< PreviousIncepted in 2022, Manheim Dellovade’s launch marked the beginning of a new chapter in the company's history. The decision to form Manheim Dellovade was prompted by the opportunity to acquire a seasoned construction company. Pat Riley, one of the visionaries behind the venture, brings over 40 years of industry experience to the table. The senior leadership team – comprised of David Mantheiy serving as Owner and President, Pat Riley as Vice President, Tom Haught as the Director of Construction, Joe Gizoni as the Director of Sales & Marketing and Pat Connors, Chief Estimator – remain committed to recognizing and promoting talent within the organization, fostering employee growth, development, and retention and collectively, they boast decades of expertise. Despite the change in ownership, Manheim Dellovade emphasizes continuity. The core group of field and labor staff, trained installers, and leaders in technical and commer- cial roles have remained unchanged. “While the company is new, the commitment to high-quality products and projects remains steadfast,” says Gizoni. The company has also leveraged industry networks, estab- lishing a strong partnership with HB Reynolds, a collabora- tion that reflects a synergistic business model. Plus, with a staff of 15-16 in the office and a variable in-field team ranging from 50-150 depending on projects; the company maintains a commitment to excellence on all activities big or small thanks to the people driving the work, and the company’s overall mission, forward. As for the ideal client, Manheim Dellovade has a roster that’s truly national. The business, while based in Pittsburgh, has projects happening all over the Unites States, from Georgia to Louisville, Albany to Cleveland and beyond. “What drives us is thinking about who is going to occupy the building we are working on. We see more success when it’s a compa- ny-owned building,” says Gizoni. Among the countless projects Manheim Dellovade has taken on, the UPS Maintenance Hangar stands out. With a core product of insulated metal panels, this project, valued at over 15 million dollars, is a testament to the company's in-house capabilities, able to handle large-scale projects, manage count- less stakeholder and deliver a high-quality product on time and within budget. While a unique design element may not be the first thought when it comes to an industrial-sized airplane han- gar, this finished project boasted architectural features that ensured that it was not only practical, but visually interesting, requiring a broad range of expertise for the installation. Other notable completed, ongoing, and future projects include: Scaife Hall The first project Manheim Dellovade completed, Scaife Hall is home to the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine. While the company’s scope of work was not the primary feature of the building, the finished product featured curved metal panels and louvers and a decorative plate that created a stylistically unorthodox and architecturally unique finished product. Sherwin Williams Building Our Future This project consists of a mix of both high-end aluminum plate, perforated aluminum plate, stainless mesh, interior aluminum, single skid products and insulated metal panels. This project will show the broad range of skill and capability within the Manheim Dellovade team and consists of many moving parts for staff to execute efficiently. DQE Watson Substation Looking ahead, Manheim Dellovade will be heading into 2024 with a power substation project, beginning in March and fea- turing high-end perforated panel. “You don’t think of power substations as an architectural feature,” says Gizoni, “but the panels and graphics are actually really cool based on the perforation panels chosen.” Sherwin Williams Building Our Future Ohio “While the company is new, the commitment to high- quality products and projects remains steadfast.” | 50 MARCH 2024UPMC Presbyterian Hospital A target project for Manheim Dellovade, a lot of this work was pro-bono, assisting in design plans before the team even bid for the construction work, ensuring everything was up to code and the design was rock solid. The University of Pittsburgh Arena and Sports Performance Center Manheim Dellovade is working on a new area and sport performance center for the School. This project is another melding of function and design, and requires a ton of alumi- num composite panels along with custom aluminum plate designed to create a saw tooth configuration that gives visual movement to the structure. “For this project in particular, we did a lot of work behind the scenes before it went to bid, connecting with university personnel and building those rela- tionships before the bid,” says Joe. Each project highlights the diverse skills of Manheim Dellovade, ranging from decorative plates to high-end aluminum fabri- cation. According to Gizoni, the key to Manheim Dellovade's success can be attributed to one singular focus: relationships. The company aims to build relationships with prospective UPS Maintenance Hangar Louisville, KY The University of Pittsburgh