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• February President’s Message 2012
• Events Registration
• Choosing the Best Housewrap: A New Standard for Weather Barriers
• Retrofits (Usually) Greener Than New Construction, Study Says
• Banishing Bats: Bat Deterrent & Removal
• Editorial: Measuring Matters
• Avoid the Traps That Can Destroy Family Businesses
• 100% Rebate available for Home Energy Analysis

February President’s Message 2012

Last modified on 2012-02-06 13:59:44 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

President’s Message – February 2012
By
Pam Miller, Alchemy Construction

I hope this letter finds you all enjoying and working in this beautiful weather.  When it’s sunny and warm, the job just seems to be more pleasant.  Not so great for my river rafting, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

A few items for the month of February: First off, we will not be having a dinner meeting this month.  Second, it’s time for our annual spring printing of our Membership Directory, so if you have any updates or changes to your company information, please get it to us by the deadline indicated.  Also please read and follow the instructions provided.  Our Board Members have specific tasks to perform, and we have taken steps to make sure that the information provided by the membership gets to the proper person- and it does when you follow the instructions!  When you don’t follow the instructions, usually several other people have to get involved to resolve it.  So, please read and follow your instructions carefully.  It will save us a lot of unnecessary additional work by doing so.

We will be returning to our regular dinner meeting schedule in March.  Also in March, we have our annual Spring Home and Garden Show.  This is a fantastic way for our members to introduce themselves to the community, and possibly wind up with some work for their efforts.  By volunteering in the RERA booth, you have an opportunity to market yourself and your company services for free to people who are out planning their spring and summer projects.  RERA Vice President Gabe Diaz is in charge of coordinating the volunteers, so contact him to sign up for your spot.  Another good marketing tool is the Membership Directory.  Consider running a business card ad.  We generally hand out at least a few hundred of these Directories at the Home Show.  And you can’t beat the price!

And finally, we’d like to let you know that we need your assistance in running this association.  We need volunteers for committees, and help with administrative tasks necessary for the continued operation of RERA.  Some of our goals this year are to establish and build strong committees and participate in more community service projects as well as making sure we can provide the best educational and training opportunities for our membership.  This is a great association, with even greater potential.  Let’s pull together and go for it!

presidents message

Events Registration

Last modified on 2011-03-20 03:16:08 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

event registration

Choosing the Best Housewrap: A New Standard for Weather Barriers

Last modified on 2012-02-06 14:03:10 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

There are more than 20 different standardized tests manufacturers can invoke to “qualify” as a code-accepted weather-resistive barrier (WRB).

It’s not easy being a weather-resistive barrier (WRB): it has to stop liquid water, be tough and not tear, but also be flexible to wrap around building elements. And it often needs to be vapor-permeable to promote drying.

Finally, water-tight standards In the past, manufacturers could cherry-pick the standardized test to use to “qualify.” That’s how we ended up with industry acceptance of perforated and cross-woven housewrap that literally leaks like a sieve.

Here are the key points.

1. Two types of WRBs: Type I WRBs have what is described as a “base” level of water resistance. Type II WRBs have what is described as an “enhanced” level of water resistance. This difference is reflected only in the water-resistance requirements. GreenSpec requires Type II compliance.

2. Tensile strength or breaking force: There are three different ASTM test methods from which to choose; all evaluate the strength of the material.

3. Vapor permeability: All WRBs must be a minimum of 5 perms, considered to be vapor semi-permeable (Joe Lstiburek, Ph.D., P.E., of Building Science Corporation classifies materials in the range of 1 to 10 perms as Class III vapor retarders, based in part on the Canadian General Standards Board approach). This is ideal because WRBs should keep water out but also allow drying.

4. Pliability: The pliability test ensures WRBs are pliable even when they are cold (32?F).

5. Aged testing: The tests for tensile strength and water resistance must be conducted for materials “as received” and “aged.” Aged testing involves cycles of wetting and drying as well as ultraviolet (UV) light exposure.

