Web Marketing Celebrity Bloggers Technology Culture Event Toronto

This is a mash-up report of the tech talk that happened after a recent Meetup event in downtown Toronto on 15th November 2016. On that evening  Tania Stadnik a veteran b2b marketing consultant and the current president of the AMA Toronto opened and closed a discussion between four technologists who shared insights on how to get slow adopters to embrace new technology, and especially new marketing platforms. Below are the pictures left unpublished (perhaps for good reasons) from the occasion as detailed in my article on Toronto Guardian, Marketing Technologists Discuss The Future of Advertising which was an in-depth look at the debate between a google guy, a creative agency VP and a synaptic transfer engineer working for a company called Brainsights.

Scattered through the photo collage above you might see some notable Toronto event bloggers of which there were plenty at the event. Each blogger related the parts of the evening that affected them most, and in their own way they each contributed more to the group discussion afterwards in their own blog portals.

Wedding Girl wrote about how she craves AR software for wedding planners that would take care of her business marketing needs sure, but moreover it might add value to her enterprise by allowing her brides to try on wedding dresses ‘virtually’ from the comfort of their own homes, and see wedding venues perfectly decorated in advance, digitally.

Charles Moffat from True Love Bites wants to help design an AR dating app. Good ideas in his piece as Charles outline exactly how his smart phone assisted event would use Facebook API to find commonalities among participants. He sees people sharing headphones and following audio clues that are well researched (by the app sifting through Facebook feeds and profile data)  so as to ‘break the ice’ and spark fruitful conversations among people who would otherwise be total strangers.

These are the leftover photos from the event; as a blogger I try not to use the same pics twice, and I  also try not to use pics of people eating in any of the important media I make , just here in my WordPress diary. Reader? How did you even find this place anyway?  Sorry Mary for the pic above.

These rather bland photos are all the original pictures of the party that I have left, as I posted my best images on Flickr – Album 15 Nov 2016 AMA Toronto Tech MeetUp

Among the celebrity bloggers at the event, and a woman who is very careful about protecting her personal image, Raymi the Minx blog post about marketing technology at the 15 Nov 2016 AMA Toronto event is hilarious. and I dare not post a bad picture of her in this rag of place. This is my personal fart pad blog… what are you even doing here?  There is photo of Raymi avail here at this time.

Shannon however…

Shannon Tebb was at the event and afterwards she wrote on marketing matchmaking in the future on Shanny in the City blog. At one point in the proceedings she mentioned the dating site ‘Bumble’  . Is that site still around?  I hope so. I haven’t tried it yet. If not , well then let me explain this was something of a ‘fad’ dating site that came and went quick in the shadow of Tinder.

The panel laughed when Shanny mentioned bumble com, and yet I bet it made millions – dating sites always find ready adopters because there’s a lot of lonely people out there, and that should be a place where technology can help!

New marketing technology dominates a matchmaker’s business niche; people get sick of things faster than they adopt new platforms. Shanny went on to say in her blog that she has ‘…seen this happen with plenty of online dating sites – they get upgraded and try to charge money and ultimately fail because nobody cares and there a free sites ahoy.”

It may not seem like it was very informative, but these types of events do have a positive effect on attendees. These special occasions where we all get together to talk about technology raise-the-vibrations of entire community.

On that night like so many others we got caught up on each others’ stories and made memories and feasted for a time on our common dreams and ideas.

Life of a Commercial Signmaker, Vehicle Wrapping in Toronto

In December 2015 we drove to the north quarter of Toronto and took a long walk around Sign Source Solution.  This sign making business is becoming famous for their skill at wrapping automobiles in custom printed and specially cut vinyl.  The vehicle wraps photos on Sign Source Solution website shows a dozen different wraps on all manner of different vehicles, compact cars, to Cadillacs, SUVs and delivery vans, truck tractors and trailers.

Leading The Evolving Science of Vehicle Wrapping

Writing commercial slogans on transportation vehicles is not new. The practice can be traced back to the street vendors in London England in the early 1800s, (as no doubt ‘hawkers’ in every large city in the world have painted their names or wares on ‘hackney carts’ for time eternal). It was especially popular in the American west when covered wagons advertised gospel shows, patent medicines, hair tonics, circus acts, and later on Wild West Shows. Cartage companies in particular have always painted marketing messages on their carriages.

Probably the first mass media adoption of vehicular advertising happened on railroad cars promoting Five Roses flour, T. Eaton’s catalog (here in Canada) and their rival Sears in the US at the dawn of 20th century.

