"The Glass Association of North America's(GANA)Fall Conference is taking place this week at the Hilton Chicago.Building Envelope Contractors(BEC)division task groups started off the day working on the development of two documents,the Commercial Fenestration Systems Manual as well as the Blue Print Reading and Estimating Course.
Chuck Knickerbocker with Technical Glass Products chaired both groups,opening with the work of the Commercial Fenestration Systems Manual task group.This new document is being developed to focus on a number of fenestration systems used in commercial glazing.Areas covered include structural silicone glazing,shading devices,point-supported wall systems and cable wall systems,among others.
According to Greg Carney,technical consultant for GANA,the manual will"ultimately will be an excellent source of information."A challenge with which they are faced,though,is that each section is being written individually.While some sections have moved along well,with others there is still a lot of work to be done.The group discussed the possibility of publishing the documents individually rather than waiting to compile and publish an entire book.
Also on the day's agenda was the Blue Print Reading and Labor Estimating Course,a self-paced course.Members are in the process of compiling questions and comments that will be considered in future developments.As part of the meeting,attendees discussed the original scope intent of the course and began developing plans for review and updating it.They plan to coordinate these efforts with the course grader,who has the most interaction with the students.
There were also a number of other areas the group is looking at for possible consideration.These include using configurator software programs.While such programs may be becoming increasingly common,Knickerbocker stressed that it is still important to know and understand how to so certain steps by hand.He added that each program must be set up for a particular system.
"There's a lot of upfront setup that goes into any software,"he said.
In developing an action plan for completing the updates,the group talked about the importance of more industry involvement and discussed the possibility of having some who are already using the course volunteer and talk about their experiences.The group's goal is to have the course complete by the spring of next year.
Meetings continue all this week in Chicago.Stay tuned to USGNN.com™for more updates from the conference."