Most high-quality, well-known spun-bonded polyolefin housewraps (such as Tyvek and Typar) comply with the new ASTM standard Type II requirements; the same is true for quality building papers (Fortifiber, for example).

You still have to install it right!

Does this new standard solve all of our building-assembly problems? Not by a long shot; you still need to marry the WRB to all flashing details at penetrations and transitions. But it sure makes a lot of sense to start with the right materials as you design, spec, and build high-performance building assemblies.

vapor barriers

Retrofits (Usually) Greener Than New Construction, Study Says

Last modified on 2012-02-06 14:05:45 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Retrofits (Usually) Greener Than New Construction, Study Says
By Paula Melton

Is the greenest building the one you don’t build?
The answer is a resounding “usually.”

Conventional wisdom about building reuse is questioned and quantified in a much-anticipated report released today by Preservation Green Lab, part of the National Trust for Historic
Preservation. Using a life-cycle assessment (LCA) approach that takes both operational and embodied impacts into account, the report compares the environmental impact of retrofitting an existing building for high performance vs. tearing down the building and replacing it with a high-performance one. It also looks at a more common real-world scenario—pitting high performance new construction against continued use of a building that has only average energy performance.
While reuse generally has less impact, the advantages of retrofitting vary greatly depending on building type, climate, and materials used. In one notable exception to the overall results, adaptive reuse of warehouses for multifamily housing can actually have a greater environmental impact than demolition and new construction— highlighting the fact that decisions about retrofit vs. demolition will still need to be made on a case-by-case basis.
Carbon payback
The most catastrophic effects of climate change can only be prevented in the next 20 years or so, making global warming potential one of the most pressing environmental impacts to consider.
Since it can take decades for a new building to “pay back” its embodied carbon through improvements in operational efficiency (see “A 2030 Challenge for Building Product Manufacturers,” EBN Feb. 2011), this study’s conclusions about carbon emissions should come as no surprise: based on climate-change considerations alone, almost every useable building in every region of the U.S. should remain standing—even if these buildings are not retrofitted to improve energy performance. Carbon payback time for the buildings studied ranged from 10 to 80 years.
Important caveats
While showing the clear benefits of building reuse, the report cautions that “reuse alone cannot fulfill the urgent task of reducing climate change emissions,” adding, “Reuse and retrofitting for energy efficiency together offer the most significant emissions reductions.” Even when a retrofit is undertaken, the materials used in the retrofit must be carefully chosen. If the building footprint is expanded or if materials with high-embodied energy are chosen, “the environmental benefits of reuse can be eroded or substantially eliminated.” Materials used for energy-efficiency measures can also harm human health and ecosystem quality.
“One of the results that I find interesting is just how much materials do matter,” said Jason McLennan, CEO at Cascadia Green Building Council and one of the study’s lead researchers. “If you are completely gutting a building and putting in tons of new materials, it’s beginning to act not like reuse” but instead like new construction. Buildings that are easily adaptable or those that can fulfill program requirements without added materials appear to be better choices for reuse, he said. “Existing building reuse is an incredibly important part of a strategy for energy reduction. It needs to be at the top of the list.”
Unique methodology
The study’s methodology is unusual, combining large datasets with case studies of particular buildings. Energy-performance projections were based on national survey data, while case studies were used to determine the relative embodied impacts of retrofitting vs. new construction. While this methodology could leave the study results open to critique, the report claims this choice helped researchers accurately capture the complexity of comparing retrofits with new construction. The results, they say, actually increase the data’s reliability since embodied impact estimates were based on actual retrofit and construction projects rather than on modeling. Researchers call for further study to compare the status quo with more aspirational construction scenarios, such as net zero-energy construction, lower-impact material choices, and increased urban density.