Wrap advertising on automobiles or ‘vehicle wraps’ is a wholly new advertising medium that came into being almost one hundred years later in 1993 when taxi cabs in Berlin were wrapped in vinyl to protect their original paint and resale value.  That’s because in the mid 1990s film vinyl became a viable competitor to paint of all kinds. This new material made it possible to print large scale graphics using digital printers called electrostatic printers. The next revolution came with the first production vinyl film-cutters, capable of fast printing, mass production, and never-before-seen detail.

Vehicle Wrapping Is Possible Because of the Discovery of Vinyl

Fuel Ghoul described the science of vehicle wrapping and contributions made by Waldo Semon that led to the deployment on the material on cars one hundred years later.

Chemist and inventor, Waldo Semon, found a way to plasticize pure polyvinyl chloride (PVC) — a synthetic polymer discovered by German chemist Eugen Baumann in 1872. In pure form, PVC was brittle and difficult to process. First attempts at using the plastic in commercial applications failed as a result. In 1926, Semon invented the vinyl still used today

The reason the vinyl wraps are becoming so popular today is because this medium works; vehicle wrapping is estimated to have the cheapest cost per impression over a five to ten year period than any other medium including the internet. With just a little imagination and the right creative services provider, many local businesses could easily integrate vehicle-wraps into their marketing mix. This tactic works well for neighbourhood bars, restaurants and cafes, beauty salons and specialty retail shops such as florists, clothiers and pet groomers.

Raymi Toronto was at Sign Source Solution and learned about wrapping cars with Avi Barak and got a good look at the entire operation.  She wrote a paragraph about vehicle wrapping on her Minx blog too.

Wrapping cars in printed vinyl is only a few decades old.

The first vehicle wrap in the entire world was thought to have been created for Pepsi soft drink company in 1993. It was used to wrap a bus promoting its Crystal Pepsi product. It wasn’t long before bus wrap advertising was everywhere and the new form of vehicle graphics trickled down to smaller businesses and consumers.

SMOJoe detailed new age wraps made with printed, and cut vinyl, backed with an impermanent adhesive. Impermanent because you have to get the vinyl off the smooth metal surface of the car at some point in the vehicle’s lifespan. Printing on vinyl in high resolution and in any color is far superior to painting cars with chemical paints. Vinyl wraps, if applied correctly, are durable, weatherproof, don’t peel, and are easily removed.

Vehicle wraps have become successful as a form of advertising because they work. Just look at these vehicle wrap advertising statistics and you’ll understand why.

The wrap design for Storia PR was well received entirely because of the book – the logo and brand elements could certainly be improved.

Shannon Tebb from Shanny in the City wrote about a vehicle wrap on a Mini Cooper, and described how the marketing would work in her business. She positioned the pink and white car as a potential reward that her matchmaking and party planning business might someday achieve.

Sarafino Olive Oil website administrator at blogged a vehicle wrap design for their delivery van in their earth tone brand colours with logo and slogan. This is a bigger project than a car and uses twice as much or more material. Its important to remember that bigger vehicles also require more design time. The price for this vehicle wrap was about $2500 and that includes everything but the design which was gifted to the company for free.

Claire Matthews the owner of Yoga Truly in Grimsby blogged about how her free vehicle wrap could help her marketing as she expands her Yoga school business to Port Colborne with the understanding that she would be driving for at least an hour everyday; this could be an easy way to turn that negative ‘waste of time’ into a positive advertising and marketing exercise. She also blogged about how she would have to consistently be a good driver and not cause as any offenses that could make negative brand impressions, or worse…

Deb Lewis considered getting the vinyl vehicle wrap because she reasoned that the bright pattern would increase branding and expose her to more opportunities. The art would also increase morale among the droves of volunteers she frequently deploys at events especially outdoor events in the summer.

Since the beginning of time, small business owners have been seeking ways to stretch their marketing dollars and out-perform their competitors. Vehicle wraps work all year long, three hundred and sixty five days per year, for five to ten years, making the actual amortized investment manageable for most small businesses—a few dollars per day,

The whole story can be glimpsed in one picture on the Vehicle Wrapping Mash-Up Expression on the New Hive. A primary issue associated with wrap advertising is the reduction in the ease of visual interpretation of the advertisement and you can see this designer has the magic touch.

Matthew Robert White, Pop-Up Retail for Valentines – Black Roses

I know exactly how Matthew Robert White makes the Black Roses he sells in his Pop Up Retail Outlets on Roncesvalles High Park and in that rinky dink farmer’s market on Sorauren Ave at Wabash Ave in Toronto, because I showed him how to do it.

