A General Contractor’s Honest Take: Working with the Elevator Industry | Zane Andersson
Today’s guest is general contractor Zane Andersson, who’s spent decades coordinating projects that depend on successful elevator installations. In this conversation, he offers an external view of elevator projects: what general contractors appreciate from elevator companies, where projects often go wrong, and how communication can prevent costly mistakes. This conversation shares valuable ways that contractors, project managers, and elevator companies can build stronger partnerships.
Transcript:
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (00:00)
the construction industry, it’s a service business. it to me it’s not any different than going to a restaurant I’m going to continue to go to a restaurant that gives me better value and better service. And I’m even willing to pay more for it.
And I think that that’s where especially the elevator industry could improve is hey if I know I’m getting better service from Company X, I don’t care that they’re 10% more than the others or whatever. I know that I’m not gonna have this $300,000 mistake. They’re gonna be a team player. we’re gonna talk about this project, you know, from the very beginning,
Matt Allred (00:11)
For sure.
Matt Allred (00:32)
Hello and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group. I am your host, Matt Allred.
Matt Allred (00:40)
Does your workforce need a lift? At the Allred Group, we are committed to connecting your company with top talent that matches your need. Give us a call at 404-890-0445.
Matt Allred (00:52)
Today’s guest is general contractor Zane Anderson, who has spent decades coordinating projects that depend on successful elevator installations. In this conversation, he offers an external view of elevator projects, what general contractors appreciate from elevator companies, where projects often go wrong, and how communication can prevent costly mistakes. This conversation shares valuable ways that contractors, project managers, and elevator contractors can build stronger partnerships.
Matt Allred (01:18)
Zane, welcome to the show.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (01:20)
How are you doing?
Matt Allred (01:21)
Doing great. Thanks for being here with me today.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (01:23)
Yes, thank you for having me.
Matt Allred (01:24)
Yeah, no, I appreciate it. I I’m intrigued and and kind of excited to get a general contractor’s perspective. I I’m sure you’ve dealt with a lot of elevators over the years. Is that true?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (01:36)
That that’s that’s very true. I probably seventy five percent of the projects seem to have a elevator in them.
Matt Allred (01:41)
And how long you’ve been doing it?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (01:44)
twenty six years? Yeah. no actually take that back. Twenty twenty six years would have been two thousand, so twenty nine years.
Matt Allred (01:46)
Okay.
So you
my. Okay. Been at it for a while and and you’ve you’ve seen a lot of different things. So obviously we’ll get we’ll get into some of the the details there. But you had said that elevators are are kind of a black box to most contractors. I’m curious, when did you first realize elevators were were really different than pretty much any other trade on the project?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (02:16)
you know, it was it’s funny when when I got in the trades, when I first got in the trades, my dad didn’t really want me following in his footprint, you know, footsteps, but he wanted me to to explore the other trades and and get into a different trade and talking to other people on the job sites. You know, a lot of people like if I had to do it over again I’d be an elevator mechanic, you know, or you know, hey, you’re young enough you should be, you know, joining the elevator union. So that that kind of, you know
Matt Allred (02:34)
Ha ha.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (02:42)
obviously sparked my interest in in understanding more on on why that is. But yeah, I said I don’t know if it’s the same now, but back when I got started, like I said, the elevator union didn’t even really negotiate contracts or whatever. They just kinda did an average of the top three highest paid trades and that, you know, whatever they got as a raise, that’s what their raise was every three years or whatever the contract lengths are. So it’s it’s obviously
Matt Allred (03:07)
Gotcha.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (03:09)
always been kind of at the top of the scale of trades as well.
Matt Allred (03:14)
Yeah, absolutely. What what was it that your father did that he was warning you to not do?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (03:20)
he was a hod carrier, so he was a laborer that worked with Masons.
Matt Allred (03:24)
Yeah, that’s hard work.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (03:26)
Yeah, I did it for twelve years.
Matt Allred (03:29)
Yeah,
yeah. I mean I did like four months of of concrete work, like, you know, pre college and I was like, Man, that’s gonna keep me in college
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (03:39)
Yeah, for sure.