The Preservation Green Lab completed the study in partnership with Cascadia Green Building Council, Green Building Services, Skanska, and Quantis.

green retrofits

Banishing Bats: Bat Deterrent & Removal

Last modified on 2012-02-06 14:16:22 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Banishing Bats: Bat Deterrent & Removal

by Jodi Liss

Once bats move into a house, they rarely relocate, unless evicted using proper bat exclusion techniques. Here’s what you need to know to make your building a bat-free zone.

Small brown bats are one of three types of bat that commonly inhabit old houses.

Old houses often come with features rarely found in new buildings-plaster walls, stained-glass windows, handcrafted woodwork, bats in the attic. Like many folks, I don’t mind bats in theory, but I will never forget the sight of my mother, in ski mask and pajamas, trying to remove a bat from our house with a fishing net.

So when I found a dozen bats snoozing between the trim and a screen window of my Greek Revival house, I panicked and immediately phoned the local game commission. The licensed wildlife control specialist who responded explained that I didn’t have a bat infestation; the animals I saw were only migrating, taking shelter in my window for a couple of days on their way to someplace else. My disgust now turned to curiosity, so I set out to discover more about bats, how homeowners can tell when they have a bat problem, and how to get rid of it when they do. What I found just might keep you and your house from going batty.

Why Old Houses Appeal to Bats

When bats become houseguests on a regular basis, it often signals an infestation that needs to be addressed

Bats are particularly attracted to old houses because they offer so many potential entry points. Chimneys, cracks or holes in the siding or soffits, louvered vents with loose screening, separating flashing, and just about any place where materials have shrunk, warped, or moved apart will invite bats to enter and make themselves at home. Bats need just a tiny crack-about 3/8” by 1 inch to enter a house, and can squeeze through holes the size of a quarter. That’s not much space.

In truth, bats are important to a healthy environment. They are extremely good at keeping down the bug population, with a single bat consuming about 3,000 insects a night. However, some species of bats commonly roost in buildings today due to loss of natural habitat. According to Barbara French, a biologist with Bat Conservation International, Many people have a few bats in their attic and never know it. But a large colony of bats can become a noise or odor nuisance. And bats should not be allowed to enter interior living quarters.

Three species of bats are most likely to find a warm old-house attic, wall, or soffit an irresistible roost: big brown bats (found in most of the US and Canada), little brown bats (Canada and northern US), and Mexican free-tailed bats (southern, western and southwestern US). A sizeable colony of big brown bats may total a dozen animals; for little brown bats it can mean several hundred. For Mexican free-tailed bats, a colony can number in the thousands. It is inhumane, usually illegal, and definitely impractical to kill a colony of bats roosting in one’s home. Eight species of bats are on the federal Endangered Species list, and each state keeps its own list as well. According to Susi Von Oettingen of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, even a bat species that’s plentiful across the entire continent can be protected in your state. Most endangered bats are not house dwellers, but it’s extremely difficult for homeowners to tell whether they have a colony of little brown bats, endangered Indiana bats, or, since they sometimes live together, a mix of the two.

Keeping Bats at Bay

Not everyone blessed with bats decides to get rid of them. After all, bats are rarely dangerous-only about one half of one percent of all bats have rabies. Suppose you don’t hate bats; you just don’t want to share your house with them. In that case, before evicting them, you might consider putting up a bat house or two at some corner of your property. That way, when the bats are unable to get back into your house, they’ll have the bat house as an option. The bats will have their house, you’ll have yours, and you can be neighbors. Think of all the bugs they’ll eat!

Basic bat houses can blend into any surroundings.

Going Batty: Bat Houses

by Demetra Aposporos

One of the consequences of a successful bat eviction is that all those of displaced bats—the ones once sheltered in your rafters—will need a new place to live. Installing a bat box on your property makes it easy for them to find one. Bat boxes can come in many shapes and sizes, but all have one thing in common: They are designed to provide cozy quarters for a colony of bats. From the outside, a bat house often looks like a boxy birdhouse on steroids—with one difference, entrance holes are at the bottom. Nonetheless, they can be adorned with clever detailing—we even discovered a bat box with Folk Victorian styling.