At the Sorauren Farmer’s Market, there is a local beekeeper selling a wax rose standing beside Matthew Robert White holding his bitumen covered black rose, which you cannot really see that clearly against his dark jacket, but i believe the picture expands if you click it. The wax rose is perfect crafty valentine and will be a hot item in Matt’s store.

The secret to popup retail is hosting timely events that resonate with some distinct part of society at a particular time of the year.  Valentines Day is a great opportunity for sell all different types of roses and chocolates and romantic gifts. But this article is about people making different types of roses,including dried roses and even copper metal roses which are great variations on a theme that might not be as relevant to society another other day of the year. Popup retail is huge trend now as the events can double as internet attractions and travel coupon destinations.

I wrote about how I made Black Roses for Valentines on Smart Canucks and this left this piece on D.I.Y bitumen covered roses on Medium last week by photographing and comprehensively documenting a visit to their their tarpots which are known in the industry as ‘tar boilers’, but which are in fact filled with 500 degree bitumen. Dave the flat roofer at the ToughRoof flat roofing job site in Toronto gave me lots of good information and was very accommodating and even   delved even deeper in the science of the operation on this post on Fuel Ghoul which is my chemical science theme Typepad blog.

Roofing tar may contain coal tar but is mostly petroleum bitumen especially with Canada being blessed with the tar sands in Alberta. This material is certainly a by product of that refining process.

Roofing tar is solid at room temperature. It gets delivered to the job as a black solid block that when heated to 500 degrees becomes an oily liquid used on flat roofs to fix leaks. It is made from coal tar and petroleum byproducts. Coal tar is a deep brown or black residue, which is made during coal production process. Coal tar must be refined and processed to meet standards for roofing use.

ToughRoof seals, bonds or repair areas on the roof that damaged or are slowly deteriorating. Newer formulations of roofing tar are asbestos free, but may contain solvents, surface adherents, plastics and mineral fillers/fibers. Coal tar roof cement is applied by trowel, while other types of roofing tars are applied like paint or caulk.

Most roofing tar formulas are black in color, but some manufacturers have also created versions in lighter colors like silver and white. Some brands of roofing tar can be painted when dry to match the roof’s original color scheme. Roofing tar can be removed by using a tar remover, but removers may cause damage to certain roofing surfaces.

The black rose is certainly beautiful and has inspired both pop-up holiday retailers and copy cats

Local Basement Waterproofing Contractor also makes Valentines Day Rose

Bill Korenowsky of Royal Waterproofing is a basement waterproofing contractor in Toronto who also made up some custom treated roses for Valentines Day, but its probably not something Matthew would deign to sell in his fashionable pop-up stores.

Bill Korenowsky with Waterproof Rose

Bill dipped roses in Bakor Aqua-Bloc® 770-06 which is a one component elastomeric waterproofing compound designed to replace conventional hot mop felt ply and/or pre-formed sheeting systems. It is applied in a single application, which cures through solvent evaporation to provide a heavy-duty, seamless,  rubber-like impervious membrane. This is a liquid applied waterproof product that is good for year round use.

Dipping red roses in waterproofing compound with Bill Korenowski of Royal Waterproofing in Toronto.

Excellent for use on concrete, masonry foundation walls, parking decks, planters and reflective pools its not that great for flowers.  Contractors use with Yellow Jacket reinforcing fabric to treat cracks and joints but the mixture is too stiff to penetrate the plant’s crevices. Heavy bodied trowel grade coating this stuff probably does a wonderful job on cement to provide seamless rubberized asphalt membrane, but it’s terrible for roses.

In the language of flowers, black roses signify death, or supreme hatred, but a perfectly preserved red rose could symbolize a perpetual romance, and a supernaturally strong enduring love that defies nature.

Waterproofed roses might be considered kitschy or artificial but such a product would satisfy a gift givers desire for originality and quality messaging. The idea of preserving the flower’s beauty in a transparent or beautifully coloured body cast is universally appealing to retailers and romantics.

 

 

Toronto Bird Photo Booth is a Storytelling Exercise, A Friendly Match for Businesses

2014 Toronto Bird Photo Booth Business Challenge is the original bird ‘selfie’ portrait contest that was made back in May 2014 to showcase custom loyalty program software through storytelling, and is not a true photo contest, but more like a friendly match between businesses hosting the booth.

What is the Toronto Bird Photo Booth? If you don’t know already, a bird photo booth is a feeder attached to a digital camera, triggered by a motion detector. Its a wonderful piece of technology that makes art to serve nature.

