporary walls, making sure the dust control is done properly, and, of course, make sure that the residents don't get affected that much.

Paul Kraunelis: That probably goes into one of the major keys in these renovation projects, is logistics.

Eduardo Castro: Oh sure.

Paul Kraunelis: Kind of planning that out.

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Eduardo Castro: A large percentage of what we do in the renovation is planning and making sure that we are flexible enough to cope with change that might come within an hour. You might have a plan, but that plan might not work for the day.

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah, yeah.

Eduardo Castro: So you have to be able to switch it really quick.

Paul Kraunelis: Really.

Eduardo Castro: Just to be productive and continue with your day.

Paul Kraunelis: On these renovation projects, at what point do you kinda typically get engaged in those projects?

Eduardo Castro: I felt before like it wasn't early enough that the site manager or lead superintendent was engaged. I felt like it was a little too late before. But now, on the one I'm about the start, I've been involved already, like four months before we even start. On the ones that I did before, you kind of go in and get ready.

Paul Kraunelis: So you're going in doing preliminary analysis of the buildings and things like that.

Eduardo Castro: Sure.

Paul Kraunelis: That's your main objective, and you're looking at it from a construction kind of viewpoint to say, "How am I bringing in that drywall?"

Eduardo Castro: So there was plan already, don't get me wrong.

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah.

Eduardo Castro: The preconstruction of the apartment have already done a good job on trying to line up the process, and maybe have areas of access and areas that we were going to block. You kind of know what you're getting yourself into, where I'm going to put my temporary entrance so I can block everything from what's going on.

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah.

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Eduardo Castro: I guess the first thing is go in and try to do a survey of what's there, what you're contracted to do and all the new things that you're going to find. It's almost impossible to put everything in, especially in renovation. At that point we used to do a survey of each unit. First day, when you get the apartments, go in, get a survey of the units, list what's in contract, what's not in contract, so when change orders became, the process was easier at that point, everything was already lined up. From the beginning, you already gain an understanding, with owners and architect, that that's how you're going to do it. Because the time is not there to go from, "Oh, I'm going to send you a proposal." "Oh yes, you're going to approve it." There's no time for that.

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah. When you're dealing with people and moving them around.

Eduardo Castro: Yep. What I notice at the beginning, that residents will hesitate to even talk to you. They kind of look at you like you are the enemy. You know, who can blame them, right?

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah. "What are you doing in my house?"

Eduardo Castro: Exactly. But I want to say within a couple of weeks, we start talking to them and try to explain what's going on, try to have meeting with them and just explain. Weeks later, it's just like everybody's coming around. At Hollins House, three months into the project, the residents actually cooked lunch for all the workers.

Paul Kraunelis: That's awesome.

Eduardo Castro: That's awesome, right?

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah.

Eduardo Castro: It tells you the difference. Going in, it's always a little tricky, because you have different crowd, and you have to approach them accordingly.

Paul Kraunelis: Just thinking about it, it's that type of collaboration with the residents, especially with a renovation project, has to be critical, because things probably change all the time.

Eduardo Castro: Now more than ever. When I started, you're kind of learning as I go. I think that flexibility aspect that you're talking about, I experience it more at Heritage Crossing more than anything else. At that one, we thought we had a plan laid out completely to start. Just think about it, just to give you a little perspective of what we did, we would come in the morning to demo a kitchen in the whole first floor. Carpet, take out all the bathrooms.

By the end of the day, all the flooring needed to be back in, kitchen cabinets installed, countertops and a functional bathroom, for the residents to come back in the same night.

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Paul Kraunelis: That's nuts.

Eduardo Castro: Crazy, right?

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah.

Eduardo Castro: We thought we had a plan, but it didn't quite work that way. Even the first day, we are switching things around. And it worked. Trade partners get engaged, and they're flexible as well. Of course, you achieve that by talking with them before, having your preconstruction meetings and just making sure that we think we know what we're going into it, but we're not going to know until we actually start, and that's part of the flexibility that comes and is a big aspect of it.

Paul Kraunelis: I'm sure those trade partners and those subs, you really have to vet those guys, because I know from my days in the field, some of the subcontractors that we worked with, I don't know if they'd be the best suited in those situations.

Eduardo Castro: Sure.

Paul Kraunelis: So you have to, I'm assuming that's part of what you do to, is meeting with these subcontractors. I'm sure there's some that you know can operate in that.

Eduardo Castro: Oh sure. Those are conversations that we have with our PM or vice president in charge of the division. That I feel comfortable with certain subs that I want to have, I want to have on my projects, because of the history that we have so far. You know what you can count on and where you can't. Little experience about going back to Hollins House, again, you never know what's going on, right?

Paul Kraunelis: That's right.

Eduardo Castro: What's going to happen. But you have to have a plan for everything. For example, A1, Access Demolition at the time, I want to say around 3:30, four o'clock, all this water started coming from the third, fourth floor. I don't remember which floor. Something broke, we didn't know what it was. The PM, Brett, without even asking, he went and got shop vacs and got people. By the time you realize, everybody's cleaning. You can't forget that.