Inside, all feature several crevices so bats can roost in layers. Installing a bat box in the corner of your yard gives newly excluded critters a place to go, while keeping them close enough to provide major insect control on your property. With a single bat chomping down about 3,000 bugs a night, that’s a lot of pest protection for your al fresco dining.

However, if you decide you just can’t live with bats, first forget the advertisements for ultrasonic deterrent devices, mothballs, or aerosol sprays; they do not work long-term. Each of the five bat experts I spoke with told me that the only way to get rid of bats is to evict them from your home, a process usually called exclusion and often within the skills of a layperson as well as a professional. It involves covering the openings the bats use to enter with netting or tubes. The bats can drop down and fly out, but are unable to crawl back in again.

Before beginning, though, homeowners must accept that bat exclusion can be a big job, particularly if you have a fairly dilapidated home, because there are so many cracks the bats can enter. However, if your house is structurally sound, and has only one or two bat entry points, it’s a pretty simple process to do yourself, adds Barbara French.

It’s best to plan bat exclusion in late summer or early spring because come mid-May, female bats begin giving birth to pups that cannot fly for several weeks. If you start eviction too early in the summer, you may be left with orphaned baby bats in your home, which couldn’t survive. In much of the country, house bats migrate in the fall to hibernate in mines and deep caves. If your bats have left for their winter quarters and you know where they are coming in, late fall is an excellent time to seal up the all exterior entry points and clean out the droppings. Not all bats migrate, however, especially in the Southeast. And sometimes, they will hibernate in the house itself. You cannot evict the bats in the winter if they are still present, because they will not be able fly out while still in hibernation.

To begin, you need to determine where the bats are getting in. Examine your house’s exterior in daylight, identifying any cracks or holes, then sit outside on a balmy, clear summer evening and stare at those spots, looking for bat activity. Be sure to watch each side of your house, since bats often have more than one entry point. Also, the entry points may have somewhat greasy brown marks around them comprised of a mix of urine, feces, and body oils. Professionals often look for these bat tracks or signs to help identify entry points.

To see bat exclusion in practice, I decided to accompany Brian Reichman, a licensed Pennsylvania wildlife control specialist, on one of his projects. Each state has a wildlife or conservation department that can offer advice on how to find a licensed wildlife removal specialist. (This is not an exterminator; bats’ endangered status makes it illegal for exterminators to touch them). We met at the home of the late Clarence James in Hawley, Pennsylvania. Clarence was the township historian and local square dance caller who had recently died at the age of 103. His son, Don, recalled how the house was known to harbor bats for at least 50 years, but Clarence didn’t care. He had also not done any major repair work on the house for decades, so the colony had swelled to more than 400 little brown bats.

When I arrived at the property, beneath part of the cornice I could see an exclusionary device, a flap of nylon netting attached to the building over a bat entry point. Excluders should be attached securely along their top and three quarters of the way down their sides with duct tape or staples, allow the netting to hang somewhat loosely and extend about 2 feet below the bat access point. Placed over a bat entry point, such devices act as a one-way door. The bats crawl down and out the bottom of the netting to fly away, but when they return they fly straight to the opening and can’t figure out how to get back in.

DIY Exclusion

Exclusionary devices are easy to make using nylon window screen with a mesh of 1/6 or smaller. Another option Barbara French recommends is to cover the openings with cleaned-out caulking tubes—ends cut off and pointed downwards. Bats can drop down and out through the tubes, but can’t climb back up the smooth surface. These excluders fit nicely into the curves on tile roofs.

In order to be effective, excluders must be placed over each bat entry point and left in place for at least a week, at which point the bats have given up trying to get back in, moving to a new home. Because the devices on Clarence James’ house had been up for more than a week, Brian was in the process of sealing all holes, cracks, and crevices with caulk or metal mesh to prevent their return. I asked him where the bats had gone. Probably to the neighbors, Brian shot back cheerfully. Once a house bat, always a house bat!