There are two cameras here – one is an iPhone 5C purchased by John Conn of Standard Telecom, office phones service in Toronto who hosted Week Three,  and the other is the WIngscapes BirdPro trail cam which is a handy back-up unit.

Would you like to host the Toronto Bird Photo Booth for a week on your GTA business property?

The rig is programmed to take pictures of any wild birds that land at the feeder. The idea is to see who has the best wild birds. Businesses hosting the Toronto Bird Photo Booth can enter their pics into the friendly bird portrait photo contest for prizes.

SMOJoe launches Birds of Toronto, and now I chronicle developments on the blog and also write weekly Bird Photo Booth updates for Toronto is Awesome magazine.

Look below at this English sparrow that thinks its a terrifying huge hawk; its emulating some larger bird of prey as it tries to scare away another fellow from the feeder.   
Like any playground, It isn’t long before an even meaner House sparrow with a distinctive white stripe on his wings appears to scare everyone away for a spell. You’ve never seen these tiny birds up close like this! I’ve gained a new appreciation for these sparrows by seeing them so close and full of emotion, and I imagine these birds are reacting the same way humans would fight over a big pile of cash left in the street.

These birds really do have lots of have personality ! See again how white stripes simply refuses to share the bowl.

This storytelling started back in June and the photography is getting better each week.

The Toronto Bird Photo Booth Challenge was on Bird Canada, last week. This story is where tech meets nature and the arrangement yields visually stimulating content. Each update chronicles the last host’s contributions, and features a new competitor’s story alongside their gallery of pictures.  At the end of the summer, Judges will review the best photos and reward the best ‘birders’ among the people who positioned the cameras . And there will be prizes. TBD

Smojoe SEO Show at Chalkers Pub 17 June 2014

A really great Smojoe SEO Show was held at Chalkers Pub in Toronto on Tuesday the 17th June 2014 at 7pm as thirty people braved extreme thunderstorm alert, and severe weather to attend the inspirational web marketing event. They gathered in the dining area at the south end of the restaurant complex to soak up as much knowledge as possible for the $10 entry fee charged by Leeann Jenson the administrator of a popular Life After 40 Single Meetup Group. I joked that this evening was SEO for Singles with websites and that wasn’t far from the truth; the one complaint I got was that there wasn’t enough networking time!

Without any interruptions, not waiting on weather or late arriving attendees, the Smojoe SEO Show was performed live by myself Rob Campbell starting at 715pm. The ‘show’ starts by me explaining what we have to do today to get page one presence, and why and how we do it. Then, after a tiny break, I go around looking at everyone’s websites and we all together set about figuring out how we can help these attendees and their struggle for subject matter relevance and higher rankings.  Its quite fascinating if I don’t say so myself… and its starting to get some big name business attention from Bay St consultants and business growth authors and business marketing gurus of all stripes. Who doesn’t want to be first on Google for something. Neville Pokroy brought his business growth book along to this show and he gave away six signed copies to people brave enough to share their site’s meta data, and suffer the scrutiny of the crowd on stage at the front of the room.

Inside this SEO workshop attendees find new ways to help each other.  Everyone in the crowd becomes a little bit more SEO savvy and certainly more social media friendly as they quickly become aware of how to increase their reach and authority.  Glenda MacDonald live blogged SMOJoe SEO MeetUp 17June2014; she did a terrific job communicating the entire ordeal, blow by blow, with original pictures, on her blog.

The best part of the night was when people won prizes!  Dr Archer, Toronto Dentist at Archer Dental donated twenty travel toothbrush kits and mini toothpaste tubes which I gave away to people who asked intelligent questions and did the social media exercises to benefit other attendees’ websites and blogs.

Some of the sponsors attended the event in person and they brought products to give away to anyone who would help them get along, and link to them and say kind words so they can get more recognition by earning higher rankings on Google; just showing up with something in your hands to give away at the SMOJoe SEO show makes you more important in this life.

Here is Angelo Tramonti from Sarafino Olive Oil who offered up these exotic liquids as a grand prize for live bloggers – Glenda MacDonald won!

We could have improved the impact by setting and tweeting a certain hashtag, and I could have passed around a paper blog resource sheet for people to write down their blog URLs and Twitter handles, and these are good ideas for next time

Overall, I think everyone had a great time at this unique event, and Leeann has already asked when I’ll be available to do it again.