Matt Allred (03:41)
Yeah, yeah. well let’s let’s talk a little bit more about your experience with elevators and I’m curious, what’s the most expensive elevator mistake you’ve ever witnessed? And what happened?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (03:52)
Yeah, it’s it’s funny you ask that because it’s very fresh on the mind. It was actually the very last elevator that that we did. we just completed a project, it was only a four story addition, and
it was estimated as a three hundred dollar mistake or error. luckily if you call it luck, but all the trades were locked into a T and rate and a and a
certain limited markup. So at the end of the day it’ll end up end up costing the owner two hundred and forty thousand dollars. But what had happened was it was an addition on the building and the building itself already had stairs right next to where we were adding and so we had assumed that was the route of emergency egress but the way the
design team, the architects had designed this and permitted it. It was a standalone separate basically separate building, even though it was attached to another building.
And so the elevator was the egress.
Matt Allred (04:51)
Which sounds really dangerous to me, right? I mean, if you’re talking about a fire, it’s like, No, you are gonna go on the elevator or
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (04:57)
Yeah, exactly. It’s it’s it’s funny, ’cause like I said, after after looking into it, it falls under the IBC code or whatever, and it’s basically it’s for like buildings that are like four hundred plus feet tall, right? That th the Twin Towers or something like that. They’re not expecting everybody to go run down, forty flights of stairs
The occupants can get in the elevator themselves and go down and exit the building so that the elevators continue to work and operate as a means of egress, which
Matt Allred (05:28)
And that’s supposed to happen with people who are panicking. I I’m just envisioning, you know, some kind of airplane has crashed into the building and and people are gonna be nice and take turns and not kill each other getting in the elevator.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (05:41)
Yeah, yeah, and I agree. I guess it’s it’s a it’s a weird thing that I’ve I’ve never ran into. and it’s been I was trying to think if I’ve built a building over four hundred feet and I can’t necessarily think of one off the top of my head. but it’s been a long time since I’ve built any you know anything over twenty five stories. So yeah, it’s it’s not something that
is we’re used to and again it is something that’s allowed in the code but why they did it on a four story building and then they didn’t design any of the other requirements of it they just used that exception so that they didn’t have to add more stairs but didn’t include all the necessary design in order for that to be an operational elevator in an emergency
Matt Allred (06:27)
Yeah, I mean it it seems like they would need to yeah, create some kind of high performance. This is gonna work, even if the building’s on fire kind of setup. Is that true?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (06:37)
Yeah, so that’s that’s why it costs so much is the elevator shaft has to become a three hour enclosure so that you know the the building can burn around it, but the elevator shaft will continue to work. it has to have its own generator power so that again if the building’s burning that it’s got power to run the elevator up and down and it has to have a
basically a fan at the top of the elevator to to have smoke, blow out so that, you know, the the elevator doesn’t, become engulfed in smoke and everybody die from smoke inhalation. so yeah, all these things had to be added to the project and this happened while we were trying to get TCL.
Matt Allred (07:19)
Right. So it was kind of last minute. It’s like, by the way, this won’t work as is. so you said it cost three hundred thousand or it was estimated to cost three hundred thousand dollars to fix, but didn’t quite cost that much.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (07:30)
Yeah, didn’t quite cost that much. Two hundred and forty thousand bucks is still pretty painful.
Matt Allred (07:34)
So w what did they end up doing? Did they end up just tacking some stairs on or did they actually go through and actually put the
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (07:39)
Nope. Yeah, we
we had to go through and we added an additional layer of sheetrock around the elevator shaft. we had to hook it up to generator power and we had to have a fan added at the top and fire alarm had to get reworked. couple other things, but yeah that’s that’s what the cost ended up being was an extra two hundred and forty thousand bucks.
Matt Allred (07:59)
Wow. So it still is the egress and and now it’s able to be used for that in the case of emergency.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (08:06)
It is and the funny thing was is all the all the signage, the all the emergency exit signage that that was created for the project all says down the stairs.
Matt Allred (08:15)
Ha ha ha.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (08:17)
but but in order for them not to design new stairs in the project, a gray area shortcut that the design team put in there, but didn’t understand what all else it entailed or what other scopes of work needed to be coordinated along with
Matt Allred (08:18)
Okay.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (08:33)
you know, just putting a elevator, series XXX point four five type thing. So
Matt Allred (08:40)
Right, right. How just in your opinion, how could that have been caught sooner so that it didn’t cost not not only the the money at the end, but but it was obviously delayed in being able to be occupied.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (08:51)
well I think number one, if there was something in the drawings and stuff that had said that that was what the intent of the elevator was, ’cause even the elevator subcontractor, they they knew that that elevator could be used for that purpose.
and it really didn’t affect the actual elevator subcontractor all that much. but it was all the other trades. And so again, I I don’t I don’t know because it was not a design build project There was a another contractor that they’d had on during the earlier part of the project
So it was kinda like here’s a set of plans, you know, start next week. that’s what could have been done on our side of things. On their side of things, like I said, I I think that if the architects and design team knew, what all the other ramifications were,
That’d be great. somebody probably just said, Hey, I know about this code in the IBC that we can use so that we don’t have to add stairs. And somebody else is like, great, you know, you’re a genius. And and then they just moved on from there and nobody else knew that that’s what the purpose was.
