Talcove Construction - Sustainable Business Magazine

TALCOVE CONSTRUCTION

REBUILDING STRONGER TALCOVE CONSTRUCTION SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE

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INTERVIEW: TALCOVE CONSTRUCTION

REBUILDING

STRONGER Sustainable Business Magazine speaks to Trevor Wallace, Managing Director at Talcove Construction about post-hurricane restoration, new construction techniques, and embracing technology.

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By Daniel Baksi Talcove Construction is a full-service general contractor operating out of Great Abaco, Bahamas. Since 2013, the company has offered a full range of construction services throughout the Bahamas, including project estimating and budgeting, value engineering, scheduling, logistics, and overall project management. Originally founded to develop a 220-acre luxury real estate community at Schooner Bay, Talcove has built its reputation on delivering quality services, and benefits from a team equipped to successfully execute any project, from custom residential and second home properties, to multi-million-dollar commercial facilities.

BACK FROM THE BRINK Since Sustainable Business Magazine last spoke to Talcove Construction in early 2019, the Bahamas suffered a calamity. On 1 September 2019, the Abaco Islands became the first islands in the Bahamas to make contact with Hurricane Dorian, a devastating Category 5 Atlantic hurricane, and the most intense tropical cyclone on record to strike the Bahamas, with maximum sustained winds of 185 mph (295 km/h). Severe damage followed, with power, water, telecommunications, and sewage services on the Abacos disrupted, and the Marsh Habour Airport on Great Abaco submerged. Thousands

of homes were destroyed in in central and northern Abaco alone, with most structures flattened or swept out to sea, and more than 70,000 people left homeless. The cost of damage for the Bahamas as a whole totaled US$3.4 billion.

Devastation of such immense scale has transformed the construction industry across the Bahamas, with emphasis falling heavily on the need to rebuild homes lost during the hurricane. “The dynamics have changed,” explains Trevor Wallace, Managing Director at Talcove Construction. “In Abaco, 99% of the work that’s being done right now is reconstruction or restoration.

That’s all related to Hurricane Dorian. Over the last few months, all the contracts we’ve signed have been restoration works on private residencies, often high-end personal homes. It’s our main focus, and the main focus of all construction companies at the moment. There is a small amount of new construction, and prior to the hurricane we were looking at a few other projects. But that’s been put on hold. Mainly, everyone is just trying to rebuild what they had in the past, and what’s been lost. That’s the larger need right now.”

HIGHER STANDARDS The havoc wreaked by Hurricane Dorian has also necessitated a new approach towards construction among contractors and clients. “There’s a desire to have what we would call a ‘fortified home’,” says Mr. Wallace. “Dorian changed the mindset of a lot of people living in the Bahamas, whether its locals or second-home owners looking to buy and live in the Bahamas. Having a building that is structurally sound is really of the upmost importance to everybody SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE

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INTERVIEW: TALCOVE CONSTRUCTION now. There’s also been several discussions about potential changes to industry standards – for example, whether the building codes need to be upgraded”.

The effects of this change are already been borne out in the construction of new homes. “From a structural standpoint, people are taking extra measures,” says Mr. Wallace. “It’s a fact that you can see clearly, just by looking at the construction that has happened across the islands in the months since Dorian. Where in the past people might have used number five rebar to core-fill and pour block walls at 32 inches or 48 inches on center, they’re now bringing them in closer: to 16 inches or 24 inches on center. Everyone is saying to themselves, ‘How do we prepare ourselves for the next Dorian?’ That’s been one of the key conversations with any client who’s rebuilding at the moment.”

PURSUING INNOVATION With the construction industry undergoing a change, Talcove has had to adapt its ways of working. “In general, a lot of our work is done within the office,” says Mr. Wallace. “We rely on software to manage a project and to track products, whether it’s an Excel spreadsheet or specific software for takeoff or to produce a project schedule – those are all things done with in-house software by myself and the other project manager. Especially now, with the high volume of restoration, there’s a lot more detail that needs to be done. For a lot of people who are reconstructing their homes, there’s a sentimental value: they want it to be built back the way it was before. As a result, we have to be very thorough with regards to documentation, photographing everything, and uploading those documents to ensure that we capture everything we might need.”

In light of the company’s dynamic workload, Talcove is also equipping itself with the latest hardware developments. “We try to stay up to date with what’s current in the industry,” explains Mr. Wallace. “Whether it’s a tool or material that can help us be more efficient, we do our research. We need to

“WE’VE ABOUT DOUBLED OUR CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTS SINCE JULY OF THIS YEAR TO NOW, IN SPITE OF COVID-19”.

make sure that if there is a new means and methods of getting things done in the field, and that will increase our productivity, we give it a try. Although the technology has been on the market for a while, one of the biggest things to come in recently has been in the field of drywall installation. Instead of using individual screws in a dry wall, you can now purchase a cartridge, which you insert into a screw gun, press against the drywall, and which then screws in automatically.

There’s no going into your pocket, getting a screw out, and screwing it one-by-one. This has increased our productivity on drywall installation by roughly 30%. It’s a change that everyone is excited about, because there’s now so much drywall work, with all the resto-

ration. It’s something that we saw would be a significant benefit to us overall, and help to keep our projects on or ahead of schedule.”

STRATEGIC REINVESTMENT Looking ahead, Talcove is seeking to play an even larger role in the reconstruction of Great Abaco. “We’ve seen an increase in work and an increase in the construction value that we’ve completed compared to last year and the year before,” says Mr. Wallace. “We’ve about doubled our construction contracts since July of this year to now, in spite of COVID-19. A lot of that has to do with the restoration as a result of Hurricane Dorian. In order to meet the demands of the work we have in the pipeline, we’ve already hired additional staff, both the management side, and in terms of skilled workers in the field. Our task now is to take on bigger projects, and we’re gearing up to that. We have several projects already being negotiated for 2021, and we’ve invested in some equipment, including a new crane, a forklift, and a few additional trucks.

We’re preparing ourselves, so that once the start-dates have been finalized, we’ll be ready to begin those projects on-schedule.” c SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE

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TALCOVE CONSTRUCTION

Talcove Construction P.O. Box AB-20016, Great Abaco, Bahamas. +1 (242) 225-4372 +1 (242) 225-9902 +1 (443) 977-6332 (U.S.) info@talcove.com https://www.talcove.com

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