We are pleased to report that after months of discussion, break through changes were confirmed on a conference call this past Friday that will positively affect the Marine Industry. Below is a summary of the conference call for your review.
Until recently, uninsured marine contractors were able to build docks and seawalls on “non-navigable” waterways with no repercussions from the State of Florida’s Division of Workers Compensation if that contractor had no Workers Compensation coverage (code 6006F) in force. Past case law prohibited the State from pursuing violators and issuing “Stop Work Orders” because of a loop hole concerning enforcement jurisdiction of State Act coverage (regulated by the State of Florida’s Division of Workers Compensation) and United States Longshoreman and Harbor Worker's Act (USL&H) (regulated by the Department of Labor).
Bottom line, marine contractors who have been losing work due to the under priced estimates of uninsured contractors can now seek assistance from the State to issue “Stop Work Orders” at jobs that are on “non-navigable” waterways.
This is a huge step forward for the marine industry in getting the State to step up to assist on this matter, because up until now, they would only refer frustrated inquiries to the Department of Labor. As many of you know, due to funding and government cutbacks, the Department of Labor does not proactively enforce the need for USL&H coverage for “jobs in progress”.
At an upcoming FMCA Central Florida Chapter meeting being held on Wednesday, October 14th, we hope to address enforcement of USL&H with the Department of Labor of uninsured contractors working on “navigable” waterways.
In the meantime, violators can be reported via the web by going to: www.myfloridacfo.com/wc Go to the area located on the center right of the web page entitled: Report Suspected Workers’ Comp Non-Compliance. People can check their local phone listings to their local representatives. In Central Florida, Terence Phillips can be reached at 407-835-4467. In Tallahassee, William Dorney can be reached at 850-413-1825.
FMCA continues to work hard to benefit its members and looks forward to pressing forward on the challenges the marine industry faces.
Respectfully submitted,
Rick Dalrymple, CPIA, CMIPFMCA Chapter Director, Central Florida(407)998-4108 Fax: (407) 788-7933Email: Rick.Dalrymple@IOAUSA.comWeb: http://www.ioausa.com/
For the finest in Marine Construction in Florida, call Rick Fender @ Cloud 9 Services, Inc. 407-481-8383
Monday, October 5, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Seawall and retaining Wall Repair Solutions
Seawall and retaining wall problems in Central Florida.
Following the hurricanes back in 2003 and 2005, there was a flurry of dock and seawall reconstruction in Central Florida. When there is so much opportunity for work, every guy with a pickup truck becomes a marine contractor. The problems with hiring an inexperienced licensed contractor to perform marine construction such as docks, seawalls, retaining walls, boardwalks, boathouses, channel markers, mooring piles and marinas. There are special skills and techniques as well as specialized equipment required for marine construction repair and new construction projects to be successful.
Today I met with a customer in Phillips Landing on Sand Lake. She had a non-marine contractor install a 5’ high and 250’ long aluminum seawall after the hurricanes. She called me because the wall was falling over into the lake. Not only is the damaged seawall dangerous to walk around but the beautifully landscaped yard is about to be destroyed. This wall needs to be repaired immediately.
It appears that the seawall or retaining wall failure was a result of a combination of mistakes made by the contractor. The wall did not have any ports in the face of the wall to allow water to flow from behind the wall. This causes the seawall to fail as a result of the hydrostatic pressure building behind the wall.
The homeowner did the right thing by requiring the contractor to be licensed and to procure a building permit. However, the contractor was fly-by-night and is now out of business. There is no company left to stand behind the wall construction. The customer did not require that the seawall contractor be a member of the Florida Marine Contractor's Association which requires its members to not only be appropriatley licensed but also carry the required United States Longshoreman's Insurance.
The solution we suggest is costly but effective. We would remove the soil from behind the wall where the wall has begun to lean and bow. We would then install new deadmen and tiebacks between the old tiebacks. We would then use a mini-excavator to pull the wall back into a vertical position. We would replace portions of the seawall cap where it cannot be reused. After the wall is straight, the original deadmen and tiebacks will be adjusted to pick up a portion of the load exerted on the wall by the soil. After the deadmen and tiebacks are right, we would carefully backfill against the wall. Once the wall is backfilled, the tiebacks are adjusted again and the yard is cleaned up and sodded.
We would install vents in the seawall face to allow water to pass from behind the wall into the lake through the wall. This will limit the hydrostatic pressure building up behind the wall during the wet season here in Florida.
There are other solutions available that do not require digging up the yard to install deadmen. We will go into that system in another entry to my marine construction blog.
If you need help with marine construction anywhere in Florida, feel free to contact Cloud 9 Services, Inc. We are State Certified Marine Contractors. 407-481-2750.