Matt Allred (09:47)
Do it.
Yeah, till it till it came right down to the wire, right? I think you said they they were trying to move in the very day that that that all blew up.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (10:03)
Correct, yeah, they wanted to move furniture in so we contacted Labor and Industry and they said, Yeah, this this can’t operate like this. This is supposed to be have all these other components
so it was yeah, definitely a curveball.
Matt Allred (10:15)
Yeah, for sure. For sure. mean, if you could y sit every architect, owner, developer down in a room for five minutes, what elevator lessons would you make sure they understood before the next project?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (10:26)
Whew. I I believe that one size doesn’t fit all. they often think, you know, okay, every elevator’s got, more specific things, but they can all kind of, you know, let’s say fit in a eight foot by eight foot, you know, box, whatever.
some of them one eight foot six and some one eight foot two and so on and so forth, but they can all get into a nine foot by nine foot. So they’re just gonna go with a nine foot by nine foot or or whatever their thought process is behind it, they kinda think that they can do all of it. Or you know, they just kinda cut and paste from the last project and they just think, yeah, this is a two story you know, a lot of it seems to really happen like on two stop things where nobody
thinks that the elevator is all that big a deal, they just they have to add it. from the very first set of drawings, they draw a box on a floor plan. And it’s yeah, and they they nothing else is done with it until it’s C Ds. They grab some details and put in there and
Matt Allred (11:15)
Put a big X on it and boom, that’s what it is.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (11:23)
Sometimes they’re even supplied by the manufacturer and specifications call for you know a specific elevator, but the details that they threw in there weren’t from that specific elevator or they cut and paste, it’s kind of an easy button type thing and it definitely causes some issues, especially you know, here in Washington State, I mean machineless elevators have been around for a long time, but they just started allowing
you don’t have to actually have a machine room. So even though we’ve been having machine roomless elevators installed, they’ve all been installing the equipment in a machine room, yeah. So so the design team now is like, okay, now I can I got extra square footage. I can put, you know, an extra bedroom in there or or an extra classroom or whatever. but they don’t understand, where all that machine room is going or whatever. They’re it’s not disappearing. It’s not
Matt Allred (11:52)
You still had a machine robe.
Sure.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (12:11)
that equipment isn’t needed anymore. It’s just being put in a different place. they’re they’re still trying to understand that.
Matt Allred (12:15)
Yeah, yeah, understood. so I I mean, we’ve talked about this a little bit, but I’m just curious why you think elevator problems show up so late in a project instead of being caught by design. I mean, would hope the designers would know that what they’re designing, but but I guess sometimes they don’t.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (12:31)
Yeah, I I I think that they normally don’t and like I said, they they either are grabbing something from another project or they’re counting on, you know, hey, if I specify the specific elevator, then that manufacturer is gonna send me, you know, basically the submittal stuff and I’m just gonna copy and paste that into my drawings and the contractor’s gonna know the price is gonna be there.
everything else, but they don’t actually go and coordinate with anybody else. They don’t coordinate with their mechanical design team or their electrical design team. even you know their their own walls see and ceiling assemblies and things and so again I I think I just said this, but they basically put a box on a floor plan and that’s where it stays until
the end of the design when they start thinking about what I want the inside of this elevator to look like, what’s the flooring material, what’s the the wall paneling and what’s the ceiling paneling is going to be. And that’s when they start thinking about the elevator again. And by then, any changes would require them moving walls that start affecting maybe some ADA compliance issues and turnaround stuff or plumbing walls
stuff like that. Or or worse, we’ve poured elevator pits and then found out, there’s this machine roomless elevator needs an extra foot of elevator pit. And so like, okay, what what do you want us to do? And so we end up, cutting up a elevator pit we just
Matt Allred (13:46)
Well.