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah, yeah.

Eduardo Castro: You're thinking, your next project, you're thinking, "Well, I want this guy on my project. He's going to have my back at all times." Those are the type of people that you want. You know they're going to get it done.

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Paul Kraunelis: Everybody is working towards that ultimate goal. It's important understanding and realizing where you are.

You're in these people's houses. You're in there, and that leads also into safety. That's got to be handled very differently than regular ground up construction.

Eduardo Castro: Sure.

Paul Kraunelis: Because you have got people living there. Not only do you have to keep the workers and the subcontractors and all those people safe, but you also have to worry about residents.

Eduardo Castro: And constantly remind everyone that is working with us to be extra careful in what we do. And reminding everybody, every day, that we are in people's houses, is something that we must do at all times, because you get new workers every so often that come from another place. They might be accustomed to be working in a new building. Then when they come to yours, you've got to remind them.

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah, yeah. It's different.

Eduardo Castro: "Hey, man, this is an occupied place. Keep this in mind," and so forth. I think the cleaning and the safety aspect, work wise, probably doubles when it comes to renovations. You got to put the extra effort in there.

Paul Kraunelis: I know more recently there was a pretty significant project that we did in Baltimore, the Paca House, and that was for veterans, and that was an occupied renovation.

Eduardo Castro: That was an occupied renovation.

Paul Kraunelis: You had some unique things there that you had to deal with, as far as, I'm just thinking about how to handle certain systems. In certain buildings your water runs up, so even though you're only working on the fourth floor, you might have to shut down someone.

Eduardo Castro: Shutdowns have to be scheduled. Whether it's water or electrical, they got to be scheduled, not just with the company that's going to do the shutdown, but everybody else. Then have to look for contingency plans, of how you're going to keep everything moving. What if you're in the cold days, and you're going to shut all the systems down and people are going to end up with no heat, so we have to come up with a secondary plan.

Okay, we're going to buy heaters, and we're going to plug them into their units. Whatever it takes to make sure that the residents are still less affected.

Paul Kraunelis: It's also got to be, just looking at that life cycle of the construction process. We talked a little bit about the preconstruction aspect, and the going through and planning of it and being flexible. And I'm sure even the turnovers got to be a little bit different, because in some instances you're putting people's apartments back together.

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Eduardo Castro: On a new building, you do your turnovers, you have your time to do your punch with the owners and architect, and then you have the time to fix them and do all that. In renovations, you almost punch as you go, striving for having at the end, when you work with the owners and architect, it's to have little bit of paint and touch ups.

That's your goal.

Paul Kraunelis: That's it.

Eduardo Castro: Because you don't want to have that over top of flooring that you know was bad. First of all, we aren’t going to hide it.

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah.

Eduardo Castro: At Harkins, we don't cut corners. We never going to hide anything. We got to make sure, if we're going to put a bed in there, that flooring, it was fixed, because you don't want somebody pulling the bed later on and finding that piece of floor missing. Right? That's not what we do.

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah.

Eduardo Castro: That's a little tricky. But also, I think, and this is my experience, turnovers go a little quicker and better.

Paul Kraunelis: Yep. Eduardo Castro: For the reasons I just explained, we're punching as we go, but also because, if it's an item that is not a life safety item that is still not done, residents are going to move back in. If they move in on the 16th of this month, they move on the 16th of that month. If they're coming back at four o'clock today, they're coming back by four o'clock today.

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah, yeah.

Eduardo Castro: So you better make it available. There's also some flexibility with the assigned team, I believe.

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah.

Eduardo Castro: Knowing that, "Look, this door has a dent in here on this refrigerator, let's order the refrigerator. Let's move the tenants in, and later on we'll replace this refrigerator." Things like that.

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Paul Kraunelis: I'm sure with technology, now you could take videos, you could take images. There's a lot of things that you can utilize. I know a lot of that is kept on Procore, so you can document a lot different than you used to be able to be. I'm sure you utilize that as well, and that kind of helps things.

Eduardo Castro: I just did an ADA consultation on video, that was interesting.

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. You look at things like ADA and all the things that an existing building has, that when you renovate you have to then tweak it and adjust it to meet those new standards. I'm sure working in these renovation projects, you experience a bunch of different structure types. Some are concrete buildings, some are wood buildings, some are steel. How you can manipulate some of those existing buildings is contingent upon the structure. And I'm sure in some instances, you can't do certain things to a concrete building that you might be able to do to a wood building.

Eduardo Castro: Right.

Paul Kraunelis: So knowing that and understanding that. Again, I'm sure your design partners are critical.

Eduardo Castro: Oh 100%.

Paul Kraunelis: In that. And getting them to be engaged and responsive, much like you were saying about the residents.

Eduardo Castro: Sure.

Paul Kraunelis: That's a big, important aspect of a renovation project.

Eduardo Castro: I think it's two completely different things. A new building is one thing, a renovation building is another thing.

