Raised Access Floors and Underfloor Air Distribution in Commercial Construction — Russell Cook, Cook's Construction

0:00We are excited to be announcing our newest presenter sponsor, Payzant Building Products. Payzant Building Products has been providing contractors and builders with the supplies necessary to complete their jobs since 1964. They've built a reputation on honest, helpful, and quality service, serving the HRM for the last 58 years — now with seven locations in the HRM and one in New Brunswick. We look forward to having Payzant Building Products on the podcast in the near future. Okay, welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Today we are excited to welcome

0:40construction and consulting, located in Calgary. So this is our longest reach to the western end of the country, and we're excited to have Russell Cook, founder of Cook's Construction and Consulting, with us today. Russell, thank you — thank you for doing this, thanks so much for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me on, really appreciate it, looking forward to it. You said you've seen a few of the episodes so far, so we're getting a few lessons from that end of the

1:10country, which is exciting. Yeah, we usually start out by just telling us a little bit about your background. I know you founded Cook's Construction and Consulting, specializing in raised access floor. Maybe just tell us a little bit about your journey. I think, if I'm correct, you came from an interiors background with framing and drywall in that arena, and then — yeah, I'll let you tell us a little bit about your — yeah, sure, thanks. Yeah, so in my

1:46younger years, yeah — definitely after high school and whatnot, I was fully into the construction. I actually — in the winter times I was doing basement developments, in the summertime building swimming pools, just trying to carve out, you know, where we're going to go. And then that kind of took me into the drywall world with the 675 union. And through that journey I got hooked up with a company out of Toronto, Ontario, that supplies, installs, and manufactures raised access flooring. So that was back

2:20in 2010 — late 2009, 2010. I was offered the opportunity to go to Calgary and work on the Bow Tower with that company. The Bow Tower at the time was the largest — tallest structure in western Canada, and that building had 1.8 million square feet of raised access flooring that the company was involved in. So we spent many, many years — more than I'd like to admit — inside that tower. I think — tell us how many. Yeah, it was a long time. I think

2:53we were in that building for — you know, the funny thing is, even today we're still — we're actually going to be going back in that building to do some tenant work over the next few months. So it's an amazing building, and it incorporates a lot of the modular construction methodology that we're now promoting today. But from that project, I kind of spun off and then went into the sales and project management role with the same company. And that took me out to Vancouver, so

3:21I was fortunate — I got to spend three years on the coast in Vancouver, again engaged in a couple of really nice big projects out there. And then, you know, as time progresses, family and kids come along, so we kind of came back to our roots here in Calgary, and that was in late 2017. And we were kind of — you know, we had an opportunity with that company to utilize Cook's Construction and then to kind of bring

3:50it to fruition. And then I had some quite major plans with Cook's, and I kind of had a vision of where I wanted to take it. We started off as just — I would say a pretty basic installation company, with a home office, a truck, and a trailer. And very quickly we were able to kind of blossom that and use our relationships, and we started taking on more manufacturers. And we went from just a simple installation company, like I said, and

4:17went more to a supply-and-install company. We were able to secure some really talented guys — we've got an amazing crew. Some of the guys that work with me now I've actually worked alongside since the first days of the Bow Tower. We've got three or four guys that were all involved in that project that are still with us today, like 15 years later. So yeah, that's kind of brought us full circle. Now we have an established location here about 15 minutes east of downtown Calgary — a

4:432,500 square-foot warehouse out back with an office in front, where we've got our raised access flooring and our partition systems set up. Really trying to showcase what we can promote and show people what we do exactly. So we've got all different types of raised floor — we've got the underfloor air, the partitions, the modular power — all throughout our office here. So yeah, just for our listeners on the East Coast who might not be familiar with the Bow Tower in Calgary — I think it's 56 stories

5:10and obviously the building — the structure itself is in the shape of a bow. And so you were saying earlier that basically the entire tower, except for the lobby and maybe the second level, is all raised floor. Yeah, you got it. So it's — I think the raised floor makes up about 1.8 million square feet of the space. Every floor is in and around the 25,000 square-foot mark, and every single floor utilizes a full raised access floor. It's about 12 inches

5:40off the slab, and they run all of their services underneath. So plumbing, the HVAC — the raised access floor itself acts as the plenum, so that is the duct. There's no actual ductwork within the space, short of a central core duct system that brings the air in from outside. Once it hits the mechanical room, from there it disperses under the raised access floor. So it's a fully pressurized system, and located around the floor plate there are eight or nine-inch circular diffusers, and that

6:10supplies everybody with the conditioned air for within the space. I imagine your experience with the interior systems and the framing background — used to coordinating with the trades on suspended ceilings and the whole layout and stuff too — and then leading into your experience with raised access floors with the Bow building and so on, and then starting your own company, like you've got a good handle on the whole interior-systems side of construction. We were able to almost

6:42see every single mistake possible in the Bow Tower. So being 56 stories and trying not to relive the same problems every single floor — we were able to, I mean, it was a scheduling nightmare for sure. There was trades working on top of each other. But you know, at the end of the day we did — it was a very successful project. But like I said, we learned every single lesson there is to learn. I mean, you

7:07definitely don't always know it all, but I would have to say that every mistake that could be made was made inside that building — and I mean that in a positive way, right? Everything's a learning curve. And being able to see all the other trades and how everything works together in such a big space — I mean, logistically it was quite an amazing project to come to fruition. Obviously there was 1,500 to 2,000 people every day just

7:35trying to get in the elevators to go up to the top of the tower. So pretty impressive. Who was the GC on that project? Yeah, so Ledcor — Ledcor was the — I believe they took a construction-manager role on that project, and there was Matthew's Developments kind of overseeing the project. So kind of a combined — Ledcor was the front runner as general contractor. Yeah. So for our listeners who aren't that familiar with raised access floors,