And going
a a foot deeper and and pouring another one, is that
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (13:54)
Yeah, I mean that’s that’s what it’s it’s had to have been on some projects. even something as silly as
Waterproofing. so I every project I estimate I always put waterproofing around the elevator pit. It’s just my process or whatever, I think that every elevator pit needs waterproofing around it, whether it’s in a water table or not. but like I said a lot of times again ’cause they’re not thinking about that elevator pit, they just think about my footings are only two feet deep and I’m not in a water table. Well but you’re
elevator pit is six feet below that and so maybe you are in a water table that’s usually while we’re digging a hole or something like that. The question gets brought up and everybody’s like, shoot, you know, I didn’t think about that. And so we’re adding waterproofing, which again is a cost to the owner because we didn’t anticipate it, it wasn’t shown in the drawings.
And un unless again, like we’re hired as a design builder or we’re brought on early to be able to help coordinate some of these things, but even then sometimes these things get get missed. We’ll we’ll talk about it and sometimes it still doesn’t all get coordinated in the drawing.
Matt Allred (14:57)
Yeah, and obviously there’s a lot of complexity there, right? So it’s it it does take effort, take some, you know, being aware, being conscious of, okay, this is a very complex system, a lot of requirements, different codes, and not that everybody needs to know, but I’m curious how many, I mean, percentage wise, how many elevator projects get a little sideways and end up costing more than expected?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (15:18)
I would say that probably at least twenty five percent end up costing more than expected. they’re not all usually extreme. You know, usually it’s you know, a thousand bucks here, couple thousand bucks there. sometimes it’s, you know, more like having to have an elevator operator, operating the elevator during, you know, the owner’s move in or something like that because we’re, know, they want to move in before we got
C of O on the project. you know, that those are kind of the simple ones or whatever. Sometimes it’s you know, a a a drywaller, you know, ran some screws, too long screws into the elevator pit or the shaft area. to me or whatever, it doesn’t interfere with anything. So I don’t know what the big deal is, but it’s a big deal in the elevator world or whatever. They don’t want any
screw heads poking in the wall, even if it is, you know, eight, nine inches away from the actual elevator itself. and so we’ve had to, you fix some of those things. You know, they get caught during an elevator. In fact, as a company now, I was just teaching a a new project manager we hired last week that on our projects I always have money in the estimate for pre-inspection. So we’ll hop in the elevator
write it with the elevator subcontractor and point out all the stuff that the inspector’s gonna catch. so that we when the inspector shows up, we always pass and don’t have an issue with it because right now, at least in the Seattle area, there’s only a handful of inspectors and so, you know, it may be, you know, a couple weeks before he’s able to come back out and inspect your elevator. so usually the schedule doesn’t
allow for, if we didn’t pass it, you know, we’ll just wait two weeks and then pass in two weeks. so that’s why we do it. Like I said, it’s it’s more of an insurance than anything else, whatever. And it’s usually a thousand bucks or something or whatever to, spend, you know, half a day running up and down the elevator shaft with the subcontractor and fixing, culting or any other little thing that we all
spot.
Matt Allred (17:11)
I mean, how much does that thousand bucks save you though? Sounds like it’s a pretty smart idea to to just do that and make sure you’re good. But I mean, if you didn’t do it, what would that look like?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (17:21)
it well I mean depending on where how it affects the the schedule. I mean it could be, you know, twenty five thousand dollar thing or whatever, or if you’re trying to get C of O and you’re right up against it, and you don’t have, you know, a day or two in your schedule, it c it could be very costly because you could have liquidated damages from the owner that are, ten thousand bucks a day.
Matt Allred (17:43)
Two, yeah.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (17:44)
And so if you’re waiting two weeks for that inspector to come back buy or whatever, that’s a hundred and forty thousand bucks.
Matt Allred (17:50)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it’s it sounds like just a little bit of pre-planning, right? You you get out ahead of it, do what you can, right? You may not catch absolutely everything, but just in other words, there could be something like what? You plan the egress, like the one you talked about at the beginning, right? There could be something that just comes out of left field and you never saw it, but it sounds like you’re at least getting ahead of of what you can control, what you can think of, and saving yourself that headache.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (18:04)
Yeah.
Correct, yeah. And and again it kinda goes back to your last question of if I have to spend a thousand bucks but I know that twenty five percent of the time I’m gonna be spending a thousand bucks anyway on a on a mistake. and it’s it’s never seems to be a wasted amount of money.
Matt Allred (18:29)
Yeah, absolutely.
