Concrete & Coffee Hard Hat Site Tours Planned for Northeastern States

NRMCA Senior Director, Building Innovations, Doug O’Neill reports that plans are underway to schedule socially distanced Coffee & Concrete Hard Hat Tours at sites in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. These events provide great opportunities to meet several of our promotional objectives, O’Neill stated. Inviting local developers, designers, community leaders and contractors to come on site and see and feel the versatility and ease of use of ICF construction opens up possibilities that were not feasible without having them as part of a tour. In addition, by propping up the developer/owners and sharing how they made a business decision that recognizes the value of this type of construction as energy efficient, durable and sustainable, the opportunities for additional projects from both the attendees and the host developer increase.

Our State Affiliate partners in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Northern New England are working alongside NRMCA to plan these events; in fact, Dominic DiCenzo with the Connecticut Concrete Promotion Council has already hosted several hard hat tours in 2021 with great success (seen here).

"At a typical site tour, the ICF contractor or manufacturer rep might conduct the tour, highlighting the construction phases and going into detail on how window bucks are installed, electrical and plumbing concerns, how the floor systems connect to the ICF walls, mix designs, etc.," O'Neill said. "The planning of these events revolves around the construction schedule; we try to meet while the structure is not quite completed, but can still show items like stacking forms, installing window bucks, electrical outlets and, if we get really lucky, we can schedule the tour during a concrete placement."

"That’s when the action is the most exciting," O'Neill continued. "We round out the tour with some kind of educational component that might be simply a question and answer session or might be more formal in the form of a presentation or seminar at another location."

For more information on a Concrete & Coffee Hard Hat Tour, contact your regional Build With Strength representative or e-mail Doug O’Neill at doneill@nrmca.org.