Cleaning Critter Litter

When the bats are gone, it’s time to clean up their mess. Bats have a keen sense of smell, and can sniff out the hint of a prior roosting spot from miles away, so all droppings must be carefully removed. Bat manure, or guano, while apparently an excellent fertilizer, can contain a fungus called Histoplasma capsulatum.

Proper precautions are necessary when cleaning guano. This crew wears suits and masks, and uses a HEPA vacuum.

Inhaling the fungal spores can sometimes cause a respiratory infection in humans, so proper precautions are necessary for any cleanup. I donned some old clothes and a mask that Brian gave me with a filter capable of filtering out particles as small as 2 microns in diameter (the size of small fungal spores) and went upstairs. Heavy work gloves are also recommended. The smell was overpowering, even through the mask. Brian’s wife, Belinda, assisted him, and she confessed, “The first time I did this, I told him, ‘I must really love you.”

Because this house had hundreds of bats living there for decades, it was a particularly big job that required a lot of cleanup. First Brian and Belinda tore off the dilapidated interior walls and ceiling, stained and smelling of bat urine, in order to expose the beams and supports. Then they vacuumed up the guano on the floor, walls, beams and even the ceiling-anywhere the bats had left their mark— using a professional HEPA utility vacuum. It’s a good idea to mist the guano with water first to help prevent the dust from getting into the air.

Finally, Brian sealed the windows, shut the door, sprayed the room with a commercial odor eliminator and antibacterial, and closed the room off for several hours until the spray dried. If you have a fairly small and accessible space, an alternative is to scrub all surfaces with a solution of 1 cup of bleach per gallon of water. It’s important to clean diligently and make sure all openings have been sealed, because any remaining odor will tell bats the house is a great hotel, and they will move right back in. With the bats out, access points sealed, and the place scrubbed, Brian’s work was done and the problem solved. It’s up to homeowners to rebuild the walls and ceilings.

Suppose you don’t hate bats; you just don’t want to share your house with them. In that case, before evicting them, you might consider putting up a bat house or two at some corner of your property. That way, when the bats are unable to get back into your house, they’ll have the bat house as an option. The bats will have their house, you’ll have yours, and you can be neighbors. Think of all the bugs they’ll eat!

Jodi Liss writes about rural Pennsylvania life from her old house in Wayne County. For more on bat exclusion, visit www.batcon.com.

 

Bats

Editorial: Measuring Matters

Last modified on 2012-02-06 14:18:42 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Editorial: Measuring Matters
BY ALAN MEIER
January 03, 2012
This article originally appeared in the January/February 2012 issue of Home Energy Magazine.

Perhaps the greatest challenge to promoting energy efficiency is that you can’t see it. People understand electricity produced from a PV collector on the roof, and a kWh meter can easily report precisely how much energy was generated. But with more-efficient products, savings cannot be directly measured; instead, one must reckon the difference between a real and a hypothetical situation. This complexity creates a lingering uncertainty whether the promised savings did or did not actually occur.

There’s another paradox related to the evaluation of energy savings. Conscientious program managers and energy professionals should want to collect energy consumption data and perform the necessary analysis to be sure that the technology worked as expected. After all, how can one learn from mistakes if the mistakes aren’t observed? But the world works differently. If the preliminary estimates are proven correct, then program managers are open to criticism for wasting money on needless and expensive evaluations.

Alternatively, if the savings are less than expected, the managers are criticized for running ineffective programs or installing defective technologies. In an era of declining funding and short time horizons, they can’t win. I can understand why they would want to skip the measurements and I can sympathize with them.

This study had another intriguing result: With increasingly efficient clothes washers, the energy conservation battlefields are shifting. The dryer is now the largest electricity consumer in many homes, thanks to shrinking consumption by refrigerators and lights. It’s time to develop and commercialize technologies that increase the efficiency of clothes dryers. Heat pump dryers are now crossing the Atlantic, but other technologies, such as heat recovery, deserve attention. A zero energy technology crossing both the Atlantic and the Pacific is line drying. It’s done overseas because energy is expensive, and some simple devices make it more convenient. A second battlefield may be the rising cost of detergents. Is Proctor and Gamble capturing an unfair share of the energy savings? This will be the topic of a future article.