8:05you know, these are being used in classrooms, offices, command centers, data centers, retail spaces, casinos, museums — all kinds of commercial buildings. Was there a time where this system kind of became more popular with architects or with design? You'd obviously see it in certain areas — in the gymnasium with a stage area or something like that — but when did we see this type of construction more consistently on design and commercial? That's a great question. So I would say

8:43it's definitely a European or Asian technology, so to speak — it was definitely more prevalent in those areas of the world first. In Ontario, it was about 45-plus years ago now. I think it was Microsoft that did their first major data center utilizing a raised access floor. So in order for it — it kind of got its birth from the data-center world, whereby they had those very hot equipment racks and server racks and battery units and stuff like that. When

9:18they had all this — like, prior to all the cloud computing we have now, they had these major data centers. Inside those data centers, like I said, there's battery racks and servers and stuff, with all those computer elements, and they're super, super hot. So what they were trying to do was cool it from over top, right? So when you're having to cool those systems, you're pumping in cold air from above. It's kind of fighting the natural convection — the

9:43heat coming off those units and the cold air are kind of fighting each other. So one way to do it was to implement that raised access floor. You bring all your server racks on top of the raised floor — now you've done two things: you're able to bring your wires in from underneath, so it's easier for the technicians to bring the wire underneath and bring the wire up into those cabinets. And again, cooling it — bringing that cold air in under the raised access floor naturally wicks up those server racks and

10:07battery packs, right? So it was cooling it much, much more efficiently. So from there it kind of expanded out into the office space. The same concepts — where we had all the wires for people's computers, any power consumption, data management, all that stuff — was spread out from under the floor, running to people's desks. And what that did was give the ability to make changes very, very easily and efficiently. So instead of you plugging into a wall, you're now plugged into the floor.

10:38And the raised access floor is a modular system whereby each tile — each raised access flooring panel — is two feet by two feet. So the whole floor is made up of these modular panels. And your finishes, whether it's carpet or vinyl, would have the ability to be removed. You can access the raised floor that way — you can pick up different panels and interchange them over the course of that floor plate. So where you have a power connection coming to the floor, you can pick up that

11:02connection and move it anywhere within that floor plate. So you're never — quote-unquote — tethered to a wall. You maintain your power, your mechanical systems, your plumbing, everything within the floor plate. So you're never subjected to piping or electrical in a wall. You just have that fully spread out within the raised floor, and that allows for that future flexibility. So — and really a common-sense side of it — you're kind of inverting the ceiling plenum and the suspended ceiling to a

11:29raised floor. It might not be as easy to access as it is to just pop a ceiling tile open, depending on the floor system, right? But there are pendants, and the thickness — like you said — could be anywhere from as low as two inches to ten feet, depending on the area. That's right. Yeah, so the benefits of having a raised access floor versus — you're exactly right, sorry — from the ceiling system to the floor system, you're basically taking a drop

11:57ceiling and basically flipping it upside down and putting it on the floor. So now you're running all your services there. The benefit to having it come to the floor in an open-office environment — instead of having to have those pack poles or chase walls and stuff like that to bring your connectivity down to the people, you can now do that from within the floor. So from what we see, from a building-maintenance aspect, it becomes easier to make those kinds of

12:23moves as it changes. When you're able to simply run new wires and cabling underneath — I'll give an example. We did, about five or seven years ago now, at one of the universities here, five big lecture halls. So as a tiered seating, we can actually do that on a raised floor too. We can build the system in a tiered formation, they can put their furniture systems on top. And I'm probably aging myself — maybe as long as seven or eight years ago now,

12:48honestly. But when we did it, there was just simply 110-volt power run to all the students, right? So where all the tables would have been, there were just 110-volt outlets run. A couple of years ago we went back into all those classrooms, and we opened some of the floor. The data guys came in and they ran fiber optics and low-voltage — like USB cables — to all of those outlets. So over the course of the weekend we were able to take a

13:14just a traditional plug-in classroom — 110 plug — and over the course of the weekend we made it so that the students were able to simply plug the USB in. They had the fiber-optic or the high-def connections for the different tablets and things like that that they need at their desk. So with virtually no construction and no downtime, we were able to make that connectivity possible for the students. So that's where raised floor really lends itself. Another great example — we were building

13:45— we were doing about 800,000 square feet here for a large oil firm, the Esso campus here in Calgary. And unfortunately it was during the kind of downturn of the economy out this way. So what once was five buildings of separate floor spaces — one of the buildings became more of a laid-down area for remote employees to come in. So during the construction of this building, where we had the necessary offices and pods and stuff set up for people, during the building we were

14:12actually able to quickly adapt and change, and completely open up the layout. So it was very simple for us — we just relocated some of the wire we had under the floor, and then we were able to create more of a bullpen layout for the staff. So during that construction, which would have been a huge construction change typically, because of that raised access floor design we were able to adapt and just simply add a few more power bars and cables underneath the

14:37floor, and then maintain that connectivity for the workers. So talk a little bit about some of the energy consumption — because it's a pressurized system as opposed to a ceiling plenum, there's benefits there too, right? Yeah, so when you're dealing with a raised access floor and you've got what we call UFAD — underfloor air distribution — the nice thing is you're bringing air temperatures in at a much more — we'll call it an acclimatized setting. So you're bringing the air into that floor that is going to be virtually — if you're

15:08calling for, say, 21 degrees — 21 degrees here — you're bringing that air very close to that temperature. Versus the overhead system — the overhead system is, in turn, a mixing system. So when you're bringing that air in from overhead, it's designed to mix with the room air, so it has to come in much colder to be able to mix with the room in there. So just in terms of efficiency, bringing that air in from underneath the floor, you can bring it in

