Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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456 RECORD AND GUIDE March 1, 1913 niiiiiiiiaiiiBiiiiiBiiH^^ ■Hi BUILDING MANAGEMENT B I Conducted by Raymond P. Roberts, Building Manager for the American Real Estate Company. .■■■■IIIIIMM^^^^^^^^^ illilllllllllilil mauumtm ■■■III— iiifii—1^ The help in a building has a great deal to do with the renting quality of the building—more so, perhaps, than is generally supposed. The attitude of em¬ ployees toward their work creates an atmosphere that, however intangible it may be, is felt, pleasantly or unpleas- anty, by visitors as well as tenants. If you meet in the elevator entrance an employee who seems to like his job and to be proud of it, and who answers your inquiry courteously, you get an impres¬ sion which predisposes you to think well of the entire service of the building. A building which is visited daily by many people is not altogether an im¬ personal thing. It has individuality and character. The sentiments it elicits are seldom neutral. You think of the building as distinctive or commonplace, efficient or inefficient, friendly or un¬ friendly, penurious or generous. The building is unconsciously personified and the attributes of this abstract per¬ son are for the most part a reflection of the qualities of the employees. The building thus acquires a reputation which invariably reacts on its ability to attract tenants. matter of general treatment rather than of high wages. It cannot be secured without a fairly good knowledge of hu¬ man nature. But if a manager has enough of this knowledge to get along with tenants, he certainly ought to be able to command the good will of his subordinates, provided he realizes the importance of having it. The trouble frequently is that the manager acts on the settled conviction that employees will not do their best except under the stimulus of fear. As a matter of fact, an employee who responds only to rough treatment is not worth having around. Such treatment destroys ini¬ tiative, and the manager who is obliged to direct every trivial operation in a buildings will have no time for more productive work. The manager who en¬ joys the confidence and friendship of his subordinates will find his tenants disposed to believe that he means to do the right thing by them, too. Now, the fundamental requisite for es¬ tablishing the right sort of a reputation for a building is that the tenants and their visitors shall be contented. They will not be contented unless the service in the building is good, and good service cannot be expected of discontented em¬ ployees. It is not enough for the build¬ ing manager to exercise care in hiring help; he must see that the help does its work in a cheerful and willing spirit. Tenants quickly perceive the feeling which employees entertain toward the manager and, consequently, toward the tasks they are set to perform; and this feeling is bound to influence the tenant in his own relation to the management. Con¬ tentment on the part of employees is a Of course, it is not necessary to relax one's vigilance in supervision to obtain the good will of subordi¬ nates. Indeed, employees must be made to feel that the manager under¬ stands their work and that he is ac¬ curately informed by personal inspec¬ tion how the work is performed. He does not need to pose as an expert in the engine room, for example; but he should be a frequent visitor there. If he asks questions of the engineer with a view to learning the various opera¬ tions of the heating, lighting and power plant, the engineer will soon be on his mettle to suggest economies and im¬ provements. The manager should know enough about the technique of the work of employees to impress them with the idea that he understands whether or not they are performing the duties in a competent manner. STOPPING GUESS-WORK IN COAL BUYING How a Building Manager Can Cut Down His Coal Bills—The Importance of Systematic Tests Explained By an Expert. By G. B. GOULD Secretary Fuel Engineering Company of New York. THE increasing interest in scientific coal buying during the past few years has been accompanied by a re¬ markable confusion of B. T. U. contracts, boiler tests, and suitability of coal to a given plant, until the plant manager who previously thought he knew some¬ thing about coal (blissful in his igno¬ rance), now finds himself in about the mental condition of a real estate owner who has just listened to a single tax lecture. This confusion of allied, not conflicting ideas, is partly due to the assumption of authority by numerous amateurs and partly to the deliberate at¬ tempt of some coal dealers to "side-step" the inevitable arrival of coal buying on a quality basis. A boiler test is intended to determine the efficiency of the mechanical appara¬ tus, and the results must be based on th? heating quality of the coal used. When a boiler test is run without knowledge of the heat produced by the coal, and poor results are obtained, what is there to indicate whether these results are due to poor coal or low boiler and furnace efficiency? There are two quite separate factors, and both are unknown. The heat producing quality of the coal used can only be determined by analysis, and when known permits the engineer to arrive at a reliable figure for the effi¬ ciency of the equipment. The boiler test is also of value in determining the kind of coal best suited to a given plant, where bituminous or semi-bituminous coals can be used. When the plant is practically limited to anthracite coal, as in ofifice buildings in the heart of a great city, this use of the boiler test is absent. To buy his coal intelligently and eco¬ nomically the building manager first should find the most economical size of anthracite to burn; that is, the smallest size which he can use with his equip¬ ment, and keep up his steam. Some of the factors which determine this are draft, size of grate area, amount of heat¬ ing surface, and kind of grates. There is a very considerable difference in the price per ton for the smaller sizes of anthracite, although these smaller sizes average about the same in actual heat value. A very large number of office buildings, apartment houses and hotels in New York are burning larger sizes than are necessary. Checking Up the Power Produced. With the kind of coal settled upon, the buyer then must consider the quality of the coal actually delivered. Isn't the quality of coal many times more import¬ ant than the quality of soap? And yet, I dare say, there are many building man¬ agers who have given more time to the consideration of the quality of soap they buy, although their power cost is from 40 to 60 per cent, of the total operating expense. Why is this so? Because the losses in coal buying and burning are elusive and intangible without accurate data. The majority of power plants in office buildings have no means of checking up the amount of power produced from month to month, or year to year. With such a state of affairs, when the coal bill increases, how can you tell whether the cause is greater power requirements, poorer quality of coal, lower efficiency of the plant or wasteful firing methods? The writer knows of one case where a large building adopted systematic tests of the coal delivered and by acting on the definite data obtained, succeeded in getting coal fully 10 per cent, better than the year before. At the end of the year the coal bill was higher. The manager at once said: "What is the use of test¬ ing my coal? The tests show that the coal has been 10 per cent, better, and yet the bill continues to increase." Investigation showed that this build¬ ing had installed a large number of elec¬ tric lights during the year in a spare previously unlighted, besides increasing the power requirements along other lines. It had not occurred to this man that these things meant more tons of real coal shoveled down into his bunk¬ ers, and that if he had not obtained bet¬ ter coal, his coal bill would have been still higher. The variations in coal qual¬ ity are directly related to the amount oi coal used under given conditions to pro¬ duce a given amount of power. This fact has been proved an infinite number of times in plants where accurate power records are kept. The size of the coal bill is no index of fuel economy unless the amount of power used is known. If the quality of your coal is improved, and the coal bill keeps on rising, don't say that the coal tests are no use, but look for the reason in the plant. Variations in Coal Quality. Few plant managers realize the great variations in coal quality, even in coal shipped from the same mine. Anthracite coal is really a manufactured product.