There’s good news for project managers tasked with staying on schedule and on budget while remaining flexible: the industry trend toward increased use of modular solutions is forcing a closer look at temporary containment, particularly for occupied renovations. Consider three ways choosing the right temporary containment system can help you do more with less.
Manage Construction Costs with Temporary Containment Solutions
1. Improving time management
Gone are the days when project managers could afford to default to the traditional standby for temporary containment. With modern, pre-engineered solutions, there’s no need to schedule containment after hours in an occupied space, or to schedule around your customer’s operations.
Strategically leveraging modular solutions can also reduce your reliance on drywall subcontractors. For example, both our RealWall™ and LiteBarrier™ containment solutions employ a lift-and-drop panel system. Two laborers can quickly install 100 feet of RealWall in one hour, versus the two to three days it would take using drywall.
Advantage: Using a high-quality modular solution allows you to build a buffer into your project schedule. Over the course of a five-phase project, for example, temporary containment installation using drywall would take 10-15 days. But with RealWall or LiteBarrier, that same task could be completed in just five hours – providing more time to deal with unexpected items. And owners will appreciate that the process is far less disruptive.
2. Reducing labor costs
Cost overruns happen. Although coming in on budget ultimately reflects a wide range of decisions made during the planning and execution phases of a project, few things will punch a hole in your budget faster than unchecked labor costs. And thanks to the pandemic, labor costs are expected to rise between two and five percent in 2021, as reported by GlobeSt.com.
Of course, every renovation requires a mix of skilled labor over the course of the project. But is it really necessary to have subcontractors install temporary drywall barriers, especially when it could so easily contribute to cost overruns? By implementing modular solutions, those same carpenters can be better allocated elsewhere on the project.
Modern temporary containment systems also eliminate the hassle and labor required to break down and dispose of drywall when the renovation project is complete – further lowering your costs.
Advantage: Each of our temporary containment products is specifically designed with ease of assembly and removal in mind. That means laborers can get the job done quickly and efficiently, yielding greater control over labor costs.
3. Saving on materials cost while protecting supply access
Beyond increasing labor costs, 2021 has seen big spikes in steel, lumber and copper prices. The cost of gypsum is up 18% in just over six months, according to the St. Louis Fed, and demand for materials is expected to continue growing in the months ahead.
Using modular temporary containment solutions for renovations helps ensure lower overall cost and predictable supply.
Advantages: Our RealWall and LiteBarrier containment solutions not only save on the amount of material waste built into project budgets for construction, demolition and disposal of drywall barriers, they’re also reusable – so they can be redeployed across an endless number of configurations. Customers typically recover their investment after completing just three to five projects.
In addition, our U.S.-based manufacturing facility maintains a high level of inventory, which means our containment system is available when you need it and is not subject to supply chain disruptions.
As project managers increasingly look to balance job site requirements with the need to maintain a competitive edge, it only makes sense to revisit temporary containment options. More and more, today’s modular temporary containment solutions are recognized for providing a distinct set of advantages that allow for better time management, as well as significant savings on labor and materials costs.