#70 Restoration Projects with Ian from Gale Force Masonry - Takes a special kind of trade to handle these older buildings

Ian opens the show with his version of the Hips Courage. On today’s show we have Ian from @galeforcemasonry and we are talking historical buildings and restoration and a lot to do with the oldies but a goodie when it comes to construction. From brick, to lead roofs, to those original windows and more.

Ian begins with school at Algonquin College and how there really is a shortage in stone and mason trades and we have to go outside the country to find good guys, Irish, Polish and others. Ian brings up a massive point, with any trade you can take that skill anywhere in the world and you will find work, that is a fact. We love hearing that. Learning from the time and actions during his Union days which brought Ian to planning for his retirement one day.

We get into a little safety and proper set up of scaffolding because when you work in high end neighborhoods, the neighbors are watching. This part of the podcast leads us into a scenario in Ian’s past that could have been a lot worse. A serious injury when he was working in a crypt with a hospital right across the street.

Let’s talk about the seven P’s Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance, everyone needs to understand you have to slow it all down to speed it up. Ian talks about construction recipes, where he worked on something, did all the testing and figured out what he needed to restore the damage and Ian stays in touch with client’s years later with the hope that they will hire him to move forward with the work.

Let’s get into heritage buildings in Toronto, NYC, Boston, Chicago and Philly and why Toronto is terrible at restoring and would rather knock down. Then the big questions, how does one price a restoration job? We get into stone details of yesterday and compare them to today’s building details. And let’s talk Widths or Wydths of brick and stone. Then we get into the paperwork behind actual heritage buildings and the work involved to get the work started, building permits and the years attached to doing the work along with the building reports that Ian has been task with. We even get into talking about Hot Lime process and how it was done back in the day.

How to reading buildings and what clues Mother Nature shares with us, what a fascinating talk with Ian. We get into different stone finishing and the tools needed, there are so many options out there. Talk about health and safety and understanding that grinding out joints for tuck-pointing is now considered and Type 1 abatement and the rules apply.

We finally get to See You Next Tuesday, a first for our little show. Lastly we get into making 6 figures in this business easy and how more people should consider trades. Special thank you for the listeners listening right now as Carlito tells the listeners. We end the show with Twinkle Twinkle, we outta here.

Don’t forget we have Construction History from Manny, Building Code Talk with Manny and Green Book Talk with Carlito.

Thank you Ian so much for joining the show and sharing so much about construction, restoration, renovations and more. Check out Ian @galeforcemasonry and ian@galeforcemasonry.com

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