Arena and Sports Performance Center Pittsburgh, PA clients long before it bids on a project. This approach, Gizoni says, means that it can go into jobs with a sense of familiarity, connection, and mutual understanding. Understanding both the project and the people involved remains a driving force in the construction industry and is, Gizoni believes, what sets Manheim Dellovade apart from its competitors. As Manheim Dellovade navigates the next three years, its primary focus is on growth, and on striking the fine balance of remaining aggressive in order to find the right projects, while staying true to the company’s core competencies. Gizoni acknowledges past challenges and emphasizes the importance of networking, relationship building, and adding talent strategically. For the company, the ultimate goal is to find ways to collab- orate meaningfully with its client on key projects, creating a seamless working relationship for workers and clients alike and reducing stress for everyone connected to a project. As Gizoni explains, the future for the company is one where the relationships being built are key. “For Manheim Dellovade, the journey is not just about con- structing buildings. It’s about building lasting relationships and leaving a mark of excellence in the industry.” | 51 APEIRON CONSTRUCTIONWRITTEN BY RAQUEL FARRINGTON L aunched in 1999, TuffWrap started as a solution to a common issue that had been plaguing roofing contrac- tors: how to keep dust and debris from contaminating a workspace. The Founder and President, Dave Campbell, resolved to suspend a polyethylene sheet below the rafters to catch dust and debris, an idea born while he was running his previous business, a restoration company. One day, a customer asked for a temporary barrier underneath the roof so operations inside the facility it was restoring could con- tinue without risk of contamination or injury from falling debris. Campbell’s solution ended up working well, and with some fine-tuning, the suspended cover system became highly sought after. Campbell launched TuffWrap, predict- ing a prime opportunity in a completely untapped market. | 52 MARCH 2024Soon after launch, TuffWrap landed the first of many clients it would work with over the next 25 years, spanning aerospace, automotive, food and beverage, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, retail, and warehouse and distribution markets. Today, TuffWrap’s product offerings have expanded to include suspended cover, interior walls and exterior walls safeguarding companies during construction by protecting from dust, debris, and weather during re-roofing and renovation projects. As the company nears it 25th anniversary, the team reflects on the innovation and positive impacts made on the industry. “The interior protection industry didn't even exist before Dave Campbell created Tuffwrap,” says Daniel Schmidt, U.S. and Canada Sales Director. “It’s so com- monplace now it’s almost hard to believe but back then, there was nothing.” As for the roofing industry, TuffWrap has created extreme efficiency. “Roofing proj- ects used to spread out over months, sometimes even years, depending on the size of the project,” says Schmidt. Prior to Tuffwrap’s creation of the suspended cover product, roofers would have to do their work in off hours or during shut- downs to avoid debris falling and contamination risks. With TuffWrap Smart- Seam in place, roofers can complete their work any time they want, so a project that would historically take months now takes weeks or even just days. | 53 APEIRON CONSTRUCTIONOver the course of close to three decades, the business model at Tuffwrap has also evolved alongside its product offering. In the beginning the company was selling to roofers and then roofers were selling the overall project to the facility owner. Effectively, Tuffwrap was a subcontractor to the roofers. “What we saw in that suspended cover work was that in bad weather roofers didn’t like to work so they set their schedules for better weather, like spring and summer. What that meant for us as a company was that we would have a big downtime during the offseason,” says Schmidt. In the beginning this worked but as the company continued to expand and expo- nentially grow, they needed steady income to continue hiring talent and boosting operations and infrastructure. “So, the founder thought, ‘why can't we take this horizontal suspended cover, turn it vertical and create containment walls for projects happening inside the facility?’” This approach works particularly well for projects where you're creating a lot of dust and debris, like putting in a new production line or drainage system, for example, but you still need to keep operations going in other parts of the facility. And so, TuffWrap began offering temporary walls. “This has taken off dramatically,” says Schmidt. Now, TuffWrap sells to a much broader range of customers including design/ build firms, general contractors and roofers. Shortly after, the company evolved again after seeing a need for exterior walls to accommodate projects that required a wall to be blown out to