Following the hurricanes back in 2003 and 2005, there was a flurry of dock and seawall reconstruction in Central Florida. When there is so much opportunity for work, every guy with a pickup truck becomes a marine contractor. The problems with hiring an inexperienced licensed contractor to perform marine construction such as docks, seawalls, retaining walls, boardwalks, boathouses, channel markers, mooring piles and marinas. There are special skills and techniques as well as specialized equipment required for marine construction repair and new construction projects to be successful.
Today I met with a customer in Phillips Landing on Sand Lake. She had a non-marine contractor install a 5’ high and 250’ long aluminum seawall after the hurricanes. She called me because the wall was falling over into the lake. Not only is the damaged seawall dangerous to walk around but the beautifully landscaped yard is about to be destroyed. This wall needs to be repaired immediately.
It appears that the seawall or retaining wall failure was a result of a combination of mistakes made by the contractor. The wall did not have any ports in the face of the wall to allow water to flow from behind the wall. This causes the seawall to fail as a result of the hydrostatic pressure building behind the wall.
The homeowner did the right thing by requiring the contractor to be licensed and to procure a building permit. However, the contractor was fly-by-night and is now out of business. There is no company left to stand behind the wall construction. The customer did not require that the seawall contractor be a member of the Florida Marine Contractor's Association which requires its members to not only be appropriatley licensed but also carry the required United States Longshoreman's Insurance.
The solution we suggest is costly but effective. We would remove the soil from behind the wall where the wall has begun to lean and bow. We would then install new deadmen and tiebacks between the old tiebacks. We would then use a mini-excavator to pull the wall back into a vertical position. We would replace portions of the seawall cap where it cannot be reused. After the wall is straight, the original deadmen and tiebacks will be adjusted to pick up a portion of the load exerted on the wall by the soil. After the deadmen and tiebacks are right, we would carefully backfill against the wall. Once the wall is backfilled, the tiebacks are adjusted again and the yard is cleaned up and sodded.
We would install vents in the seawall face to allow water to pass from behind the wall into the lake through the wall. This will limit the hydrostatic pressure building up behind the wall during the wet season here in Florida.
There are other solutions available that do not require digging up the yard to install deadmen. We will go into that system in another entry to my marine construction blog.
If you need help with marine construction anywhere in Florida, feel free to contact Cloud 9 Services, Inc. We are State Certified Marine Contractors. 407-481-2750.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Unlicensed and underinsured contractors
The Department of Business and Professional Regulation writes a lot about their efforts to stop unlicensed activity. I appreciate their efforts although they are severely limited by a lack of funding which results in less of an ability to enforce the law. When they write about unlicensed activity and what consumers can do to protect themselves, they mention checking the contractor’s license of the person performing the work. They should also inform you that consumers should make sure that the company or person that they are entering into a contract with is the same person or company listed on the license. This is because some unlicensed contractors use another contractor’s license to pull the permit. This is illegal and is called aiding and abetting an unlicensed contractor. The DBPR should also educate the consumer and the local building departments that they should never pull a permit for anyone to do work on their home. The exception which never happens is if the consumer follows the law and covers that unlicensed worker as an employee with workers compensation and withholds payroll taxes.
If the consumer knows that that is the requirement, homeowners would never pull the permit. This can best be stopped at the building department level. The other day I was attempting to procure a permit for an extensive dock repair with one of my customers. He and his engineer had prepared the plans for the permitting. I took my customer who is over 80 years old with me to get the permit in case the plans examiners had questions for him. When we appeared at the permit intake desk, the lady assumed that I was an unlicensed contractor helping the owner to pull the permit so that I could illegally repair his dock. She directed us to fill out the Homeowner’s Affidavit form that the building departments supply that basically states that the owner is going to perform the work himself or with family or with insured employees withholding payroll taxes. It was apparent that there was no way that the owner was capable of installing the piling for the dock as was required in the permit and the permit intake lady knew that. But she sent us over to fill out the form fraudulently. When I advised her that I am a Florida State Certified Marine Contractor, then of course the form was not needed. But had I not indicated that I was a licensee, we would have gotten the permit and if I were unlicensed and uninsured and performed the work, the project would have been performed illegally exposing the customer to great risk.
If the DBPR educates the building/permitting departments and gets their cooperation on this, we would cut unlicensed activity in the State by at least 70%. This would mean a lot less ripped off consumers. There would be significantly less docks and seawalls being built over neighbor’s property lines, built incorrectly and a lot less pain and suffering associated with such things.
Another way to view this issue is to consider an unlicensed doctor. By being unlicensed, he is showing that he lacks the ability to become licensed and exposes the consumers to great harm. Unlicensed doctors go to jail. In fact all the licensed doctors who went to school, passed their tests, performed their internship and became a part of the medical establishment would be up in arms if they knew of an unlicensed doctor seeing patients and performing operations. What of the consumer? If he did not know that the doctor was unlicensed and perhaps there were forged documents on the wall or websites showing the doctors fine work, well then the poor consumer has been duped and could suffer greatly. But what about the consumer that goes to the doctor knowing that the doctor is unlicensed and breaking the law? For the illusion of saving money, they are willing to help the doctor break the law that was designed to protect the consumer?