15:34at a much more moderate temperature, which means you're cooling less air. And because it is a fully pressurized system at a lower velocity — you're bringing in less turbulent air, so you need smaller units to pump the air through. Especially here — and I'm sure on the East Coast as well — you're able to use more free-cooling hours. So you're able to use the economizer settings a lot more because you're bringing in more moderate temperatures. And then you're able to effectively

16:02and efficiently ventilate the space better, because you're bringing the air from underneath and you're pushing the hot air away from the space. You know, you'll effectively be ventilating that space so much greater. So definitely in terms of energy efficiency, we see a great increase in efficiency and energy savings from a UFAD system. It sounds like the systems that you're installing for raised access floor, and the lines you carry — the manufacturers you deal with — it seems

16:29like a more robust system. Obviously suspended ceilings are very common, but a lot — depending on the aesthetics and the desired cost and that kind of thing — they're not as probably durable. You know, 10–15 years there's lots of ceiling damage, and light ceiling tiles are damaged pretty easily and that kind of stuff. So it sounds like a far more durable, robust option for that too, right? Totally. And nothing against the ceiling guys, but we

17:02typically try to promote that open-ceiling concept now, because virtually there's nothing in the ceiling besides your life safety and your lighting. In terms of efficiency, when you're building a building — let's say you're building a five-story building, and your standard slab-to-slab might be, let's call it 12 feet, and you've got two feet reserved for your ceiling system, your ductwork, and things like that — with a raised access floor, that 12 feet can now be translated into, say, 11 feet. What the typical ceiling system does in 24 inches,

17:31we can do in 12. So we can reduce the need for that slab-to-slab height. Now you're building a building that's slightly smaller, but you're still maintaining the same finished floor height. So you're still maintaining — if you wanted a 10-foot finish, say, from your floor to your ceiling — what we can do, like I said, in 12 inches what they do in 24. So we can actually reduce that overall building height, which means now you're spending less on your curtain

17:56wall, less glazing, your heating and cooling, less concrete — all that kind of stuff goes into the affordability of the raised access flooring system as well. And then in terms of the raised access flooring being robust, our systems are primarily made of steel and concrete, and they're rated — we have panels that are rated from anywhere from 1,250 pounds per square inch all the way up to 3,000 pounds per square inch. They're designed, you know, essentially for life — they

18:25know, they're not going anywhere. Versus a ceiling system. So yeah, definitely in terms of longevity, we like to believe that the systems that we install are going to last for quite some time, for sure. Yeah. So I know there are a lot of different systems and different floor panels that one could choose from — some of them are wood core, fiber and gypsum core (I'm assuming that's for fire rating), and there's a thickness for your foot traffic and

18:49stuff like that. But let's say if we have an average run-of-the-mill raised floor at 12 inches — what's the typical cost if you're budgeting per square foot? Yeah, no — definitely. And we're obviously faced with this question quite a bit. I have to preface the question by saying: giving a budget is one thing, but we need to make sure that we're not thinking about a budget for a raised floor as adding to the price of the overall

19:17project. So if we're looking at it in terms of a square foot, it's easy for us to sit here and say — and again, this is kind of an economy of scale, obviously with shipping and things like that — we're pretty safe on an overall floor plate to say, you know, make sure you add fifteen dollars a square foot for your raised access flooring system. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to add $15 to your overall budget — because you can subtract

19:42a suspended ceiling at five or ten dollars a square foot, and so on. And not just that — there's so much more. If you're going into an existing building, for instance — let's say we're going into an existing building and we're going to do a low-profile system, and we've budgeted at $15 a foot — what would that $15 a foot look like if you were trying to do, say, slab preparation? So let's say you had a slab and you had to flatten out your

20:04slab for your glass-wall system, because you need a relatively flat surface for your glass walls. You've got the coring of the slab, you've got trenching to run power — different, you know — even the cost just to X-ray the floor, to scan it before you can start coring. And then like you said, your ceiling systems, things like that. So there's a lot of give-backs. We have a lot of exercises that show two different models — one we can do where

20:27we're looking at a brand-new building where we're going to implement an underfloor air distribution system, or an existing building where we're going to just implement a small raised access floor, leave all the mechanical systems where they are, and look at data distribution and power distribution. Both models essentially get us to cost neutral. So you're actually able to add a raised floor into your budget but not necessarily increase your budget. And I mean, in terms of what we call traditional construction versus raised

20:54access floor — so you don't have to look at it as an addition to your budget. There's so many give-backs. Even as little as transition strips — things we can transition from carpet to tile to rubber without any transition strip at all. All the transitions are made within the raised access floor itself. So these panels, you can cut them on site. We can raise and lower portions — if you're going to drop it for an inch of ceramic tile or whatever, that can all

21:19be done with the raised access flooring system itself. So if a rough concrete floor is not consistent within a large 10,000 or 20,000 square-foot space, it's all self-leveled with the pedestals that are included in the floor system, right? You got it. So — every corner of the panel will share four panels — what we call a pedestal. So those pedestals are fully adjustable. I've got a couple sitting on the back shelf

21:45here, but the pedestal system itself has essentially a bolt — like a large bolt — that actually screws into the pedestal base. And incrementally we can take up — there's really nothing that you can't do with the raised access flooring system. We've seen floor slabs with three, four, five inches of deviation, and just because of that adjustability we can maintain a perfectly flat, laser-level floor. And you have all the deflection taken up within. It doesn't matter — we've done warehouse

22:14construction — warehouse floors where the slab has just been completely torn apart. We use a special pedestal adhesive, we glue the base down, and we can take up all that deflection and, like I said, have a perfectly flat floor surface. So tons of savings there. And I'm assuming just for consistency — a lot of the projects that you're bidding on are kind of base-build, right? Just because if an architect or design group is deciding to go the option of a

22:44raised floor, it's basically got to be consistent throughout the space, right? Yeah, definitely. So in terms of new build, there's obviously a huge design element with the raised floor, because now we're talking about a depressed slab. You've got your full-height windows, so we've got those sitting on a curb where the raised floor is going to meet up to it. You've got to think about your bathrooms, you've got to think about your elevator core or your stairwells — how is all that going to jive with the raised access floor?