accommodate a new piece of machinery or even as part of a facility expansion plan. The exterior wall product has been very well received and is quickly becoming one of the company’s bestsellers. Today, Tuffwrap is seeing more success selling directly to the facility owner, as opposed to the roofers or contractors as part of a bigger project. “The facility owner has much more on the line than the contractor does, and we can show them that our products reduce their liability in many different ways. In addition to reducing liability, TuffWrap products and services can help facility owners maintain, or even grow market share by allowing operations to continue uninterrupted, allowing owners to better serve their customers.” TuffWrap’s resume is stacked, with projects of all shapes and sizes. One day it might be working with a global online retail/distribution company, building temporary interior walls to support the company’s new warehouse facility builds. The next month it might be protecting the manufacturing process at the facility of a leading provider of electric vehi- cles. “We even did an aquarium install where we had to install suspended cover over the shark tanks to keep the dust and debris out of the tanks,” recalls Schmidt. No project is too big or small for TuffWrap, guided by the commitment to safety and quality made possible by con- sistent investment in research and development (R&D), something that Schmidt believes differentiates TuffWrap from its competitors. “TuffWrap’s resume is stacked, with projects of all shapes and sizes.” | 54 MARCH 2024Before TuffWrap, facility owners were doing this haphazardly but there was no recognized solution. Furthermore, no recog- nized solution meant no recognized building or safety codes to abide by. Early on, the Tuffwrap team recognized this gap and has worked to address it through continued R&D efforts. In fact, TuffWrap worked with the International Code Coun- cil and even hired a consultant, who remains on retainer, to help the team drive safety for the Interior protection industry. Today, TuffWrap is the only suspended cover product on the market that is code compliant by the International Building Code criteria and FM compliant, which sets standards of excellence and certifies products and services for compa- nies worldwide. As for the future, TuffWrap has its sights set on continued growth, focusing on building relationships with facility own- ers and growing the exterior wall line, posed to become one of the most successful product offerings. “It's not just about the product it's also about the way you install it. Our commit- ment to quality is what sets us apart from our competitors and has been the key to our success over the past 25 years and I’m convinced that will continue to drive our success going forward.” Think TuffWrap’s interior, exterior and roofing solutions could help your project? Contact them today to learn more. www.tuffwrap.comWRITTEN BY DAVID O’NEILL W hen it comes to all things energy, both consump- tion and its generation, it seems as though it is a question of balance. How do we mitigate against the fuels needed to produce electricity, for instance? Light, heat, power, everything is part of a system and if anything is removed from the ecosystem, everything grinds to a halt. This is not scaremongering, creating problems where they need not be. The production of energy itself requires energy in order for it to be generated. Renewables are the ideal choice, but they are not always viable. So, how else can the maximum economic and environmental benefits be har- nessed from the production of energy. Well, researchers that have been trying to answer that very question believe that they may have finally found an answer. | 56 MARCH 2024The concept of adapting existing materials is an alluring one. Design and execution are vital components of the building process, but if they could be utilized to go beyond their primary benefits, the industry could be on the cusp of something of a gamechanger. Until now, the pathway for more sustainable practices within the construction sector has been aimed at either reducing or eliminating emissions altogether. This is achieved through a combination of sus- tainable practices, environmentally minded materials, and the use of renewable energy sources. While most accept that this is the most sure-fire way to achieving net zero emissions, alternative ideas are always welcome. More recently, in fact, science has been stepping into the conver- sation, producing innovative techniques such as embodied and captured carbon. It seems that the sector has no plans to stop there either. | 57 APEIRON CONSTRUCTIONAs more and more buildings turn to efficiency ratings, SMART compatibility or Passive features, the goal, it seems, is to make the building do some of the work itself. Imagine so, a building that could retain and deliver electricity through the process of conduction. The concept would produce, aston- ishingly, battery buildings. Scientists at Lancaster University have been working with formulas to create a cement mixture that is capable of conducting