Masonry Magazine July 1981 Page. 25
Books
`"1981 Engelsman's General Construction Cost Guide" by Coert Engelsman. 438 pages; 10-% x 8-%; publication date: January, 1981; $29.95. Van Nostrand Reinhold, 135 W. 50th St., New York, NY 10020.
The purpose of this publication is to provide unit prices for construction items for use in preparing cost estimates. Prices have been obtained from actual job costs (commercial, institutional and industrial ranging from $100,000 and up) in combination with quoted material prices and current labor rates.
`"Inside the Family Business" by Leon A. Danco, Ph.D. 250 pages; illustrated. $14.95. The Center for Family Business, P.O. Box 24268, Cleveland, OH 44124.
The successful business founder builds much more than just a business, Dr. Leon Danco writes in his latest book, Inside the Family Business. Drawing on two decades spent as a teacher and consultant to countless business owners and their families, he paints a picture that is as startling in its honesty as it is unusual in its compassion and understanding.
This is a book about the "family" in family business. It probably is the only book to deal with the family business as it really is a process made up of people whose needs, concerns, abilities, opinions, expectations and rights often conflict; people who share frustrations and joys within one of the most meaningful organizations human beings have ever created, the family.
This book will be useful not only to members of business-owning families but to employees, advisers and directors of family companies, and to their suppliers and and customers. It is a book for anyone who works with or within a successful family-owned business.
Model Solar Home Features
Exterior Insulation System
When architects in Raleigh, N.C., were commissioned to design a model passive solar design home, they decided to put the insulation outside the concrete block walls and cover it with a stucco-like finish. To do this, they chose a unified package called the Surewall SBC Insulation System.
According to architect Gary Bailey, a principal of Innovative Design Corp. of Raleigh, which designed the home, the system enabled his team to put together an entire monolithic structure including the fasteners, insulation board and surface bonding cement-all from one source.
The work was commissioned by the Carolinas Concrete Masonry Association, with headquarters in Greensboro, N.C. The plans, which are drawn for several home sizes, have an energy conservation level ranging from 90 percent in the coastal thermal zone to 57 percent in the coldest mountain zones.
A major factor in that energy conservation achievement is the exterior insulation system, which takes advantage of the thermal storage capacity (and the mass factor) of the concrete masonry.
Bailey praised the integrity of the Surewall system, which is registered by the W. R. Bonsal Co., Charlotte, N.C., and Best Concrete Products, College Park, Ga.
`"Dictating Effectively" by Jefferson D. Bates. $12.50 hard cover: $6.95 soft cover. Acropolis Books Ltd., 2400 17th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20009.
What did Winston Churchill, Julius Caesar and Earle Stanley Gardner have in common? They were all effective dictators. Everything these men wrote, they dictated.
Dictating Effectively takes the reader through the whole creative process of dictating-organizing material, preparing drafts, dictating without a secretary, dictating without being dull.
The author points out that most companies that have made a substantial investment in dictating equipment are frustrated to find that their employees are simply afraid to use a microphone. "The reason people are not using these machines is because of a lack of confidence," says Bates. "These basic fears are what I call The Freeze Syndrome and Dictaphobia. Overcoming these fears will conquer procrastination and step up productivity."
Jefferson Bates is president of Hampton, Bates & Associates, Inc., consultant in professional communications skills, and author of Writing With Precision, now in its seventh printing.
`Got 5,000 block to lay? Get 1,000 of them laid free using the "The Workhorse." See page 9
The model solar home is built with concrete block, either laid with mortar or drystacked and covered on both sides with surface bonding cement in a layer as thin as % in.
Then the insulation system is applied, starting with the insulation board of expanded polystyrene. It is attached to the outside of the concrete block walls with a special adhesive and a patented mechanical fastener.
The key to the system is the surface bonding cement, a patented mixture of cement, glass fibers and special chemicals, which is applied over the insulation board. After that dries for five days, a finish coat is applied. Any finishing technique that works with stucco can be used.
Complete architectural drawings of the model solar home are available for $35 from: Carolinas Concrete Masonry Association, 2306 W. Meadowview Rd., Greensboro, NC 27407, or W. R. Bonsal Co., P.O. Box 241148, Charlotte, NC 28224.