And I believe that the assigned teams involved on either/or understands the difference. Like you say, all the parties have to be clear of how these two aspects work. Your materials for example. On a new building, you start to clear and get all utilities done. At the time, you're making all your list of materials, right? All your long lead items. You have that time to order doors and appliances and everything else. Guess what, for renovation, you might be doing demolition at eight o'clock in the morning, and then you're going to have put in cabinets within a couple hours, and appliances maybe the next day. You don't have the luxury of waiting a month or two.

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah.

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Eduardo Castro: You can't tell a supplier, "This is a list of things that I need." You have to be ready. You have to get sea containers, or whatever it takes to have materials on site, waiting. So I think, in that department, in that area, signing an early release with the owners is a must.

Paul Kraunelis: I never really thought how important those materials are in a renovation.

Eduardo Castro: Sure.

Paul Kraunelis: You just assume. But that's a great point. In a ground up construction, you have that luxury.

Eduardo Castro: Oh sure.

Paul Kraunelis: Because you do all of that at the end.

Eduardo Castro: Right.

Paul Kraunelis: Now, because of that accelerated aspect of how long you can be in that one unit or that one area of the building, it changes things dramatically.

Eduardo Castro: 100%.

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah. And again, that probably goes, like you said, contractually how all of that's kind of handled, it's very different than just going ground up. I think it's one of things that, from a renovation perspective, a lot of people don't I think understand how truly different it is.

Eduardo Castro: Fast paced. Oh yeah, it's a fast-paced moving job.

Paul Kraunelis: It's unreal, and you've got to be nimble. You got to go and change quickly on your feet and be able to pivot.

Deal with homeowners, deal with different stakeholders, management. Right? I mean who are they? Typically, who are your stakeholders in a renovation project? Who are the people that you're ...

Eduardo Castro: Local authorities, lenders, design team, and probably a resident representative at a certain point. Moving coordination, which is an entity sometimes, and talking about moving people out of the apartments and bringing them back inside. I think that's a huge component as well. Everything matters, we're all there to do the job. But if that doesn't get coordinated well enough, you can either lose time on your schedule or not be able to deliver the apartments on time.

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Paul Kraunelis: I'm sure you've experienced some projects, too, where you've renovated and you haven't had to worry about them being occupied.

Eduardo Castro: Correct.

Paul Kraunelis: Which is a different animal, but still those renovations, that early analysis and that upfront evaluation that you guys do is probably critical.

Eduardo Castro: Sure. There is little difference between occupied renovation and those that get actually moved out for us to get there. Even though the whole building might be occupied, some of them they move, say, 15 families or 20 families at a time, then we go in and get it done. There are other ones where the residents are actually still living in there through the construction. So hose become a little more tricky. By four o'clock every day, these residents are back.

Paul Kraunelis: They're coming back.

Eduardo Castro: You're playing with time. You wish and hope that everybody gets started by 7:00 AM, but you know that something's going to happen. That the person that was supposed to get the cab by seven o'clock might not come in until eight o'clock. Then you waiting for one hour. Losing one hour on those type of projects is really bad, because then you're playing catch up. You only have seven hours to make sure that everything is back to normal, including cleaning and safe and everything else. Even though both are renovations, there is a difference between those two.

Paul Kraunelis: So, your coordination and communication with subcontractors are critical.

Eduardo Castro: Oh sure.

Paul Kraunelis: Do you have any tricks that you typically utilize to stay on top of these guys?

Eduardo Castro: I remember this, "Mr. Carpenter, at eight o'clock, go to the sea container. These are the layouts for these units.

Get the cabinets, have them outside waiting while the demolition is going on. As soon as demolition is going on, you're coming in, then the flooring guy starts right at this corner, working his way down and so forth." You constantly doing that. It's interesting, but good though. I love it. I like it. You mentioned at the beginning, we are going in people's houses, but it feels great, at the end of the day, when you remember how that unit used to look, and then you're turning over something at the end of the day, or the week, that looks beautiful, nice and clean, that's really rewarding.

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah.

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Eduardo Castro: To do that. I think most people appreciate it. Even though sometimes people don't tell you, we hear a lot of good things from residents. "Oh, thank you so much." It's rewarding. It's nice to hear that, that you're doing the best that you can.

Paul Kraunelis: It's nice to see a smile.

Eduardo Castro: Oh sure. Sure.

Paul Kraunelis: When someone sees that. Maybe some people aren't as comfortable voicing their pleasure.

Eduardo Castro: Sure.

Paul Kraunelis: But yet just seeing them, that's a nice feeling.

Eduardo Castro: Yep. Paul Kraunelis: That's important. So is there any parting words of wisdom? If I want to put my construction hat back on and I want to get back into the field and kind of get back into renovation.

Eduardo Castro: I think it's really simple stuff that I tell myself all the time. Plan the best you can, but still be very flexible to change. Going in with that mentality. I think a lot of people have a lot problems with changing whatever it is.

You have to be really open to change. Not just through a week, but through a month, through the day. Don't get disappointed if something doesn't work the way you thought it was going to work.

Paul Kraunelis: Yeah, yeah.

Eduardo Castro: Because there are many other ways to get it done. At the end, we're looking for the same results.

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