Category Archives: Commercial Construction
Top 7 Tips to Start Saving Money and Energy in Your Commercial Kitchen Today
1. Turn It Off!
Just like leaving the lights on in your home, leaving equipment to run idly will cost you hundreds of dollars for unused energy. By turning off your inactive equipment, it saves energy and plenty of cash on your next gas, electric, or water bill. For those times when you forget to turn off equipment after closing, electrical timers can be placed on outlets to automatically flip off equipment when you aren’t around.
Typical equipment left on overnight or during idle kitchen hours are griddles, French tops, ranges, convection ovens, and dish machines. These can all have timers placed between their power outlets and cords to turn them off when you forget.
Energy Saver #1: Even if you remember to turn off some equipment, other side tools are often forgotten. For instance, after you turn off your dish machine, don’t forget to turn off the booster heater.
Energy Saver #2: You can’t turn the whole griddle off, but you can turn off some of the burners during slower business hours. Turn off all the griddle burners except leaving one burner on for off-peak hours. This will save you energy while still keeping kitchen services available.
2. Review Your Lighting
Areas such as walk-in coolers or your dry store room don’t need to be illuminated all day long. Turning off lights as you leave typically unused areas is a great way to save money on your energy bill. Again, electrical timers can be used in these areas especially if they are commonly forgotten and left on overnight.
The kind of lighting you use makes a significant difference in your energy consumption too. Florescent lighting uses 1/4 to 1/3 less energy than normal bright lights. Replacing bulbs with higher efficient options will show a lower cost in your monthly bill.
Energy Saver #3: Higher efficiency bulbs can be used in areas that require constant lighting. Replace incandescent lights in your walk in cooler with fluorescent lights which are cooler and consume less energy.
3. Reduce Water Consumption
Energy Saver #4: Replace older faucets with the newly developed models that conserve water without compromising performance. You can find a list of endorsed products on the official Green Restaurant Association web site.
Energy Saver #5: Using a standard dishwasher to clean dishes is sufficient for glassware and other kitchen equipment. Don’t pre-wash dishes. It’s often unnecessary, wasting water and energy and increasing operational costs.
4. Make Your Menu More Efficienct
Are your menu items being prepped and cooked as efficiently as possible? Items that need to be thawed for daily food service can be defrosted in a refrigerator overnight instead of under running water reducing energy usage and conserving water. Review your menu to see if there are common ingredients or items that can all come from one source. Minimizing the number of individual deliveries you receive weekly will add to your conservation practices and reduce your delivery expenses as well as receiving time when you can be going in and out of cold storage using additional energy to bring it back to safe temperatures.
5. Keep Equipment Properly Maintained
Keeping equipment properly maintained has valuable cost efficient benefits. Although a habit for some restaurant owners to let equipment run until a major problem arises, having equipment serviced regularly can catch operational problems. Small problems can become high cost issues through poor performance or a need for greater amounts of energy to maintain required temperatures for cooking, or cooling foods. Keeping equipment maintained also helps eliminate break downs that cause down time where you may need to use an inefficient cooking method as an alternative until your equipment is repaired or replaced.
Energy Saver #6: Delime your steamer regularly to save energy by making your boiler run as efficiently as possible and extending your equipment life.
6. Always Keep Equipment Clean
Setting up a nightly cleaning routine will help you keep equipment running properly so ranges, ovens, and refrigerators perform at their peak efficiency. Clogged burners, for instance, use more energy to heat and cook food. By unclogging burners, you keep your range using less energy to work at maximum performance.
Gaskets on kitchen ovens become cruddy and build up residue that intrudes on the seal between the rubber and the metal. Allowing outside air to enter the oven requires more energy to keep the oven temperature set. Keep ovens and their doors clean to allow them to heat more efficiently.
Energy Saver #7: Vacuuming refrigerator coils keeps the cooling machinery operating at maximum efficiency. Cleaning coils and keeping dust and materials from building up around them will keep your refrigerator running more efficiently and use less energy.
7. Close the Door
Busy kitchen staff may often forget to do the simplest of energy efficient steps. Leaving oven doors open releases vast amounts of heat. Each time you open an oven door the temperature can drop by as much as 25o F.; watch the clock and use a timer instead. Don’t leave the convection oven or steamer door open too long or it will just continue to release heat, burning unnecessary energy to retain the proper cooking temperature. The walk-in cooler is another door that needs to be shut at all times or cooling becomes a continuous energy pit.