Red FLag Deals Thread about #GrowthHackTO which hosted the first ever SMOJoe SEO Show

The SMOJoe SEO Show was at Growth Hacking TO Meet-Up happened on Weds April 23rd at 243 College St. It started at 7pm and wrapped up at 10:30 pm. It was solid infotainment
http://www.meetup.com/Growth-Hacking…nts/174390812/
This was a free Meet Up event and perfect for people who wanted to learn SEO rudiments so they could properly marvel at the most advanced new technology – it was fashioned for beginners and veterans alike, so both could come away with tips and new techniques for growth hacking to gain more users.
Someone was going to win a coffee maker courtesy of Vigorate Digital ecommerce software which really is a growth hacking tool chest filled with custom digital marketing solutions, pin code loyalty programs, online auction software, and easy to install photo contests templates etc . Growth hackers want more users.

Cristian Contreras is the face of Growth Hacking in Toronto.

What is Growth Hacking?
A marketing practice with an absolute focus on growth – the discipline encourages marketers to use advanced methods, tools, and best practices to grow user base or data, content or customer reach. Growth hackers often use resources that weren’t available in the traditional marketing repertoire a few years ago, and very often they made these tools themselves. The quintessential growth hacker is the coder who writes script to collect content and customers from larger more unwieldy corporate websites – ie like how Airbnb fed on Craigslist.

The second part of the show is a live diagnostic and content publishing festival whereby people in the room win prizes from an office coffee solutions company that is sponsoring the event. Don’t miss this unique educational evening – it will be like nothing you’ve seen before or likely to ever see again – stay tuned here for updates on how it evolves and what happens and why .

Every participant who is willing to play along, tweet, blog and do Facebook updates right there in the room is eligible to win bags of free coffee, and somebody is going home with a brand new office coffeemaker.

Follow #GrowthHackTO and Rob Campbell is @roberrific on Twitter. Last edited by Arob; Apr 16th, 2014 at 11:43 AM.

People are talking on Twitter and adding voices to the discussion about Growth Hacking on Smart Canucks and we’re expecting some contributions to this beautiful post about GrowthHackTO on Free Ads Planet.

Then after weeks of planning IT WAS SUDDENLY HAPPENING..
Toronto is Awesome ran this picture on Sunday April 20th,

There are still quite a few seats left and even if you don’t reserve a spot or get ticket you should just come anyway because you’ll probably get in – some of the people registered have already said they cant come in the comments at the side of the Meet-Up page . .

UPDATE – The event was a big success. Jane Wang won the charity choice SEO spot in a heated race between eight contenders!  She volunteered her domain and won the crowd’s sympathy.

Edwin Frondozo

https://twitter.com/drgnmeme/status/459148906295615488/photo/1

After Jane won, we all took a whack of pictures and then endeavoured to use them in our homemade media; at this point we all went to work optimizing her health apps domain and her intriguing game Health Challenger. Its cool. She’s helping people get healthy and that’s a great cause.

You can read more in a terrific blog post about it courtesy of Dan Wood, http://seohowto.ca/2014/04/seo-growth-hacking-session/ and he wrote that while sitting in his chair in the audience . Dan’s a real smart guy. and Cristian Contreras wrote here,
http://growthhackingtoronto.ca/seowinnerhealthapps/

Cristian was blogging at the front of the class in front of the audience, who were dropping off more and more every minute . aha  ah well live blogging isn’t the most exciting thing to watch at ten pm.  I dont take it personal. The audience dropped from fifty to less than twenty souls watching in the second half of the show – it was exciting for me. Maybe this should be a daytime event. A weekend workshop.

The grand finale, the draw for the office coffee maker – the ticket was pulled from the popcorn ceramic bowl by Jane Wang.

Smojoe – Rob Campbell holds the Bowl for Jane Wang who picks David Woogan, to win the coffee maker . .

Dan Wood sitting in the audience did a tremendous courtesy by listing the process and order of things necessary to achieve page one rankings. He writes, “…in a simple form these are the steps:

1. Choose a keyword that will have a valuable return for your website (or your client).
2. Take original photos and host them on trusted websites (Flickr, WordPress)
3. Devise creative, interesting stories that relate to your product/service in some way and get this article published in the best, biggest, most trusted magazine or newspaper or other publication that you can
4. Bookmark this article on social bookmarking sites and social media
5. Write secondary articles and publish those on other sites. Use the same photos from their original source
6. Bookmark and interlink those with the original article.

What he left out was the secret ingredients that I don’t tell anyone. Dan went on the record how I compared my modern day existence to a 14th century troubadour who goes from tavern to tavern and sings about heroes and highwaymen who pay him to make their exploits more well known , so they are feared , respected and paid tribute or presented with big opportunities. Its the same today online – the more famous and important you are in a particular  category and have earned links in articles, blogs and forums etc, the more likely your URL will show up on pg1 in searches done by needy townspeople.  So a modern SEO practitioner is a digital troubadour.