23:09So there's definitely a lot of work that way. But honestly, we see a lot of our work — I would say almost 60, 60–70 percent — I bet 60 percent of our work is in existing spaces, where they're adding a raised floor, whether it be two inches or ten inches. We can come into a space and we can build that raised floor system to give the users that freedom and flexibility to run all their power and data under the floor. This

23:35gives them the option to have that really nice low-profile aluminum glass-wall system. So you can have a really slim-line aluminum track at the bottom, maintaining as much natural daylight as possible, because that floor is perfectly flat. So in a situation where we're coming into an existing space, we have the ability to create a small ramp out of the raised floor, staying with modular. So we have to use the raised access flooring panels — we have special heads that angle them down. So things like bathrooms, stairwells,

24:02elevated lobbies — we can actually ramp down to those or have a step down to those, maintaining the raised access floor modularity and flexibility. And that way we can implement these systems in a variety of spaces. So we do see a lot of colleges and universities. We've just completed close to 400,000 square feet recently at the local university here — they've gone full raised access floor throughout. But in addition, a lot of their old spaces — now we're getting a lot of projects coming up that

24:30are adding raised floor just simply for that flexibility and connectivity. As the students and their technologies evolve, that raised flooring system allows the school to evolve with them, because they can simply add means of power and connectivity under the floor without going into full construction mode — without all the downtime. There's not all this construction, you're not ripping out lengths of cable from the walls, you're just simply adding new infrastructure within the floor space. What about healthcare — is it used in that domain at all?

25:02Yeah, we do see some. It doesn't seem to have lent itself well in the hospital environment. I think that comes mainly from a cleaning aspect, because the raised access floor is designed to be accessed. In hospital settings and things like that, cleanliness — and being able to essentially hose down an entire area — means that you have to have a full sheet-good on the floor, whether it's the welded vinyl or

25:31whatever. So it doesn't always lend itself well to having that raised access flooring system because it is designed to be accessed. That being said, we've done a few projects in the healthcare field — mainly X-ray rooms, MRI rooms, and things like that, where they need to get all the power and stuff under the floor coming up to these machines. We do a lot of simulators and stuff too, but same concept. So they can run all the power and stuff to these units without having

25:59cords overhead or kind of along the floor space. Yeah, and it's going to be quite popular in retail as well, right? Shopping malls and — yeah, we've seen — casinos are huge. I bet the majority of casinos in Canada that we know of anyway have gone with the raised access floor, simply for that aspect of power and data distribution. Casinos of old used to be, you know, the manual pull-down thing — not much connectivity needed other than power.

26:29And nowadays they've got full LED screens and they're connected to the internet — all that kind of stuff. And then being able, as a casino, to change the layout of your slot machines lends itself perfectly to raised floor. Then you're not running those big pack poles down to a group of slots — you're bringing all the power from underneath. So the majority of casinos out there — with the exception of Vegas, for some strange reason. Vegas hasn't quite adopted it.

26:52They seem to have stuck to their guns with their ceiling systems. But the majority of casinos out this way that we see are all raised access floor. Further to that — anytime you see mass timber, and obviously mass timber is becoming more and more popular for mostly aesthetic reasons — most times you see a mass timber project, it's got to be a raised floor, right? You don't want to cover up the beautiful aesthetic of natural

27:24wood. And structurally it's still going to be open ceiling, right? You don't want to be dropping stuff in front of that. So it's all got to be exposed. 100%. Like, mass timber and raised floors — they go together so well. It's exactly what you said, because if you don't have the raised access floor, you're going to have to have large amounts of ductwork — you're going to have to run your data cable trays somewhere — and that's

27:48typically going to have to be reserved for that ceiling system. And then like you said, you're covering up all that beautiful aesthetic wood. No, so yeah — we haven't done too many; they don't seem to be rolling out in the masses here — but we are working on a lot of different designs with mass timber right now, and raised access floor, just because it does make sense. Especially for those unsightly ceiling systems that are typically

28:12reserved for, you know, behind the ceiling system. Whereas with mass timber you want to leave it fully exposed. And then you're reducing your materials as well — you're getting rid of a lot of those ceiling systems, you're reducing the sheet metal, the ductwork — and you're keeping that open plenum underneath the raised access floor. So yeah. Talk a little bit about some of the other manufacturers that you're connected with, aside from the raised floor — like for demountable glass office-wall systems and

28:38your customized display mill work and stuff like that — kind of all goes together. Yeah, our approach is trying to stay within that whole modular building-construction methodology. So we have a belief that we can — everything with us starts with a raised floor. Don't get me wrong, we do do demountable partitions without a raised floor, but our kind of promotion and our claim to

29:05fame is to start with the raised access floor. With the raised access floor, that allows you to have modular power. When I speak of modular power, I'm referring to a connection — so I'm literally saying that anybody, building-maintenance guys, anybody like that, can come under the floor and you can plug into furniture feeds or electrical boxes that are floor-mounted. And then what that does is bring us into our glass partition system. So having the power distribution and electrical distribution under

29:32the access floor means you can put up the lovely glass walls, because your power is inside the floor. So you don't have to worry about plugging into a wall, and you can keep those glass walls and have that open-office concept with our modular furniture. So our wall supplier is actually based out of Montreal, and they provide us with a variety of different options. But the truly demountable systems that we work with — so you can go from a glass

29:59wall — you can actually pop out the aluminum track, pull out one piece of glass, and you can put in, say, a wood wall. So you can go from glass to wood, single-glaze to double-glazed. And again, you're keeping the power in the floor, so you have the option to actually move that wall from one location to the next. So it is a truly demountable system, which lends itself well to growing businesses and growing organizations. Once you've implemented your office layout, you know, down the line as you