Matt Allred (18:30)
Hey there listeners, it’s Matt and I would love to know what you want to hear more of on the podcast. If you have a topic in mind or a guest you’d like to hear from, head over to ElevatorCareers.net and drop a suggestion in the box or you can email podcast at ElevatorCareers.net. The link will also be in the description below. Thank you so much for being part of this conversation. Now back to the show.
Matt Allred (18:54)
I mean, do do elevator systems tend to create more surprises, change orders, frustration than other building systems in your experience?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (19:01)
Well, a couple things. Number one, usually the the changes are, more expensive, more more they’re there’s a bigger dollar value to them. and and I think it goes back to like I said, they’re they’re one of the higher paid trades on any project or whatever. So if I’m having to pay them eight hours because I wasn’t ready for something or things like that, or you know, pay a crew to go home, that adds up very quickly as opposed to, you know, maybe my
Matt Allred (19:09)
Mm-hmm.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (19:26)
landscaper or my flooring guy or something like that.
Matt Allred (19:29)
Planting the
wrong flowers is not as costly as installing the wrong elevator, I think what you’re saying.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (19:34)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And and sorry like I said, I don’t know that it generates more change orders. I mean I I don’t know that that’s the case or whatever, but again the the change orders seem to have a little bit more pain to them.
Matt Allred (19:46)
Yeah. Yeah. Understood. They they sting a little bit more than than other ones that that you can just kind of handle quickly and and just part of doing business. you you said that owners, you know, are the are the ones that a lot of times end up taking it in the shorts, quote unquote. What are some ways building owners maybe unknowingly create some of their elevator problems? Have you seen that?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (20:09)
Yeah, I
the biggest thing for them is that they have to live with this elevator forever. I mean it it’s on on any building or any project or whatever, if an owner decides, you know, hey, I don’t like you know the brick on the outside, you know, we can re tear the brick off and replace it with, siding. or if they don’t like a color, we can repaint something. If you know the flooring gets outdated,
you know, we can replace and upgrade flooring, five years, ten years, twenty years down the road.
You you’re not going and pulling an elevator out after five or ten years or something like that or whatever. It’s it’s there forever. So picking you know, the right elevator and the right company to maintain it and can service it is important. So I think that’s you know, something that maybe owners maybe don’t fully understand. They they think of,
I’m saving some money choosing you know Company X. Well Company X doesn’t have any maintenance people in the area, or they’re overbooked all the time. so when the elevator’s down and they say, I’ll be out there to fix it in two weeks, that’s that’s not really an acceptable deal. So then you’re
know as an owner then you say okay well what can I do I need this fixed right away so well then you’re like okay well we can get out there but we’re gonna charge you overtime or weekend rates or stuff like that. So like I understanding the life cycle of the elevator I think is very important for owners and usually where they kind of create their own their own problems.
Matt Allred (21:37)
Yeah. Well and this this question just came to mind, which is I hear people talk about sometimes, you know, developers go in, they know they’re not gonna keep it. They’re just kind of building it, you know, flipping it, selling. And so so what they’re buying an elevator for is very different from somebody who is gonna own it for the next tw ten, twenty years. Do you ever see that show up?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (21:53)
In in multifamilies, up until COVID, you know, we did a l lot of multifamily in this area. And yeah, that’s exactly what happened, whatever. I mean, I I worked on one project where was like a think it was 18 month construction period, somewhere during construction, the original
people that hired us sold the project. and then eight weeks after we were complete, the second owners sold that project. So within, you know, like less than two years, that project was already sold twice. And each time, you know, we had like a I think it was a twenty three million dollar construction contract on the project. and we’d seen in the paper that while we were doing construction they sold it for like thirty five million or something like that.
And then it was sold for like forty-eight million again, like eight weeks after we we finished building it. So they’d they’d basically doubled their investment in it, you know, in those two years. but anyway, yes, in that case, that’s exactly what it was was the design started with two elevators and the owner is like, we don’t need two elevators, we only need one.
Matt Allred (22:40)
Wow.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (22:58)
elevator and it’s like, well the the original people that we started design with, wanted two elevators in case one was broke down, the residents could still use the other elevator. And the the new people are like, they didn’t care. We’re gonna they knew we’re gonna we’re gonna sell it. So we want one elevator and you know the lowest speeds possible is fine with us. You know, whatever the lowest cost denominator is, we want the lowest finish lowest cost finishes inside because
Matt Allred (23:07)
Sure.