electricity. Incredibly, this mixture, which uses an alkaline solution and the waste material flyash is even cheaper to produce than Portland cement. According to project leader Professor Mohamed Saafi, from Lancaster University’s Engineering Department, the mixture conducts electricity via potassium ions that hop through the crystalline structure. “To make cement you have to mix the flyash with an alkaline solution, in this case we use potassium hydroxide and potassium silicate. When you mix them together, they form a cement material, containing potassium ions that act as the electrolyte.” This breakthrough is an exciting one for a number of reasons. Smart concretes themselves are not exactly new; however, with researchers from Japan first developing the idea back in the 1980’s. According to engineer Danna Wang, most of these are challenging to implement, using prohibitively expensive materials such as graphene and carbon nano- tubes. “High-performance cement-based composites require not only high compressive, flexural, and tensile strength, but also favorable workability and good durability.” As well as cost, these materials are designed for small scale projects only and their use in large structures is not possible. The development from Lancaster University has identified a significantly cheaper alternative that is ideal for scaling up to the enormous super-structures that are already some of the most power intensive across the sector. It is a quick and cheap composite that is easy to produce. Additionally, because the electro-conductivity is achieved through potas- sium ions hopping through the crystalline structure, it does not require any expensive additional chemicals or additives. Incredibly, these hopping ions have the ability to store electrical energy. In addition to this, it has the capability to sense and respond to mechanical stresses. All this means that, when used correctly, these composites could store and discharge up to 500 watts per square meter. This could lead to, for example, houses storing daytime energy through solar panels, distributing the energy throughout the evening when needed. According to Prof. Saafi, the benefits of this technol- “When used correctly, these composites could store and discharge up to 500 watts per square meter.” | 58 MARCH 2024ogy could be wide reaching, suggesting that this composite could be an ideal solution for powering streetlights, which uses around 700 watts every night. “We have shown for the first time that KGP cement mixtures can be used to store and deliver electrical energy without the need for expensive or hazardous additives. These cost-effective mixtures could be used as integral parts of buildings and other infrastructure as a cheap way to store and deliver renewable energy, pow- ering street lighting, traffic lights and electric vehicle charging points. In addition, the concrete’s smart properties make it useful to be used as sensors to monitor the structural health of buildings, bridges and roads.” Incredibly, this is not the only research into electrified cement currently taking place. A second study being conducted in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University in the U.S. is exploring the potential uses of carbon block, a charcoal-like material that is created from incomplete combustion processes. According to Admir Masic, Scientist at MIT, the materials used are highly effective, and highly interesting. “"The material is fascinating, because you have the most-used human made material in the world, cement, that is combined with carbon black, that is a well-known historical material – the Dead Sea Scrolls were written with it. You have these at least two-millennia-old materials that when you combine them in a specific manner you come up with a conductive nanocomposite, and that's when things get really interesting." How it works is that, through the reaction process of cement, water as absorbed, leaving tendril-like shapes in the cement which the carbon black fills. These essentially become wires and cabling, transmitting energy throughout the entire sys- tem, aiding conductivity, and essentially turning the cement into a large-scale battery for storing and transmitting energy. According to the researchers at MIT, there are many ways in which this technology can be harnessed. "These proper- ties point to the opportunity for employing these structural concrete-like supercapacitors for bulk energy storage in both residential and industrial applications ranging from energy autarkic shelters and self-charging roads for electric vehicles, to intermittent energy storage for wind turbines." It seems that scientific research may be key to unlocking the challenges facing the energy network. With large-scale energy storage being an omnipresent difficulty, utilizing the very blocks beneath our feet, turning them into enormous batteries, is a potential boost of epic proportions to the infra- structure and energy networks. www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/new-smart-cement-mixtures- could-turn-buildings-into-batteries | 59 APEIRON CONSTRUCTIONNext >