30:24expand, you're able to literally take those walls — those glass walls — and move them around your floor plate. Because you've got that perfectly level floor, power is in the floor, you can move those glass walls anywhere around the office. Yeah, so it sounds like you've carved out a bit of a niche — with the fact that you specialize in raised floor and the whole modular concept for interior construction. It makes me think it's similar to companies like Dirtt Environmental or something, but they're more of different types of

30:50partitions and stuff like that. Who would be your direct competitors in the western provinces? Are there many companies specializing in, from the ground up so to speak, their approach and business model? There definitely are. We've got some great competition out there — more so on the wall side. We look at the walls as they complement our system. Cook's Construction — the company as a whole — we focus definitely on the raised floor. Like, that's our

31:18claim to fame — that's what we've done for 15-plus years. But all these other systems that we brought on or utilize are just things that complement the system that makes the space that much better for the owners or the occupants. What separates us a little bit from our competition is all of our guys are trained and certified, in-house employees. So we don't have any subs that we work with — all of our guys are retained by Cook's. But in

31:45terms of competition, we do have the Dirtt and the Falkbuilt — the Hayworths out there — that do the glass walls and the modules. So they're manufacturers as well, right? These companies are — they are, yeah. So they use their dealer network to be able to promote, so they've obviously got a variety of dealers throughout Canada. And the difference with them is — I think they do have a type of raised access flooring system. It's a little

32:12different from ours. I would never speak negatively about different companies, but their system is more geared toward just data disbursement and stuff. In order for them to run power throughout — similar to ours — it's a bit more robust and designed for very heavy loads, and maintains that underfoot feel like a traditional slab. We like to think — as far as if somebody walks on our floors — we like to compliment

32:39that people say they don't even know they're walking on a raised floor. We don't want people to be able to feel or hear the raised floor — it should just walk like a traditional concrete slab. There should be no differentiation between our floor and a slab. So — and some of your demountable glass partitions, after the raised floor is complete, are they freestanding or do they need to be extended up to deck height? Different options? Yeah, we have a variety of

33:06options. Oftentimes they're tied to a ceiling system or bulkhead, but even in our office here — my office is completely open concept. We've designed it so that you can actually look over from upstairs and see the living office space. So we've got the modular desk, we've got the power and the air and stuff — you can actually see it. But no, we are fortunate to work with a manufacturer that allows us to have almost a freestanding pod. So you can have a

33:30four-sided pod in the middle of a floor that's completely open concept. Structural steel elements within the aluminum itself can allow us to erect these in a variety of fashions. We're doing a project out in Vancouver currently where the mezzanine level — there's no ceiling system — so all of the partitions have a finished header piece with our structural steel elements inside. And that's achieved in a seismic zone as well. So you're not really tied to any one form of construction

33:59with the demountable partitions, which is nice. Obviously it lends itself to the raised floor concept and reducing your overall materials and creating a more sustainable working environment. Tell us a little bit about Cook's and your labor force. You mentioned everything is in-house for installation. When you're bidding on public tenders and you're bidding on stuff, mostly in Calgary and Vancouver — central Canada as well? Yeah, we're — that's one thing that I'm most proud of about Cook's. We've

34:31kept that aspect of our business, and it's one thing that we feel very, very strongly about. If a contractor asks us to be here on September 1st at 11 o'clock in the morning, we can guarantee that, because the guys are retained by us — they're all employed by Cook's. And it's something that allows us to offer the best guarantee and the best warranty we can, because we know the work is going to get done right. There's

34:57the guys don't have to meet a certain deadline to make a certain amount of money — they're paid by the hour, they're committed to the project. There's no sense of urgency other than meeting the project schedule, of course. But the biggest thing for us is ensuring the project is completed to the best of our ability and to make sure the client is happy. Because our business is so based on referrals — we do a good job here

35:22for one client, there's a great chance that we're going to be able to work with that client again in the future, whether it's an architect, end user, or obviously a general contractor. And again, retaining in-house — we're able to go across Canada, which has been fantastic. The guys love traveling; we've got a beautiful country here. Being able to see a lot of it while working, being paid to travel — it's amazing for the guys. They spent a month out in BC on the

35:50coast doing a really nice project for a general contractor, right on the coast — and we rented them an Airbnb on a lake, and they just had a ball with it. We've got projects in Saskatchewan that we're just wrapping up now. We were successful in a project actually in New Brunswick — we're going to be working on the Kodiak policing facility out there, providing some raised access floor. So I'm definitely going to have to travel, because I've never been

36:16that far, so I'm looking forward to that. But our guys will do all the traveling — they'll drive across the country, fly, drive across the country, whatever we have to do. But again, it just allows us to be not only competitive but make sure that we're providing the client with what our expectations are and what we know we can deliver. Tell us a little bit about your first job that you secured in New Brunswick that you just mentioned. I know you mentioned earlier that it was

36:42with Palmer Low, and yeah — public tender there. So is that raised floor in certain areas of that police facility? That's correct. Yeah, I'm trying to think back to exactly what the drawings are now, but I'm not sure exactly which part of the building it's going to be in. But you're doing all the estimating yourself? I do a lot of it, yeah. We — I do actually have a business partner who actually resides in

37:07Toronto, Ontario. Him and I have worked together for many, many years — longer than I'm sure either one of us would like to admit. But he was actually on the Bow Tower, so him and I are sharing the estimating and sales responsibility. We have a full-time project manager who again was on the Bow Tower with us, and our construction manager Colby — he's been with us, him and I have worked together since the inception of my career with raised access floor. So just those four — kind of