Energy Saver #8: If doors such as the walk-in cooler are consistently left open, place spring hinges on the doors and it will automatically close, eliminating the opportunity for staff to forget to shut the door.
How To Start Your Own Commercial Kitchens
No one can deny the fact that it is hard to resist the temptation of tasting some food having amazing aroma. That’s exactly the reason why most people consider starting a food service kitchen. It is a business that allows you to reap multitudes of benefits but you have to go through a lot of hassle before starting one such business.
In order to avoid getting in any trouble, you need to keep following points in mind.
1. Before starting your business, you need to pay serious attention to the local health, fire and building codes. Also, don’t forget to pay sufficient attention to licensing regulations especially if you are interested in revamping your kitchen. Lastly, comply with the standards for ceilings, ventilation, floors, sanitation and waste disposal.
2. After dealing with all regulations and codes, you need to delve more into the details related to the design of your food service kitchen. This is one of the most important points and it requires serious attention. To make a right decision in this regard, you may have to think about the type of cooking you will do in your kitchen. For instance, if you are interested in Italian food, you may have to consider installing an open heart in you kitchen. Seeking professional help becomes obligatory in here.
3. Next thing to consider is the type of equipment you need in your kitchen. Actually, you will have to purchase equipment after considering the design of your kitchen. Availability of space will greatly affect the type of equipment you can purchase. So, take your time to make a better decision.
4. While purchasing equipment, you must keep in mind that it can be too pricey to get new equipment. Here, you must try to buy from such companies which may offer subsidized rates. This will allow you to save some money.
5. How much equipment is enough? Always ask this question to avoid wasting your money and don’t forget to add energy-saving appliances.
Setting up commercial kitchens is all about paying attention to codes, regulations, space, equipment and cuisine. But always keep in mind that starting this business is easy but making it run smooth is quite tricky. You will have to provide the best food to your customers along with maintaining the right hygienic conditions otherwise all your efforts will go down the drain.
ABS Pipe, The Material Of Choice For Piping Systems
ABS pipe is the shortened term for Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene pipe. Today it is used for all manner of uses in the construction industry thanks to its relative affordability, light weight and ease of fitting. The properties of ABS pipe make it perfect for piping systems in both the residential and commercial sphere.
The construction industry has embraced ABS pipe wholeheartedly. Plumbing suppliers are now stocking ABS pipe and fitting components as a matter of course to ensure their customers have enough materials to get the job done. Thanks to an extensive variety of diameters, ABS pipe and fitting components can fulfil the needs of almost any plumbing system. Combined with the relatively low cost in comparison to pipe materials of old, the ABS solution becomes even more preferable to those in the construction world.
The light weight of ABS pipe and fitting components is also a powerful lure for those in the construction industry. Being so light means that transportation costs are reduced immensely, reducing overheads on any building project. In addition, the light weight makes handling the material while it is on site easier, meaning efficiency is increased and the amount of machinery need on site to move materials around is reduced.
Fitting ABS pipe together is also a simple and effective method for constructing piping systems. There is no welding or threading pipes together meaning that a relatively unskilled worker can construct a piping system in no time. Current estimates believe that a worker who has worked with ABS pipe before can carry out the construction of an entire residential piping system in around six hours. This rapid fitting means that site managers save more money in man hours, reducing overheads further and making the building project more profitable.
Even though ABS pipe and fitting components are light, they are still strong. The resistance of ABS plastic to high impacts and temperatures makes it perfect for underground applications. During the process of installation, pipes are often put under a great deal of strain and thankfully ABS can stand up to these stresses. The chemical compound of ABS pipe means that it can happily carry both hot and cold liquids as well as household cleaners and even industrial chemicals.
A recent study into ABS pipe and fitting components found that after being exposed to household cleaners, it stood up to them for extended periods of time without any wear. In the same study an experiment was carried out where a section of pipe was submerged in water over a twenty four hour period, after the experiment was completed it was found that the section had only absorbed 0.005 percent of the water, making it the perfect material for use in sewerage systems.