The article on water savings found that replacement of relatively new toilets with better-designed, water efficient units cut water use by greater than one third. Service calls fell dramatically, too. These outcomes demonstrate that the evaluator’s paradox has a third outcome, that is, the savings are larger than expected and include benefits not initially considered. A solid example was provided in this article with evidence that was obtained through only modest data collection and evaluation. Where skeptics question the difference between hypothetical and actual savings, these two articles prove that not only can efficiency gains be measured, but that the outcomes are real and substantial.

measuring matters

Avoid the Traps That Can Destroy Family Businesses

Last modified on 2012-02-06 14:24:06 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Avoid the Traps That Can Destroy Family Businesses
by George Stalk and Henry Foley

Nearly 75 years ago a charismatic Brazilian entrepreneur named Enrique Rosset started an eponymous textile and apparel manufacturing company in São Paulo. Some 40 years later he and his oldest son decided to diversify by acquiring Valisere, an upscale but failing lingerie business. Over the decades, Enrique and his four sons transformed their operation into one of South Americaʼs leading textile and apparel manufacturers. During the 1990s Grupo Rosset expanded into swimwear, with great success. But the family knew the business faced critical strategic challenges. The rise of shopping malls was weakening the small Brazilian retailers whoʼd made up Rossetʼs primary distribution channel. Chinese imports were beginning to pose serious competition. The advent of digital fabric printing would undercut Rossetʼs core manufacturing strength unless the company adopted the technology itself. Enriqueʼs sons, whoʼd led the firm for 20 years, had to make a crucial decision about which of the five members of the third generation should assume the leadership role.

In the United States, a familiar aphorism—“Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations”—describes the propensity of family-owned enterprises to fail by the time the founderʼs grandchildren have taken charge. Variations on that phrase appear in other languages, too. The data support the saying. Some 70% of family-owned businesses fail or are sold before the second generation gets a chance to take over. Just 10% remain active, privately held companies for the third generation to lead. In contrast to publicly owned firms, in which the average CEO tenure is six years, many family businesses have the same leaders for 20 or 25 years, and these extended tenures can increase the difficulties of coping with shifts in technology, business models, and consumer behavior. Today family firms in developing markets face new threats from globalization. In many ways, leading a family-owned business has never been harder.

A Challenge in Any Language

“Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” is how Americans describe the high failure rate of family businesses—a phenomenon noted in many cultures.
Brazil – “Pai rico, filho nobre, neto pobre” “Rich father, noble son, poor grandson”
China – “Fu bu guo san dai” “Wealth never survives three generations”
Mexico – “Padre bodeguero, hijo caballero, nieto pordiosero” “Father merchant, son gentleman, grandson beggar”
Italy – “Dalle stalle alle stelle alle stalle” “From the stables to the stars and back to the stables”

The high failure rates of family businesses may seem unavoidable. Theyʼre not. In our work advising these types of companies, we see them repeatedly caught in the same traps. Recognizing and learning to avoid those traps can boost the odds of long-term survival.

Trap #1: “Thereʼs Always a Place For You Here”

Some proprietors of family-owned firms make their children feel obligated to join the company, which can backfire by creating a crop of managers who arenʼt interested in being there. More often, though, we see parents emphasize that their offspring are free to join the business if they so choose. If the company is successful, those children are likely to have been raised amid wealth, which broadens their choices as adults. Generally this situation translates into an unspoken promise that “thereʼs always a place for you here,” which can lead children to treat the business as a fallback option. Weʼve encountered many companies that are populated by next-generation members who failed in other businesses or spent their 20s (and sometimes their 30s) as aspiring athletes, artists, or musicians before signing on to the firm as unprepared 40-somethings. Despite their lack of experience, these offspring may ascend to leadership positions because of the family connection, increasing the chances that the business will fail.

