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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
On Feb. 10, 2016 EPA finalized revisions to the Lead-based Paint program. The final rule allows refresher training to be done without a hands-on component, which means it can be completed entirely online. Taking a renovator refresher course that does not include hands-on training will result in a 3-year renovator certification
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Construction Equipment
In the first year of a new reporting requirement, employers notified the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration of more than 10,000 severe work-related injuries, creating the opportunity for the agency to work with employers to eliminate hazards and protect other workers.
Since Jan. 1, 2015, employers have been required to report any severe work-related injury – defined as a hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye – within 24 hours. The requirement that an employer report a workplace fatality within eight hours remains in force.
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Fast Company
It took silicon-based solar panel technology 30 years to reach an efficiency of 21 percent. At the end of 2015, a new kind of solar material hit that milestone in a research lab in just three years, making it the fastest improving solar technology to date.
If the material, a crystalline mineral made of calcium and titanium called perovskite, works out as researchers hope, it could one day provide an alternative to today's silicon-based solar panels that is at once cheaper, more efficient and lightweight.
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Window Film Magazine
In an effort to curb the estimated $50 billion annually that energy leakage through windows cost building owners, the U.S. Department of Energy's Berkeley Lab seem to have synthesized what they call a potential solution. Researchers have developed a polymer heat-reflective coating that can be painted on at one-tenth the cost, lab officials say.
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NPR
When a doctor found that Kenicer Carty's 1-year-old daughter had a dangerously high level of lead last year, it triggered an alarm of sorts. Officials sent an inspector to Carty's 1930 row house in northeast Baltimore. It turned out that every single window had hazardous chipping lead paint.
The city contracted with the nonprofit Green and Healthy Homes Initiative to replace the windows and inspect her house. They will also fix a leak in a bedroom wall and near the toilet where water pools, because moisture prompts paint to break down.
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Construction Dive
Most residential contractors, from large or small companies, have experienced difficult customers. In these situations, no matter what the contractor does, the clients are never happy, and it seems like signing the contract was simply the sound of a starting pistol in a race the contractor can never win.
Therefore, contractors might find themselves wondering if there's any way to reduce or eliminate these difficult customer experiences. The most obvious answer is to make sure to produce a good, quality product. Even if that's the case, they probably won't be able to do away with troublesome projects altogether. But they can certainly reduce their chances of a customer relationship going south, and they can even learn to handle those relationships so no one ends up miserable.
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Business.com
What's the hottest trend in business right now?
Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter? Sharing economy apps such as Uber and Airbnb?
Apple, and its line of personal computing devices? Or Software as a Service for the enterprise, such as Salesforce?
You could probably make a case for any one of these, but here's the thing: Although on the surface these companies appear to have completely different business models, they all share one very powerful component: a scalable online platform connecting people and ecosystems.
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Business Insider
Existing home sales fell much more than expected in February.
Data from the National Association of Realtors recently showed that sales of existing single-family homes, condos and coops fell 7.1 percent to an annual rate of 5.08 million.
"Unshakably low supply levels" and climbing prices across the country contributed to the plunge, according to the NAR.
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