It was a night to remember.

As indicated in the title, this was basically me republishing the media with minor tweaks from a backbone thread on Red Flag Deals, 

http://forums.redflagdeals.com/free-growth-hacking-meet-up-weds-april-23rd-7pm-uoft-campus-toronto-1471973/

West40, Toronto Movers Help Clean St Marys of the Virgin Church at 40 Westmoreland

Its a sign of the times that churches are now going condo all over downtown Toronto.  West40 is a loft conversion by Dog Day Developers in what was once St Marys the Virgin Church at 40 Westmoreland Ave.  This stunning example of Neo Gothic architecture stands out as being ultra unique in an age of steel and glass condominium towers. This is living in history.

Architects Asen Vitko and W. A. Langton have combined history,  grand architecture and urban living into this unique project. West40 has been designed with attention to brick detailing, a stunning bold tower and Tudor-arched openings.who was recognized for his attention to brick detailing has clearly demonstrated his flare on this century-old church.

Other key elements include a stunningly bold tower and Tudor-arch openings all of which will be restored to its original glory.

The style was distinguished from the late 19th century Gothic Revival by its reduced scale and more restrained interpretation of design elements associated with early medieval English architecture.

Seventeen one-of-a-kind residences will be carved from the church, each one incorporating the beautiful interior details that include soaring cathedral ceiling with heights up to 21 feet

Toronto movers are clearing out the appliances found in the makeshift worker’s Kitchen as the property gets another overhaul by the sandblasters who are due to arrive

YELP Josephson Opticians is a neighbourhood optical shop ; buy glasses in Toronto

In the 1920s and early 1930s there was reknown Anglican ministers who made St. Mary’s Church popular with the people of the city. The church always had a rich Music Ministry, and was known for some measure of Liturgical Reform.

St Mary’s Parish remains at 130 Bathurst St, Toronto Ont.

Spray foam guys insulate upscale Toronto

What is it like to be a spray foam guy?  There is a good story on Bizcovering magazine with an inside look at life as a spray foam insulation guy in Toronto and the piece used some pictures seen below.  This is Tim, a spray tech, who is also the truck driver and generator operator.  He’s on site to meet me first thing in the morning, opening up the back of the company truck and getting ready to help his teammate, the prime applicator. The prime is the rock star spray foam applicator who has had lots of training in the fine art of insulating residential houses with polyurethane rigid foam insulation. The pictures below shows Rob Campbell’s ride along on Oct 22nd to document a Toronto spray foam insulation company at work insulating a new home construction in a posh Forest Hill neighbourhood.

Spray foam insulation is an excellent albeit more expensive choice for home insulation.  The cost is minimum $3 per square foot of wall and roof, and the price varies depending on whether its open cell or closed cell foam being installed. Spray foam comes in two varieties, open-cell and closed-cell composition, and both types have different properties which make them good for one thing or another.. i might explain. Of the two options, closed-cell foam is the better insulator. Once cured, it also becomes a vapor retarder (because the tiny cells are closed moisture cannot enter the foam). but its disadvantage is price and weight.  Its heavy and expensive and sometimes you dont need that much insulation , and sometimes its too much and open cell is better.  Open cell foam has open bubbles Open-cell foam has a lower R-value, and acts as more of an air temperature and acoustic barrier; open cell foam is not an effective vapor barrier. Open cell foam is lighter, less dense and cheaper (because less material is used as it expands larger) and is applied as interior wall home insulation in places where moisture isn’t a variable.

Below Montana Mike puts on a full has-mat suit with respiratory system, boots and gloves, helmet and visor. Its intense.

Like any good chemical reaction there are some rather noxious chemicals produced as a bi-product of spray foam reaction between Isocyanates and the Walltite resin, both components are prepared by BASF and detailed on Fuel Ghoul blog about spray foam insulation in Toronto which outlines the process by which a Graco H40 component proportioner heats and pumps both liquids to the sprayer unit whereupon they combine at the nozzle tip of the gun.

The two substances must be hot when they combine to create the best chemical effect, and to make the best R-value rigid foam insulation. In the photo below, the tech tweaks a Graco H-40 Hydraulic Series Plural Component Reactor‘s front panel , adjusting temperature on the 12.0 kW heater in the machine. From residential foam insulation projects to high-volume commercial projects, Graco brand proportioners are a mainstay in the mobile spray foam industry. This rig alone, not including the truck and generator could cost about thirty five thousand dollars and comes with fifty foot of hose, and ten feet of heated whip and a Fusion AP  spray gun applicator.