To escape the trap: Insist on proper training and screening.

Itʼs natural for a family business to welcome members of the next generation, and itʼs healthy to expose them to the company at an early age, so that they can make an informed decision about whether to pursue a career there. But a job with the company shouldn’t be an entitlement. Those who want to join deserve no special accommodation. We now see an emerging best practice in which families formally require any child who wants a job to (a) earn a university degree—and in some cases a graduate degree, (b) gain several years of relevant professional experience outside the family business, and (c) apply for open positions in competition with nonfamily applicants. At one European firm we know of, family members applying for a job must be at least 26 years old, have earned a master’s degree in business or engineering, speak three languages, and have won two promotions within five years at a nonfamily firm. And they are given only one opportunity to apply: If they’re turned down, they must go elsewhere.

Even firms that already employ many family members can benefit from rigorous performance and potential assessments. At Gerdau S.A., the four brothers in the fourth generation of the Johannpeter family had run the business very profitably for more than 20 years when they began thinking about succession, in the mid-1990s—long before they planned to step aside. They hired a search firm to evaluate Gerdauʼs top 60 executives, including five next-generation family members, for appointment to a newly created executive committee. They used this objective assessment to encourage some family members to pursue careers outside the business. Those people left gracefully and did well in other endeavors.

Four years later the family worked with another set of outside advisers to identify five candidates for CEO. Among those recommended were two fifth-generation cousins with extensive experience in the business. The company sent the two for advanced executive training at leading U.S. business schools and subsequently put them in charge of key business units for several years. In late 2006 the top-performing family member was appointed CEO, and his cousin became COO. Today four of the five CEO candidates remain with Gerdau, and the companyʼs revenues have grown from $13 billion in 2006 to $20 billion in 2010.

Trap #2: The Business Can’t Grow Fast Enough to Support Everyone
An underappreciated problem is that families often grow more quickly than their businesses do. If a company founder has three children, each of whom marries and produces three more children, each of whom marries, within three generations there could be 25 people or more (including all the spouses) working or looking to work at the company. Many businesses simply don’t have enough work to employ every family member.

To escape the trap: Manage family entry and scale for growth.
Families that have avoided Trap #1 by ensuring that only committed, qualified relatives are allowed to join the firm have already reduced the magnitude of Trap #2. Another solution is to develop strategies to grow the business and create responsibilities for additional family employees.

Mitchells, a high-end clothing retailer in Westport, Connecticut, took this approach. Jack Mitchell and his brother, Bill, inherited the store from their father, Ed, whoʼd founded it in 1958. A decade ago, as Jack and Bill anticipated handing leadership to their seven children (each of whom had graduated from college and obtained relevant experience before joining the store), they realized that the business would have to grow to provide enough high-level roles to go around. Mitchellsʼ key strength is a customer relationship management system that helps salespeople bond with clients and suggest suitable products for them. In 1995 Mitchells bought a failing menʼs clothier in nearby Greenwich and utilized its own CRM system to turn the store around. Since then itʼs acquired retailers on Long Island and in northern California and has dispatched members of the next generation to run the stores in those locations. This strategy not only provided sufficient revenue to support the various family employees but also gave all of them their own operations to lead.

Family Traditions
Some 34% of family businesses in the United States anticipate that the next CEO will be a woman.
Brazil has 20 family-owned firms now in their second century and their fourth or fifth generation.
In Norway the oldest son typically inherits the family business, even though inheritance laws mandating gender equality have been on the books for more than 150 years. Italy has the most members in the global Hénokiens Association—a group of companies at least 200 years old that are managed and largely owned by the founding families. The 50 largest German family firms outperformed the DAX (the German stock index) by 6.8%, on average, from 2003 to 2008. Japan is home to the world’s oldest family business: The Houshi Onsen, a traditional inn, is currently run by the 46th generation of the founding family.1