They’re just gonna sell it.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (23:25)
that adds no value to what we’re gonna sell it for. it adds a huge amount of value to the actual project, but it doesn’t add anything to the actual value and when you go and try to resell
Matt Allred (23:38)
Fascinating. So yeah, to your to your point, right? It’s if you’re the third owner, you you’re and if you’re gonna keep it, you you’re gonna care a little bit more than than the first two that are just like, Yeah, we we don’t care at all.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (23:49)
A hundred percent.
Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes the owners make problems for other owners down the road.
Matt Allred (23:57)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So you you told me about a project in that area, Battered Women’s Shelter, where people were saying, Hey, there’s not even an an elevator solution possible. And then somebody stepped up and found a way. Tell me more about that.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (24:12)
Yeah, yeah. So I I wanna say it was like around two thousand ish. it was it was a long time ago. the it was the YWCA locally here had bought in a building and wanted to renovate it into a woman’s battered shelter. basically for women and children escaping,
domestic violence. it was an emergency place or whatever. So the tenants weren’t gonna be there more than, you know, like I think sixty, ninety days or something like that, or whatever, and then they’d move them into more transitional housing. so we we renovated it, but during that renovation the elevator could not be brought up to code.
And it was red tagged.
Matt Allred (24:48)
Kind of an older build how old was that building, if I may?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (24:51)
Yeah, I want to say it was like nineteen twenty. yeah, I think that’s I think that’s about when it was about nineteen twenty. And so yeah, they they everybody said that the new modern elevators couldn’t fit in a small shaft. and so we had gotten prices to add an exterior elevator to the building and it was, you know, far exceeded their budget. And we found out that hey, it was grandfathered in, you don’t actually need the working elevator.
Matt Allred (24:53)
wow. That is older.
Right.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (25:19)
but you know all these women and children were gonna have to be using the stairs with their groceries and strollers and everything else. it was it was five stories, but you actually came in residents actually came in on on a lower basement floor. So they actually go up, you know, a set of stairs to the lobby area just to begin with. So so yeah, so they’re you know roughly
Matt Allred (25:26)
How tall was the building?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (25:45)
Forty, fifty feet, that they’re, you know, walking upstairs. but I stayed in contact with them over the years and usually about every three or four years, you know, they were they were fundraising, trying to raise the money.
And every three or four years they’d reach out and say, Hey, can can we get an updated price on this? And so I would. And and construction costs kept outpacing their ability to fundraise. And they ended up hiring an architect, they designed this exterior shaft. They were actually gonna have to lose one of their apartment units in order to get this in and everything else. And then finally, I want to say it was like or something like that, they said
Matt Allred (26:06)
For sure.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (26:23)
Hey, we think we we have you know the money or close to it. Can you provide an estimate? Right about that time, friend Jeremy had gotten out of he was working for you know one of the big name brand elevator contractors. He was starting his own deal and I said, Hey, this is perfect timing. I’d love to help you out. I’m working on this project, can you help me out with the with the price so that they know if they’re close enough with their
fundraising that they can pull the trigger. And you know, after looking at it, he’s like, you know, Zayn, why aren’t we just putting something in the existing elevator shaft? And I’m like, everybody has told me that it can’t fit in the modern elevator, cannot fit in that thing. And we had every major manufacturer looking at this thing. And he says, he says, I I think I can. I think I can do that. Give give me a couple weeks.
Matt Allred (27:00)
Wow.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (27:07)
And let me see what I can do. And he started sourcing the parts from all over the country. and he was able to come up with you know parts and pieces from different elevator manufacturers that all fit inside that. We had to make some modifications,
So there was some additional costs, but they had raised about a million dollars over the dozen plus years. and we had estimated this is gonna be one point two five million bucks. And Jeremy came in with a price of like two hundred and fifty thousand bucks for the elevator.
Matt Allred (27:36)
Wow.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (27:36)
with all the other stuff, I think all in it was like four hundred thousand bucks. And so, you know, we didn’t even use up half of their budget to put this in. and they didn’t lose a unit. So they were able to continue to have you know have families, you stay in those units every 90 days. so I mean it was just a great story all the way around. The the client couldn’t have been happier with you know everybody about it
Matt Allred (27:48)
Nice.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (27:58)
But I just kept thinking in my head, is is good as that makes you feel and and heartwarming as it as it is, if somebody else just would have been more concerned with helping out this, you know, nonprofit agency instead of selling something that comes in their, you know, one of their boxes, we could have had this elevator for them, you know, ten plus years sooner.