Spray foam insulation is a bit of phenomenon especially here in Canada partly due to celebrity endorsements the home renovation TV shows that have propelled spokespeople to fame and fortune. These TV personalities have made deals with spray foam insulation manufacturers to endorse the product as being green and environmentally responsible, energy efficient, and 100 % cost effective – all of which is true.

All the same, spray foam insulation has been in the news lately and the people and processes have been called into question by a CBC Marketplace TV news doc that shows ‘how spray foam can go very wrong’ by examining the unlivable homes of unhappy customers.

The History Spray Foam Insulation

What we know today as rigid foam insulation was invented in the 1950s by the German scientist Otto Bayer. He was trying to come up with something to replace rubber tires. He was eventually quite successful, but polyurethane wasn’t used to make wheels until the 1970s . Today the wheels under the folding metal steps of modern escalators are made of polyurethane, as are skateboard wheels.

Polyurethane has been around for about sixty years now – it has history stretching back to Germans scientists who pioneered many synthetics before World War II.  They were searching for synthetic textiles, rubber and silk. Twelve years after the war ended, in 1957 Otto Bayer and a German research team made advances with alkyd resins when they modified them with diisocyanates for the first time and made coatings and the first ever rigid foam products.  Today, anyone that has ever taken high school shop class, or refinished furniture, or stained a deck knows something about urethane wood finishes and the hard substance created when it hardens on the brush.

Here is the crew starting work insulating the basement of a new home in Forest Hill.  They start at the bottom of the building doing the exterior wall ‘headers’. The team takes over the job site for a few hours each day and they often work lunches and late into the evening to be there when the other contractors are absent.  These guys are very careful not to expose any other tradespeople to the noxious gasses often created during the spray foam application process (I had to wear a breathing mask, visor and cover-alls as I followed the applicator around the basement).

Spray Foam in Toronto

Fuel Ghoul reports that the Canadian Urethane Foam Contractors Association (CUFCA) estimates that spray foam insulation was installed in approx 350,000 homes in Canada last year, a number that has been growing by 33 percent every year over the last decade. Part of the product’s appeal is that, when properly installed, spray foam insulation can reduce heating and cooling costs by up to fifty (50) per cent, according to the Canadian Urethane Foam Contractors Association (CUFCA) and so this really is advanced chemistry at work.

Residential Basement Waterproofing After Summer of 2013 Flood Raises Toronto Real Estate Property Value

On weds Sept 9th 2013, a wet basement calls forth a couple of very experienced ‘Dry Guys’ who tackle the waterproofing project from inside the house!  They make it look easy because they’re very efficient, and full of handy DIY tips and tactics.  These guys are good people and I learned a lot while hanging out with them for an afternoon.  Scarborough Jack and Ian Boghagdan know that a good happy house has to have a warm and dry cellar, and they know that a house for sale has to advertise that is has a warm dry basement esp after it flooded in the July 2013 storm of the century.

The Summer of 2013 will probably go down in history as being one of the wettest seasons on record. It rained for weeks at a time and one flash flood in late July dumped an entire month’s worth of rainwater onto the city in one night.  People who have never had a basement flood were suddenly deluged, and one such residential property was the house across the way… just fresh on the Toronto real estate market.

Myself and a nosy neighbor had the pleasure of watching a residential DryShield Waterproofing Solution Corp team tackle the job from inside the house. They were in and out of the space of a week, and they didn’t make a lot of noise about it.

The first phase of the assignment was to remove the moldy drywall and wet insulation from the summer flood.

Six garbage bags of material were brought outside on the very first day, and a few more the next.  The wall was filled with old newspapers, fiberglass insulation and sawdust as the piece on Dumpdiggers blog illuminates no animals were seen or harmed.

The house is very clean at the moment, as the homeowner has moved out of the domicile on account of the flood.  The torrential rain drowned his prospects of a quick summer sale, but the waterproofing work is also fast and relatively painless. While I watched, the DryGuys went about clearing the wall under which the run-off entered the basement and they began cracking away the concrete under the wall to make an eight inch gully along which they ran a long length of perforated plastic pipe covered in a course silky hose . The trench slops down into a well in which there’s an electric sump pump.

The internal gutter remedies wet basement in Toronto story on Fuel Ghoul outlines the building supplies and gives more details alongside original pictures from my Typepad photo hosting account.  There is another story about how frost action cracks Victorian era brick walls on the Distillery District blog.