Trap #3: Family Members Remain in Silos According to Bloodline
One of the most striking things we’ve noticed about family businesses is the tendency of fathers and sons (and increasingly daughters) to specialize in the same aspect of the business, whether itʼs finance, operations, or marketing. This can be problematic for several reasons. First, by staying in specialized silos, next-generation managers fail to gain the cross-functional expertise needed for executive leadership. Second, when close family members supervise one another, the personal dynamic can prevent candid feedback and interfere with coaching. Together these factors can create a leadership vacuum in the up-and-coming generation. This may prompt the current generation to stay in the top positions too long, limiting the companyʼs adaptability to change.

To escape the trap: Appoint non-family mentors.
In a small enterprise, it may be impractical to prohibit family members from supervising one another. But even in these cases, companies should minimize the time that employees spend working for immediate relatives. Some companies assign an experienced non-family mentor to each younger family member, to provide the objective performance evaluation and critical advice an employee in a non-family business typically gets. For this to work, the coach must operate under a protective umbrella, immune from retribution by the family.

Itʼs unrealistic to think you can create a nepotism-free family-owned business, and itʼs important to recognize that family enterprises will always operate by different rules. For instance, even the largest family-controlled, publicly traded firms manage dividends differently from the way non-family companies do. Itʼs also worth recognizing that family ownership can provide a welcome counterbalance to the short-term incentives offered to most managers. To survive over the long haul, however, family firms need to adopt formal policies about whom to employ, whom to promote, and how to balance family and business interests. If more companies take these steps and survive the treacherous transitions from one generation to another, everyone will benefit.

George Stalk and Henry Foley. “Avoid the Traps That Can Destroy Family Businesses” – Harvard Business Review.

traps to destroy business

100% Rebate available for Home Energy Analysis

Last modified on 2012-01-10 14:36:41 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

100% Rebate available for Home Energy Analysis

The Sonoma County Energy Independence Program (SCEIP), in partnership with Energy Upgrade California™ in Sonoma County, have increased local incentives and are now offering homeowners up to 100-percent rebate for Energy Analysis services.  A Home Energy Analysis uses cutting-edge technology to determine where a home may be leaking energy.  The analyst assesses all the major energy efficiency features of the home, looking at the house as a whole system.  The analysis includes a customized evaluation of the home’s energy use and identifies specific opportunities to minimize energy waste, many of which are eligible for further rebates and financing.

This is an expansion of the current Energy Analysis rebate offered by SCEIP. Any Sonoma County homeowner may choose to have an analysis performed on their home.  Immediate plans for energy efficiency improvements are not required. To get more information or find a rater, visit the SCEIP website at www.sonomacountyenergy.org.

Bigger Rebates for Home Energy Efficiency

Regional incentives have also been added to the existing Energy Upgrade Basic and Advanced pathways to home energy efficiency upgrades as a part of the Energy Upgrade California Whole House Upgrade program. An additional $1,000 flat-rate rebate brings the total rebate for the Energy Upgrade Basic Package projects to $2,000. An additional $2,000 flat-rate rebate for Advanced Package projects means a homeowner can now get up to $6,000 in rebates. Energy efficiency upgrades in these packages are designed to increase energy and water efficiency, improve indoor air quality, create a more comfortable home, and potentially decrease utility bills.

Both the analysis and efficiency upgrades incentive programs are limited-time offers, available on a first-come/first-served basis while funds last.  Funding for this program is made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).  For more information on these rebates, how to contact a Participating Contractor or HERS Whole House Rater, or Energy Upgrade California™ in Sonoma County, call (707) 565-6470 or visit www.EnergyUgradeSonoma.org.

Energy Upgrade California is a statewide program that helps property owners reduce their energy use and save money with rebates, incentives and financing.  To qualify for energy efficiency incentives homeowners must work with Energy Upgrade Participating Contractors.  To qualify for the 100% energy analysis, homeowners must work with a HERS Whole House Rater and receive a Home Energy Score.

Home energy rebate