During the era of social distancing, to better serve the health interests of the community, traditional construction methods must change. Contractors must find new ways to work. Prior to COVID 19, to increase project profitability a contractor could just add more workers to a job., allowing them to get on and off the job site as quickly as possible. Today, a contractor must ensure that their labor force continues to maintain appropriate distancing while they work: where once several people could work together to complete an installation, many installations will now need to be handled by someone working alone. Without an effective strategy, social distancing will have a tremendous negative effect on the overall cost of construction.

How can architects, engineers and designers help their builders and general contractors to succeed in the era of social distancing? To the greatest extent possible, specify architectural products which are custom fabricated 100% offsite (custom prefabricated), and delivered to the job site ready-to-be-installed.Offsite fabrication of architectural products allows the builder/general contractor to use fewer and less-skilled workers on the job site. For example, with ornamental railing 1 person can complete a job that may have required 2 or 3 highly skilled people to accomplish with traditional construction methods. 


Learning Objectives:   At the completion of this course, participants will be able to: Explain the advantages of a prefabricated custom railing system and an all stainless steel railing system; Compare and contrast the railing system materials used for posts, top rails, and infill; Describe common challenges with locally fabricated metal rail systems; and Evaluate how stainless steel railing systems meet health, safety, and welfare requirements.


Credit: 1.0 HSW|LU