ABS pipe does however have some weaknesses. When being stored it is important to keep stocks out of the sun as being made from plastic this can lead to warping, subsequently making the pipes useless. In addition, if left for extended periods of time, it must be stored on a level surface as the pipes have a tendency to sag. The final downside is the care that must be taking when transporting the material around the building site, if dragged along the ground, ABS plastic is susceptible to abrasion.
When you are fitting an ABS system it is important to measure exactly and only cut when you are sure of the measurements. Unfortunately once the pipe is cut to a certain length there is no way to remedy any shortcomings, so when fitting, ensure your measurements are correct.
Thanks to the development of new plastics like ABS it is possible for the construction industry to reduce their overheads and speed up their work. The properties of this material make it the ideal solution for many involved in building piping systems who want a material that is hardy and long lasting.
Snugtop – What We are and What We Do
Founded in the late ‘50s by entrepreneur Robert Kyle, SNUGTOP kick-started a legacy of automobile manufacturing that has held fast to its heritage and name till date, especially in the turf of reliable OEMs [original equipment manufacturers]. There has been no looking back for this California based company right from the time it manufactured its first fiberglass truck cap for the original Datsun mini truck in 1965.
Post 1965, SNUGTOP moved on to a major highlight in its success story bagging the OEM [Original equipment manufacturer] contract that was signed in 1979 with SUBARU of America.
The latest spoke to this rolling wheel of success was added with a partnership formed with Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), U.S.A. Incorporated, when it developed an exclusive Super Sport truck cap for the Tacoma four-door Double Cab compact pickup truck establishing the first nationwide distribution relationship between an OEM and aftermarket truck cap manufacturer.
Today, besides the original truck cap which SNUGTOP started out with, toppers, tonneau covers, flat covers, lids, shells and commercial truck caps have been added to the growing list of SNUGTOP products on offer.
Truck accessories like, truck bed covers, and canopies too are reliable SNUGTOP gear which any automobile you invest in simply has to sport.
While there have been a score of brands that have been associated with the best there is in the history of automobiles, SNUGTOP is privileged to be one of the few who have made history.
Know SNUGTOP better at www.snugtop.com
Home Staging Photos: Keeping it Neutral
Most homeowners and realtors are already well aware of the power of both a well staged home as well as online listings with pictures to grab the interest of potential buyers. In our current economic climate it has never been more crucial to showcase the positive aspects of any property for sale. With this being said, however, there are a plethora of atrocious listings out there in cyberspace that cannot possibly be convincing anyone to take them seriously.
The entire point of having your home listed online is to showcase your home to a larger audience. The “larger audience” aspect is pretty straight-forward; once your listing is online the entire internet can access the basic information about your property and look at all the pictures. It is estimated that currently almost 80% of home buyers look at properties on the internet before they decide which homes to tour in person which means that the impression your home can give online is vitally important.
The showcasing aspect of listing online seems to be a little trickier for some people. Take a gander at online home listings and you can see many examples of poorly taken photos that do nothing to highlight the positive aspects of the listing at all, are horribly dated because the house has been on the market for a long time, or they show off some very personal things about the homeowners.
When staging pictures are taken it is vitally important that the home is spotlessly clean, staged decently well, and that the positive aspects of the home are highlighted. Too many pictures are uploaded to online listings that showcase bland home features or dirty, cluttered rooms.
If you list your home and it doesn’t sell over a number of months, check to ensure that your photos don’t tell the prospective buyers that you listed your home months ago. Nothing says “failing to sell” in July more than listing photos with Christmas decorations in them.
Even if you do list your home around a holiday season, it’s best to not have seasonal decorations in your pictures at all as that conveys personal information about your family that’s best left out of listing photos. Other ways that you could keep personal details out of your photos, and out of your home while you’re trying to sell it, include removing religious and political icons whenever possible to reduce the chances of alienating potential buyers; while you’re trying to sell your home is not the appropriate time to make a statement about your personal beliefs.
Keep these ideas in mind when you’re putting together your online listing with your agent; make sure that your agent is on the right page with you. Home staging is more important than ever in our current economic climate; homeowners should be using every possible tool available to them to get their homes sold for as good of a price as they can squeeze out of the market.