I don’t feel that the consumer deserves the bad workmanship or lack of exposure to loss without recourse that they receive working with the unlicensed doctor. They may have not been educated on the serious ramifications of dealing with an unlicensed professional.
For marine construction, United States Longshoreman and Harborworker’s Act insurance is required. Through our work at the Florida Marine Contractor’s Association, we have gotten the cost of the coverage reduced significantly. It is now an additional rider on top of the normal worker’s compensation insurance. Our code for Workers Comp for dock and seawall building is 6006F. While we are training the building/permitting departments about the unlicensed activity, we hope to also train them to reject contractors from permitting docks or seawalls if on or adjacent to any water body unless they have the 6006F on their policy. This further protects the consumer in case one of the workers is injured. Learn more about worker's compensation fraud.
If we can stop unlicensed contractor activity, the consumer will be better off, the economy will be better off and the contractors who have paid their dues by procuring the experience, the licensing and the insurance to work as professionals for the public will be better off. Everyone wins except the criminals who should not win. Crime should not pay, but until we can stop unlicensed and uninsured and underinsured contractor activity, crime does pay.
For a licensed marine contractor with the appropriate insurance to protech thier employees and customers, contact Cloud 9 Services, Inc. at 407-466-9952
If the consumer knows that that is the requirement, homeowners would never pull the permit. This can best be stopped at the building department level. The other day I was attempting to procure a permit for an extensive dock repair with one of my customers. He and his engineer had prepared the plans for the permitting. I took my customer who is over 80 years old with me to get the permit in case the plans examiners had questions for him. When we appeared at the permit intake desk, the lady assumed that I was an unlicensed contractor helping the owner to pull the permit so that I could illegally repair his dock. She directed us to fill out the Homeowner’s Affidavit form that the building departments supply that basically states that the owner is going to perform the work himself or with family or with insured employees withholding payroll taxes. It was apparent that there was no way that the owner was capable of installing the piling for the dock as was required in the permit and the permit intake lady knew that. But she sent us over to fill out the form fraudulently. When I advised her that I am a Florida State Certified Marine Contractor, then of course the form was not needed. But had I not indicated that I was a licensee, we would have gotten the permit and if I were unlicensed and uninsured and performed the work, the project would have been performed illegally exposing the customer to great risk.
If the DBPR educates the building/permitting departments and gets their cooperation on this, we would cut unlicensed activity in the State by at least 70%. This would mean a lot less ripped off consumers. There would be significantly less docks and seawalls being built over neighbor’s property lines, built incorrectly and a lot less pain and suffering associated with such things.
Another way to view this issue is to consider an unlicensed doctor. By being unlicensed, he is showing that he lacks the ability to become licensed and exposes the consumers to great harm. Unlicensed doctors go to jail. In fact all the licensed doctors who went to school, passed their tests, performed their internship and became a part of the medical establishment would be up in arms if they knew of an unlicensed doctor seeing patients and performing operations. What of the consumer? If he did not know that the doctor was unlicensed and perhaps there were forged documents on the wall or websites showing the doctors fine work, well then the poor consumer has been duped and could suffer greatly. But what about the consumer that goes to the doctor knowing that the doctor is unlicensed and breaking the law? For the illusion of saving money, they are willing to help the doctor break the law that was designed to protect the consumer?
I don’t feel that the consumer deserves the bad workmanship or lack of exposure to loss without recourse that they receive working with the unlicensed doctor. They may have not been educated on the serious ramifications of dealing with an unlicensed professional.
For marine construction, United States Longshoreman and Harborworker’s Act insurance is required. Through our work at the Florida Marine Contractor’s Association, we have gotten the cost of the coverage reduced significantly. It is now an additional rider on top of the normal worker’s compensation insurance. Our code for Workers Comp for dock and seawall building is 6006F. While we are training the building/permitting departments about the unlicensed activity, we hope to also train them to reject contractors from permitting docks or seawalls if on or adjacent to any water body unless they have the 6006F on their policy. This further protects the consumer in case one of the workers is injured. Learn more about worker's compensation fraud.
If we can stop unlicensed contractor activity, the consumer will be better off, the economy will be better off and the contractors who have paid their dues by procuring the experience, the licensing and the insurance to work as professionals for the public will be better off. Everyone wins except the criminals who should not win. Crime should not pay, but until we can stop unlicensed and uninsured and underinsured contractor activity, crime does pay.
For a licensed marine contractor with the appropriate insurance to protech thier employees and customers, contact Cloud 9 Services, Inc. at 407-466-9952
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