And it probably would have cost far less, back then. So it is again, as great as the story is, the it kind of sucked that like I said, n nobody else in the industry said, hey, why don’t you go reach out to this company who’s out of Arizona or this company that’s out of Utah or this company that’s over in Florida or or anything else, whatever. I mean, none of that none of those conversations happened.
Matt Allred (28:25)
Sure.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (28:44)
It was just no, it can’t happen. No modern elevator can fit in there. and you know, I’m I’m not in the industry. I’m it it’s the industry kind of operates as like an Illuminati and and so I I can’t say that’s not right or that’s not true. I mean I can’t even I can’t even Google you know, I can’t even Google it ’cause I don’t know, you know, what to Google and look for or whatever. I mean now that AI is around, maybe maybe
Matt Allred (28:55)
Ha ha ha.
Right. Don’t know.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (29:09)
maybe one of these AI, you know, Claude or something can can find all the parts for me. But if if I didn’t have somebody like you know that or have a relationship with somebody like that that would be able to tell me that. there’s a possibility they still wouldn’t have an elevator if that didn’t happen.
Matt Allred (29:24)
Yeah, yeah. I mean you’re right. It’s a it’s a happy ending. It’s unfortunately had it wait so long for the happy ending, but but it does really point to who you know and having the right conversation and talking to the right person that that not only cares but knows knows how to go about finding it, making it happen. So yeah, yeah, thank you for for sharing that. Well let’s let’s talk just a minute about you know relationships a little bit before we we close out. I got a few more questions here.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (29:43)
Yeah, yeah.
Matt Allred (29:54)
I’m just curious how much of a project success comes down to relationships versus the contracts, the specification, the paperwork, all that.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (30:02)
I I tell every new estimator, every new employee here that this industry is all about relationships. and it’s about the the name on on the center the business card, not the logo in the corner. I I know lots of people in this industry that work for different companies, go to different industries. and I also tell them that hey, you know, be prepared to be in this industry forever because even if you want to get out,
You can’t. I have a couple stories of a friend of mine that I worked with when I was an apprentice back in two thousand eight when you know recession happened and stuff, whatever, he actually went to work at Fred Myers and he says, you know, I just you know it’s a forty hour paycheck every single week. and so he got out of the industry. But Fred Myers started doing some remodeling and you know, guess who got chosen to be the you know, the person,
communicating between the management and the different departments and the general contract or whatever, you know, it was it was him. And you know, similarly with the the elevator we just finished, the guy that runs their golf course keeps getting brought in every time they do a n a new big project, not their smaller projects, but their anytime it’s a new big project, he gets brought in. He manages their golf course, but he used to be a carpenter and he had a heart attack because of all the stress.
And
so every time they have a big project, he gets brought in to be their, you know, construction manager form and and this this last project with the elevator issue, he had to actually tell them, he goes, you know, look, I I’m not gonna do another I’m just gonna go back and manage the golf course. otherwise I quit because yeah, yeah, it’s just too much stress. So he said, Yeah, relationships are hugely important.
Matt Allred (31:38)
Don’t want another heart attack, right? I mean
Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you were hired tomorrow as a CEO of one of the major elevator companies, what’s one thing you would change?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (31:55)
You know, I it that’s a that’s a hard one because I’m guessing that the elevator companies ki are doing all right for themselves right now, whatever. so I think sometimes their mindset, you know, that I think the art of war had that within chaos or amidst the chaos there’s opportunity. So I think that’s kind of the the the the world that it feels like that’s the world they kinda live in some days. But if I if I got
Matt Allred (32:03)
Sure.
For sure.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (32:20)
you know, put on as a CEO of a company, I think the first thing I would do is like send out a questionnaire to all of my clients and ask them, you know, what what can we have done better? and how could we have been a better team member to you and see what the industry comes back with because, you know, like we had talked about or whatever, that that having a contractor’s point of view and having, you know, the architect’s point of view and stuff like that and then
elevator intr industry that we often don’t get a glimpse into. be interesting to see what all how those responses would come back to them. But ultimately the construction industry, you know, they don’t want to admit it, but it’s service, it’s it’s a service business. It’s it to me it’s not any different than you know, going to a restaurant or something like that. If I’m I’m going to continue to go to a restaurant that gives me better value and better service. And I’m even willing to pay more for it.