37:33four or five, we'll call it management staff — we've all known each other and worked together for over 15 years. And then again, there's three of our installers that were also on the Bow Tower when I first started. So the experience is unbelievable. And I've completely lost track of exactly what the first question was, because I started talking about something else. And I was just wondering if you'd give us a

37:57few details on the project in New Brunswick, just because it's your first project on the East Coast. And yeah, yeah — so we're super excited. We do have another project coming up in Ontario, but the East Coast project — Kodiak — it's not a huge raised access floor, but it's a raised floor. I think 3,000 square feet, and it's going to be in their operations center, I believe, where there are a lot of desks — and maybe it'll even be the call center. We'll

38:22call it the operations center, there. So again, they're going to use it mainly for distributing the cable. It's not used as a plenum — the air is going to be from overhead — but they're going to use it for all their connectivity and power, we'll call it. And again, this just gives them the option down the road to add more people to that space. They can very easily add a pod of desks into that space, and because they have that raised access

38:47floor, they can very easily — from the electrical closet — bring new power in utilizing that modular power, and coming up through the floor space there. So yeah, really excited about that. The project — I think for us we should be out there Q1, Q2 of next year. Very excited. We'll have to drop in and see you guys. Yeah, you have to drop in at Water Street in Halifax and pay us a visit — we'll grab a patio somewhere downtown. 100%, yeah.

39:13Tell us a little bit about — you know, in 2018 when you started Cook's Construction — obviously a lot of the guys came from the Bow Tower and you've worked with them for years. Just for our listeners who are contractors, or are thinking about entering the industry or starting their own thing as a business — might be tradespeople that are very experienced on that end, but have a little bit of concern and uncertainty — and then

39:40just kind of pulling the trigger and following through with it. Maybe tell us a little bit about that experience. Obviously it was a couple of years before things got globally shut down for a little bit, so at least you had a couple of years under your belt before that happened. But yeah — yeah, we picked a heck of a time to do it. There's definitely — yeah, that's a great question. And I apologize if I jump back and forth —

40:04I'm going to try and get everything out, because I've got a lot of fun stuff I can talk about on that. But I don't know that there ever is a right time to ever do anything. Maybe there are better times, sure. I've always thought and wanted to have my own company, or at least have a company that I can share with guys and try and do something successful. I truly love

40:30what we do. I love the raised access floor — I believe in it wholeheartedly. So the decision for me to do this was easy, because I really believed in what we promote and what we do. I believe that it does make a difference, I believe it does make the office environment — or the environment that we're putting it in — that much better. So it's very easy from that side of it. Now, obviously, we started — like I said — I had a home office, a truck and a trailer,

40:57and the guys, being so good, used their own vehicles to start with — driving to and from the job sites, putting tools in their own vehicles to get this thing going. So we really had a big buy-in from all of — well, we'll say employees, but associates, or whatever we want to call them. But in terms of people wanting to start their own business, absolutely — I think it's great. It's

41:20amazing how many people I've met along the way that do their own thing. It's a very rewarding thing. It's also — I mean, you've got to be prepared for a lot of sleepless nights. That's very true. And there are huge growing pains. But it's a lot of fun along the way too. I mean, like I said, we've gone from a truck and trailer in a home office to owning a building — paying for a building — but being in a

41:46space that we've been able to completely design. We took an open warehouse and we completely renovated the front — you know, 1,500 square feet of the front — and kept 2,500 square feet of warehouse. So we had a vision, we had some — I still have the sketches today that I sketched on paper. Then we go through the architect design, and now we're seeing it all come to fruition. It's an amazing journey. And obviously there was a big chunk of that in the

42:11middle where, unfortunately, COVID hit us. And it was odd for sure, because a lot of our construction sites were just shut down for several months. So that was a weird thing to navigate through, but we got by. And we've got a lot of really good contractors out here that trusted us with their projects. And again, I think that lends itself to the quality of employees that we have, and our guys are so good at

42:39ensuring that the contractors, the owners, and the end users are getting exactly what they want, that we're able to get referred and come back and do the job again. So yeah, it's been a hell of a journey. So what advice would I give to anybody starting their own company? I would say absolutely go for it. It's not going to be easy — there are going to be times when you kind of look at yourself and say, man, is

43:04this going to work, am I going to be able to do this? But at the end of the day, it is a very rewarding thing. Surround yourself with good people. You've got to treat the people that you do surround yourself with well — that's a really big, important thing. Nobody's ever below you. They're always at your level, they're always your biggest assets. Your employees and the people you work with are your

43:30biggest assets. Make sure that they're happy, and that they're going to treat you the same way as well, right? Well, congratulations on being four-and-a-half years in and weathering the storm of the whole pandemic, and completing jobs all over the western provinces, and then your first job here in eastern Canada — sounds like you're doing okay! You've got to be really happy with that. That's amazing, and congrats on that. I appreciate that, thanks. No, it's been a hell of a

43:57journey. This year — 2022, end of 2021/2022 — I sat down with my wife and our closest guys here and I said, this is going to be a big year for us, because we're bidding and working on projects that are north of a million dollars. And those are — there are big financial constraints on those projects, especially when you're purchasing materials — we're buying materials in February for a job that's just

44:24delivering next week, for instance. So we're months out, and of course the manufacturers need to get something, the shipping guys need to get something, before you're even able to get boots on the ground. So it was a big financial burden — you kind of have to build up to there. And I always said that by 2022, come 2023, was going to be a pivotal year for us. It was either going to be a huge growth year — which it definitely is, regardless, it's a huge growth year —

44:49but if we can really maintain the direction that we're heading, 2023–2024 should be really exciting — able to get into a lot more projects from the design aspect and work with the architects and designers and kind of be their trusted companion, so to speak, throughout the project. And making sure that we're able to deliver a successful project at the same time. So you've obviously worked on lots of major projects like the Bow Tower

