Good weather catches up with contractors

While warm and dry Ozarks weather has allowed several construction industry companies to work right through the winter, the news is not 100 percent positive.

The issues start with concrete, the very basis of new construction.

“We have been extremely busy this year,” said Tom Baird IV, director of sales and marketing for Conco Cos. “As far as a material shortage, we haven’t experienced that yet, but we most likely will when we get into July and August.”

Conco so far has been able to meet contractors’ demands, though Baird foresees a possible problem during peak construction months this summer. There is already an inability to get cement, one of the major ingredients in concete.

“China is sucking up a lot of it,” Baird added, “and with the U.S. economy the way it is, there’s just a limited supply available that we can get our hands on, and we expect it to get tight again this year.”

Barren land

The dry ground, though, also doesn’t take well to planting.

“The concern is that there’s no sign that we’re going to get the spring moisture that we’re used to getting,” said Rick Quint, vice president for Walton Construction. “And you can spend tens of thousands of dollars in seed and straw, but it won’t last long if it doesn’t rain.”

Glenn Kristek, co-owner of Wickman Gardens, said the dry weather mostly alleviated one of the main obstacles to winter landscaping: frozen ground. It has allowed his company to get ahead of schedule on several projects around town, including landscaping at Kansas Plaza and Hammons Field.

Kristek was quick to point out that the positive comes with a negative – once the plants are in, they need the water, and if rain doesn’t come soon, landscapers could face the dreaded forced conservation.

“The last couple of years we’ve been working on water conservation and working with customers pretty diligently, but this year it may be imposed on us,” Kristek said. “A lot of irrigation systems and watering systems are shut down for the winter, so we had to haul water to some projects. A lot of our customers want an irrigation system, which is one of the first things to get the axe if the water supply does become low.”

That’s a big concern for companies like Wickman Gardens, which gets about half of its business from commercial landscaping projects.

Stretched too thin

And there is another problem: the same lack of moisture that prevented the ground from freezing and made winter work possible is causing companies’ costs to increase as they pay workers for time they’d normally not be working.

“Usually we’re closed for a couple of weeks in the winter, allowing our drivers a chance to relax,” said Baird, whose company employs nearly 200. “We haven’t had that for the last two years because of the mild winters. It’s great for business, but on the other hand, it’s taxing for our staff.”

The problem is compounded, Baird added, by the fact that the tasks normally done during that down time – maintenance and repairs on trucks and facilities – must be done during evenings and weekends, resulting in overtime for employees and further increasing company costs.

Matt Bailey, president of Howard Bailey Co., said that while his company hasn’t experienced many negatives from the dry weather, other companies are – particularly subcontractors.

“Subcontractors are pushed so hard with every general (contractor) not having a slowdown,” Bailey said. “They’re not used to working this much without a day off – they’re working weekends to keep up.”

Drought continues …

Despite severe storms with heavy rain earlier this month, severe drought conditions remain in southwest Missouri as of March 28.

According to National Weather Service meteorologist Gene Hatch, since July 1 Springfield is 9.87 inches behind the normal precipitation pace of 30.65 inches. Conditions are worse in Joplin, where precipitation levels are almost 15 inches behind the normal 30.87 inches.

The storms did provide momentarily relief – 2.38 inches of rain have fallen in Springfield as of March 28 – but that’s still more than an inch less than the average for March.[[In-content Ad]]