And I think that that’s where you know that’s especially the elevator industry could improve at or whatever is is hey if I know I’m getting better service from Company X, I don’t care that they’re 10% more than the others or whatever. I know that I’m not gonna have this $300,000 mistake. They’re gonna be a team player. we’re gonna talk about this project, you know, from the very beginning, and
they’re gonna make this a better project. and so right now that’s what at least the people that I talk to, that’s not easy to do within the companies themselves or whatever. It seems like just within the elevator companies they have management at odds with salesmen, at odds with the service team and the installers and and things like that or whatever. So if
You know, if that is truly what’s happening, then it’s hard for any of them to be able to service the client, to the to the expectations. And that’s probably why contractors and architects kind of feel the way they do about the elevator industry, as opposed to embracing it and having it as a valid team member.
Matt Allred (34:15)
Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So last question for you. Looking ahead ten years, what would you have to change in order for general contractors to be able to say, working with elevators has become dramatically easier?
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (34:27)
Oof. open communication. I I mean, really that’s everybody needs to have that open communications, but elevators specifically kind of tend to tell you more like what they need and not ask what you need. and that kind of goes to the next one team atmosphere or or team attitude. You know, that you know, we’re all building this whole project. We’re not just building the elevator, we’re not just putting flooring in. We’re we’re building, you know, a school
For the community, we’re building a church, we’re building you know, an apartment project, we’re building a skyscraper, whatever it is, we’re building something for somebody else, and that’s what we need to look at is is what the end users perspective of it. and the last one is employee retention. at least early in my career, I seem like you know, I seen a lot of the same faces, always working for the same companies, and now
from one project to the next project. I’m probably not dealing with the same salesman or the same project managers or anything else, whatever. you know they’re either moving up, they’re moving on or they’re moving out. I think that some of it is hopping between other employers,
other times they’re they get promoted, they move up, and the next person is just kind of a new hire that, you know, a that maybe was a great salesman, for example, and sold used cars or something and it’s not the same need as the elevator sales industry. or, they get out of the elevator industry altogether and
become a consultant or go to work at, you know, selling insurance. I’m not I’m not sure. Yeah, I’m not sure where they all go to, but it s it does seem like there’s there’s less in the industry and they’re just not sticking around.
Matt Allred (36:01)
Which makes it sound like a a challenge for you to to have somebody you can consistently call and say, Hey, you know, help me out here, right? Let’s succeed on this project.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (36:09)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean
I I I’ll send bid invites to somebody and then I’ll like four or five months later I’ll hear hear from somebody else over, Hey, how come I’m not getting a bid invite from you? I’m like, I’ve been sending invites to so and so and I’m like, they haven’t worked here for a few months or whatever. Okay, well where’s their emails going? Is it shouldn’t somebody be looking over their emails and fording that on or or something or whatever? And it’s like that’s the turnover is is so rampant that that’s not even a thing.
otherwise, managers would probably be getting emails from ten different former employees, you know, getting forwarded to so there’s there’s not somebody really checking on us again until some new salesman’s hired and then, they’re tasked with going out and trying to find customers, you know, and they say, Hey, we haven’t gotten a bit of invites from Corsmo in two years, so go knock on their door and see what’s going on. then that’s when we find out that,
The salesman’s not there and they haven’t been getting any of our bid invites so yeah.
Matt Allred (36:59)
Yeah. No, it’s I it’s great feedback and I appreciate you just just bringing that up because I and that that is the reason I wanted to have you on here is just give us, some some feedback from the people we work with, the people that, maybe paying the bills and putting bread on on the industry’s table. You know, it’s like, hey, we need to, there are things we can do to improve by listening to to customers and just hearing what the feedback is. So thank you.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (37:21)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I’m I’m not an employer. So I would just say, you know, I I don’t know why people are moving on or out or anything else, but moving up, obviously, you know, pay more money and so that you know, there’s not you know, that that you take that out of the equation.
Matt Allred (37:40)
Yep. Yep. I hear you. Well, Zayn, thank you so much for being with me today. I’ve enjoyed it. I appreciate your your insights and wish you the best as you keep building buildings.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (37:50)
No, thank you for having me on and like I said, this is this has been in insightful as well. Like I said, I’ve learned something new talking with you or and also we kind of assume that the whole construction world operates just like we do here in the Pacific Northwest and find out that on the east coast and some of the southeast and stuff, it’s you know, a little different.
Matt Allred (38:06)
Yep. Yep. But we can all learn from each other and I I appreciate you taking some time to to help us learn.
Zane Andersson – Korsmo Const. (38:12)
Thank you.
Matt Allred (38:13)
Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast sponsored by the Allred Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting. Please visit our YouTube channel @ElevatorCareers or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net. Please like and subscribe and until next time, stay safe.