45:19you mentioned, and then all kinds of different-size projects. What's your take on what the market is like right now in Calgary and in the western provinces? I know here in Atlantic Canada it's thriving for sure — it's booming — commercial, institutional, industrial projects at the moment. So I'm super optimistic with the way things are going. I feel like I have my ear to the ground in terms of what's the Bank of Canada doing with

45:48mortgage rates, and how are all those things, as well as what's going on with the RFP world and what's happening in quotations and tenders. We're answering more tenders now than I ever have. I mean, I hate to say it, but I think for the first time ever the last couple of weeks we've actually looked at a couple of jobs and said we're going to have to probably pass on that one, just because we've got all these other things happening here. Which is a great — it's a great place to

46:13be. Not being on a job, or having to look at jobs a little more closely and kind of pick and choose — because there is a good chunk of tenders out there. But I do feel really optimistic. There are several towers in Calgary, you know, we've had some rocky times over the last five to ten years. Some of the vacancy rates in Calgary have been very, very high. We're seeing now there are a lot of tenders coming out filling those spaces,

46:40which is really, really nice to see. We've retained some really big clients. The Alberta government's done a pretty good job of bringing in some major tech firms. I know IBM is taking a chunk of square footage here, and there are a few other big tech firms I can't think of off the top of my head. But retaining some major investment here — and those are desirable for you, and the fact that when you have a tech firm moving in, they're

47:02going to take hundreds of thousands of square feet across the province, and a lot of data and stuff to run under those raised floors. 100%, yeah. And like — same as Vancouver — Vancouver has always been great and popping, and it seems to not be slowing down at all. Saskatchewan as well, there's a big push there. I do feel really, really optimistic about where we're heading. I hope that things just keep trending that way.

47:27Keeping up with the labor force is tricky. It's been tough. You know, with our guys we've got a core group of about eight to ten guys that stick with us from the install side, but we need to supplement them obviously with labor — bringing in new guys, getting them trained. So it's been tricky navigating. I'm sure some of your other guests have had the same problem maintaining a labor force. But yeah, again, super, super good problem

47:51to have. But there's so many people at work — it's just one big circle. There are so many people working, they're going to be spending money, the economy is going to be spinning. And hopefully everybody's able to be successful. Is there some training and development that one can get in, specifically for interior raised floors and modular? Yeah, it's funny. In Alberta we're not very union-heavy, and again, even from central Canada west, really

48:20there's not a heavy union presence. But in Ontario, where I started, it's all unionized. So all the raised access flooring guys that I was working with were all coming from the carpenters — the joiners union, right? Yeah. So those skills are very transferable into a raised floor world. I mean, we use lasers, we use measuring tapes, layout — so it's not by any means the hardest thing in the world to

48:48install. But it's one of those things where if you get into a problem early on, it's very hard to correct. Like, you can imagine — with a raised access floor, we're installing a modular panel system, so it's two-foot by two-foot. And we're doing sometimes buildings that are 150 feet long, and you're running down a perfectly straight line. If that line deviates ever so slightly, once you start adding on to that flooring system, we've had it where you just can't even squeeze a tile in,

49:12yeah — because it's got such a small little bend in that line. So in terms of what skills we look for — we like guys that are not necessarily limited to just the raised access floor world or the glass partitions, because we do a couple of different things. We like guys that have got a bit of experience in a couple of different things. Like Keith, our project manager, is well-versed in the world of glazing, which is great obviously with our glass. And Colby

49:40and our other guys come from the flooring background as well. So having a mix of skills is really good for our kind of line of work. Yeah, I can imagine — you're really not wanting to — it's probably zero-percent deficiencies when it comes to raised floors and glazing. You don't want to — it's not like you're going back in to patch up a little bit of drywall or a ceiling tile or something. It's a

50:05little more complicated if there are any errors at all. That's right. Like, we see nine times out of ten the deficiencies with a raised access floor — if you're dealing with an underfloor air project — the biggest deficiency is going to be air leakage. That's the biggest hurdle that we have to get over, because you are the top seal of that duct, right? So because it's a plenum space, the raised access floor is acting as that seal. You want to make sure that when you're pumping air

50:31from the mechanical closet throughout the space, you need to make sure that that air can get uninterrupted all the way to the perimeter. Because you need to provide air to the perimeter to cool down — like any register, like in any house, your air vents are always by the window because that's your heat load, right? So we have to do the same thing in an office building — we have to make sure that we can keep that pressure all the way to the outside zone. So if we have

50:52leakage other than our diffusers, it's a huge problem. Because we don't get enough air to the perimeter, the building doesn't work as efficiently. And it's not going to say it's a complete disaster, but it's very tricky once you've installed the floor to find out where things are leaking. You know, you've got a little hole in the drywall over here, the raised floor is not sealed on the edge over here — so there are some tricks of the trade there. And especially when you're doing your glass

51:17walls — if there are punctures in the raised access floor, we're going to make sure that we're sealing those up as we go. So there's — we're fortunate our manufacturer that we work with for the raised access floor has a floor that's specifically designed for underfloor air, so it's got a continuous gasket around it. We can seat the panels, and we're very confident that our system can withstand that. So we're trying to mitigate those problems that we've seen in the past — we can now navigate around them. So it's

51:45yeah, definitely little tricks as we go, for sure. For sure. Yeah. And I just want to mention — any of the guys from the interiors, drywall, wall and ceiling trades — I definitely didn't mean to diminish them in any way. I come from that background — I know, and so do you, Russell. And I was pretty much only good for slugging drywall and throwing in studs. All the skilled guys are putting the grid in and doing all the tough stuff. So those guys are

52:09definitely really very skilled and talented. It's highly skilled — it takes a team to build a building, right? There's not just one trade. And it takes team effort, which is nice. When I was coming up through the trades — even my early years in raised access floor — it was very — it wasn't as courteous and nice as it is these days. Like, these days everybody really seems to work

