A real battle: as the school sector heats up, Southern California block producers try to convey their product's cost-effectiveness - Hot markets: Southern California - Brief Article

Concrete Producer, The, July, 2002 by Don Talend

It may seem as though the door is wide open to getting the clear advantages of concrete masonry specified in Southern California's school sector, but in reality, members of the Concrete Masonry Association of California and Nevada (CMACN) have felt the need to smash through a door that's stuck. These producers--and even architects and school facility planners, for that matter--are well aware of the superior fire protection, thermal comfort, vandalism resistance, and low maintenance requirements that the material provides. The obstacle to getting concrete masonry specified is one that's all too familiar: initial cost.

Now is a very crucial time for the local industry to develop a consistent approach to demonstrating the cost advantages of concrete masonry for schools. The shortage of school facilities in California has become acute, and the potential opportunity cost of failing to make concrete masonry the preferred school construction material would be enormous.

According to the Coalition for Adequate School Housing and a 1997 California Department of Education report titled "Special Report on the Baby Boom Echo":

* Enrollment in the state's elementary and secondary schools increased by 160,000-190,000 annually during the previous 10 years.

* Total enrollment was projected at 6 million for 2001-02. This would roughly equal the population of Tennessee, the 14th largest state.

* In Southern California, the Los Angeles Unified School District had the nation's third-largest enrollment growth between 1984-1994 with an increase of nearly 86,000 students.

Out of necessity, no shortage of school construction dollars exists. In 2000, voters approved Proposition 39, which lowered the threshold for passage of local school bond measures to 55% from two-thirds, and since then, voters have approved a record 109 local school bonds allocating more than $11 billion to school construction. In 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that California ranked fourth in annual school construction spending at $1.2 billion.

The cost argument

When questioned about the misperceptions of the cost-effectiveness of lightweight concrete masonry in general, Pete Beard explains the difficulty in overcoming these misperceptions. The sales manager for Orco Block--a CMU supplier located south of Los Angeles near Anaheim--indicates that seismic building designs should make it easier for producers to promote lightweight materials from both a design and a cost standpoint. That's because even though lightweight concrete masonry is a more expensive wall material, it can provide other construction savings in a school and make concrete masonry competitive with alternative systems.

The hard part, he says, is explaining to school district officials the reductions that lightweight concrete masonry walls can yield in terms of overall construction costs.

"The big selling point of a lightweight or ultra-lightweight unit is that if you've engineered it into your job from the very start as an integral component, you can typically get away from the 12-inch block," he says, adding that reduced wall height suits seismic conditions. "Then you're able to reduce your footing size, and you're able to reduce your roof diaphragm and your roof connections. You've saved concrete in your footings, your structural systems, and your roof by making that wall lighter."

Another example of hidden savings that lightweight block achieve is reduced labor costs, Beard notes. "If you were doing a building with 12-inch material and you came down to 8-inch, even though you're paying double the price for the 8-inch, your mason, who was laying 200 block a day or 225, can now lay 300 a day or 325," he says. "Combine that with smaller footings and smaller roofs, and you get the picture. But it's such a big picture that nobody's really sat down and thought that even though it's a buck more, they can save X number of dollars on all of these other conditions."

Tom Finch, outside sales manager for RCP Block in Lemon Grove, located east of San Diego, points out the lower life-cycle cost of a concrete masonry school. "We're grinding more block right now than ever for schools," Finch reports. "It's not a dollar a block but $3.50 a block. Sometimes our sales reps get to thinking, `Wow, $3.50 a block; they'll never pay for that,' but maybe the alternative is more expensive than that."

The school district is getting "a finished product; they don't have another trade coming in, they don't have a painter, they don't have a plastering contractor," he continues. "Here they're getting a finished building from one trade; the masons are laying the block, they're cleaning their work, and it's done. Unless there's major graffiti, they've got a building that's pretty much maintenance-free from here on out."

Beard and Finch report that among alternative wall materials, steel stud or wood frame--which are typically given a stucco veneer--are the biggest competitors. One might expect that the low maintenance that concrete masonry requires in an environment of sometimes, well, excitable children would mean a lot to specifiers. But that isn't a real selling point either, says Beard. What about the thermal comfort that concrete masonry provides by reducing airconditioning costs, which are so important given the state's recent energy crisis? Isn't that a selling point? "I would tell you that it probably comes in fourth place," says Beard. "The only reason I'll play devil's advocate there is that you've got climate variations, and how you face a school--to the north, south, east, or west--plays a role. If you were going to build an identical school with an identical south-facing orientation, then you could probably make an apples-to-apples comparison."