The wall of the basement is then affixed with a thick plastic membrane that has nipples and runnels to drain away any excess moisture down into the freshly dug gutter at the bottom of the wall.

Here is Scarborough Jack cutting the plastic waterproof membrane with a special blade; this stuff is hard to cut.

Next it must be nailed to the wall.  Look how Bogdhon has maneuvered the piece to fold it over the joint between the wall and the floor.

This is literally a ‘dry shield’ that covers the cement wall and forms a barrier between the wood and drywall and wet concrete.

Do you see how it overlaps? And how it ends over top of the eight inch gulley.  Wall panels will cover this trench with a special wainscoting or floorboards trim.

There is a Bizcovering article about waterproofing wet basement from inside the home which also outlines these procedures and has even more original pictures and DIY tips.

Ornilux Bird Friendly Glass Fosters Bird Friendly Building Trend in Toronto

Do you have many bird friendly building examples in your city or town?  What is it in particular that makes them bird friendly? Please answer in comments. The  trend has other elements like decoys and disruptive lighting and audio discouraging elements.  What do you do ?

When birds strike office tower windows at great speeds, it’s not because they want to get inside these places, or because they’re out of their minds on toxic chemicals, but rather its because they see a reflection of an open sky and believe they have clear passage.   Autopsies on bird carcasses taken from city streets often show perfectly healthy animals that simply cracked open their skulls like egg shells in a high impact collision with a plate glass window.

Ornilux glass is ornithologically superior glass. Bird friendly glass has evolved from innovations in glass making since 2nd century AD. The first stain glass windows for churches appeared in 6th century ad but were very crude and often composed of thinly sliced alabaster. After Rome was sacked by the Goths in 465 AD glass making went into decline for almost 800 years until it was revived in Venice Italy.

Cristallo is a glass which is totally clear (like rock crystal), without the slight yellow or greenish color originating from iron oxide impurities and so it was the first truly reflective glass that even sparkles like a gemstone in certain lighting conditions.  You can understand how blue and red Cristallo could mimic rare gemstones!   This effect is achieved through small additions of manganese oxide – an improvement on pyrolusite recipes.  Often Cristallo has a low lime content which makes it prone to glass corrosion (otherwise known as glass disease).

Persian alchemist, Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan, known simply as “Geber” or Jabir recorded dozens of formulas for the production of glass in specific colors.  Geber was Arabia’s most prolific chemistry writer and thinker at the head of one of the world’s foremost academic intuitions in Persia.

Jabir’s writings describe methods, for evaporation, filtration, sublimation, melting, distillation, calcination and crystallization. At least two treatises attributed to him lay down the basic rules for conducting, recording and verifying experiments.

How to Make Fake Ruby Red Glass

Jabir was also the first to describe the preparation of cinnabar, arsenious oxide, alum, alkalis, antimony, saltpeter, mercury oxide and lead acetate. He also determined that a mixture of sulfuric and nitric acid (aqua regia) would dissolve gold. His acid was key to making red glass.  Cranberry glass is made in craft production rather than in large quantities, due to the high cost of the gold. The gold chloride is made by dissolving gold in a solution of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid (aqua regia). The glass is typically hand blown or molded. The finished, hardened glass is a type of colloid, a solid phase (gold) dispersed inside another solid phase (glass).

Read more: http://roberrific.quazen.com/shopping/ornilux-window-glass-for-bird-friendly-building/#ixzz2Y5UgqiVG

Today, most tall buildings in North America have highly reflective windows that trick birds’ vision, and what these creature’ brains perceive as the open sky, is instead a 3/4 inch thick wall of glass.  Dead birds liter the sidewalks in big cities.  Residential sunrooms and conservatories are equally deadly.

There’s discussion about bird friendly building trends on urban Toronto and a similar conversation about the need to recognize bird friendly building practices in Canadian Content environmental science forum and both are designed to raise awareness for the problem of modern glass creating such perfect reflections of the sky, and thereby causing bird strikes which are now, over time, having a drastic negative affect on the population of migratory birds all over the world.

Ornilux is ornithologically superior glass which birds perceive as shifting thick spiderwebs and something to be avoided.  The Arnold Glass co innovation comes at the end of along line of advances in stained glass windows propel glass making technology, but this breakthrough alone is not enough – the architects and engineers have got to want to make change. They have to want to seek out special glass that’s expensive and hard to find.

What are some known bird friendly buildings in your area? what makes them so special?  What else can we do to raise awareness to help prevent bird strikes?