52:33together, and there's a big buy-in from all the trades. We're not damaging other people's work, and you're more conscious of other trades and their work. Because at the end of the day, we're all there for the same reason — we're all there to be successful. We want the client and the end user to spend more money or tell their counterparts, 'Hey, look at our building and how fantastic it is.' Well, the other guys say, 'We can build a better

52:56one — look what we can do.' And you know, we get that buy-in from everybody. So yeah, no — definitely wouldn't discount any other trade out there. Like I said, we've worked on some amazing projects with some absolutely fantastic tradespeople, and we're very pleased to be a part of it. Yeah. And I think it makes me think of — you know, when you're on the architectural side, which is very similar — from wall and ceiling and raised floor and

53:21your modular partitions and stuff — you're definitely integrated with all the other HVAC and electrical and plumbing trades, finished carpentry, mill work, and everything. And just to have a good foreman that communicates so well, to have everybody working together with your critical path and everyone staying ahead of each other and all that kind of stuff — takes a lot of work and a lot of leadership. And I think, whether it's construction or any other

53:47industry, just when people can come together and work toward a schedule and a budget and make it happen — at the end of the day, when the job's done, it's a feeling you can't really describe. I think without that feeling, you know, it's hard to keep going. And obviously you know what I'm talking about — you wouldn't be doing what you're doing. But yeah, there are so many great people out there in the trades. I've met some of the best people

54:12out in that world. And like you said — building those buildings — I've got two young girls, and whenever we're driving around they're always pointing at buildings like, 'Daddy, did you build that building?' 'No, but I know someone who did — or maybe we're going to be working on that one day.' But yeah, it's something you can look at afterward and be very proud of. Unfortunately, a lot of times the raised floor — nobody even knows it's there, which is a good thing.

54:34But we do a lot of walls as well, which — if you did a good job, nobody'll ever know you were there. That's the idea, right? Yeah, exactly. It's hard, though — sometimes you know, people want to go see the floor, and you can't get into a lot of these buildings, right? Because a lot of the stuff we do is obviously office buildings, schools, data centers, and things like that. But we're fortunate — we're going to be doing a big casino here, which will be open.

54:54You know, there's obviously — a new casino or renovation — a brand-new casino here in Calgary, just up by the airport. We'll be in there in the next couple of weeks actually — 26,000 square feet of eight-inch raised access floor. The raised access flooring system is actually going to be able to withstand a concentrated load of 2,500 pounds. They're going to be able to drive — you know, those really big scissor lifts, the dual-man scissor lifts — they're going to be able to drive

55:22that right along the access flooring system so that they can change and do all their maintenance to the 25-foot-high ceiling. So it's what we call the heavy-duty Icon system that's going to be going in there. It's really impressive what our manufacturer's been able to do over the years and produce some amazing panels that can withstand those super-heavy loads. So that's amazing — I'll have to go check it out, play some blackjack. Next time! That's what we

55:46said — it's going to be great for us to bring our clients to somewhere, because it's a place to have a bite, you can have a drink, and you can lose a couple of bucks in the process. Exactly — nice place to be, for sure. The Calgary Stampede was quite recent — did you get a chance to take the girls down to see Kevin Costner there with his Yellowstone swag on? I love that TV show. Yeah, no — you know, we didn't.

56:08The Stampede — the opening ceremony, the parade with Kevin Costner — I heard on the radio there were over 300,000 people that attended that. So the city of Calgary has grown exponentially over the years, and it's tough to get around sometimes without the Stampede to throw into the mix. It's very busy, which I'm super happy about because I love to see businesses downtown thriving. It's been obviously — as anywhere — it's been tough the last

56:36few years. So just to hear that there are 300,000 people watching the parade means that there are 300,000 people spending money downtown, which is amazing for all the businesses. But no — I didn't get to see Kevin Costner, unfortunately. But myself and a couple of guys here, we all took our kids down the other day to the Stampede. We did pick the hottest day of the year — 32 degrees outside — and they were measuring mid-40s in the grounds. So safe to say my three-year-old didn't last

57:01too long, but we did get to see some Paw Patrol characters, so she was pretty happy about that. Yeah, it's got to be 30 degrees here in Halifax today — it's quite muggy, but it's been beautiful weather here. And I know you're saying it's the same out there. And Russell, this has been a real treat for us at the Atlantic Construction Podcast team. Especially — we've had a few guests from central Canada, but like I said, this is our

57:26furthest reach west. So we hope to have some more guests on the show and kind of share perspectives from one end of the country to the other. And we definitely want to wish you luck with the project in New Brunswick coming up in the first or second quarter of next year. And I'm sure we'll stay in touch, and maybe we'll get to see you when you're in this neck of the woods. Yeah, maybe we'll

57:48do a live podcast next time and we'll see if there are some updates for you guys on the next one when we come through. But no, I really appreciate you guys having me on — it's been fantastic. It's my first ever podcast, really excited to do this. So yeah, thanks again for having me on — it's great, really appreciate it. Thanks, Russell. Cheers. Cheers, thanks. This episode is brought to you by Cook Insurance, your trusted insurance broker in Atlantic Canada for 50 years. Insurance is complex, and the Cook team focuses on

58:13delivering comprehensive solutions for your construction needs, including builders risk, wrap-up liability, performance bonds, and project-specific coverage. A Navacord partner since 2020, Cook is one of the largest construction brokers in Canada and offers national strength with a local touch. Whatever your insurance needs are, Cook has you covered. We would like to take this time to thank a long-time sponsor of our media platform, FCA Surety. The brokers at FCA Surety are experts in all surety bonding categories and provide unparalleled service during the bonding process. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of

58:49the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Be sure to follow us on any podcast platform you use. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Instagram at Atlantic Construction Podcast. Be sure to send us a comment or a review — we'd love to engage with you.