Small Oregon company embraces specialty ceiling work
Caslin Inc. might be a small contractor by some standards, but for the markets it chases, it is as big as it needs to be. “We do very well at being able to fit into different kinds of specialty jobs for our size,” said DeWayne Kuffler, owner and president of the Salem, Oregon-based company. As Kuffler sees it, being big isn’t always a good thing. It can add complications and headaches.
Caslin Inc. might be a small contractor by some standards, but for the markets it chases, it is as big as it needs to be. “We do very well at being able to fit into different kinds of specialty jobs for our size,” said DeWayne Kuffler, owner and president of the Salem, Oregon-based company. As Kuffler sees it, being big isn’t always a good thing. It can add complications and headaches.
Founded in 1987, the contractor’s focus is commercial interiors in and around the state capital in the Willamette Valley. Operating out of an office/warehouse facility with an average of a dozen employees, the contractor sees that number rise to 25 in busy times.
Kuffler, who started with the company as an apprentice finisher in the late 1980s, said Caslin is seeing a lot more specialty work, especially ceilings, in the Salem area. “Walls are pretty much the same, but it seems like everyone wants ceilings with some kind of clouds, waves and sound panels.” Today’s design software has opened up the possibilities, and more owners are taking notice. “It is way cooler to look at but definitely more complicated to build in the field.”
One recent example is a job Caslin did for a vineyard that features cloud ceilings in several rooms comprised of 12-inch-tall felt baffles suspended off a unistrut all-thread framing system. The 12-foot-long baffles form clouds separated by a series of suspended lights. “It was a difficult ceiling to install because all the HVAC was mounted in the ceilings when we started so we had to keep to the pattern to match the layouts with our all thread,” said John Hendricks, Caslin’s vice president, who is responsible for project management and estimating.
The layout for the ceilings was marked out with blue tape on the finished concrete floor before the HVAC subcontractor installed its equipment. Some of the equipment had to be moved to ensure the ceilings met the design specifications. Hendricks said the baffles have tabs that easily lock and unlock into the open web facing on the unistrut, allowing easy access to HVAC equipment for servicing. “It is a really cool system.”
Hendricks said Caslin’s crew knocked the job out of the park. “We didn’t have any issues [being that] that is not normal anymore with some of the complicated jobs we do.” Along with an installation crew on the ball, he credits the ceiling manufacturer for providing accurate shop drawings and praises the general contractor for having an in-house architect.
Gaining a Competitive Edge
Caslin has bid on a lot of jobs recently with specialty ceilings, including one with a baffle system that looks like “mushroom-suspended clouds,” Hendricks said. Contracts like it are not always easy to win because competition is stiff. “Usually on our projects there have been two to three drywall contractors bidding, but lately there are five to six and sometimes as many as eight.”
Still, there is good reason to keep a hand in specialty work. “Doing these systems once is great because the next time we go to bid a project, we already understand enough to give us a [competitive] edge,” Hendricks said. “They offer better opportunities for us.”
One of Caslin’s regular clients specializes in vineyards, where custom and specialty work is often the norm. The company recently completed its fifth vineyard contract. The job featured a ceiling comprised of multiple levels of drywall suspended on deflection coil springs between the first floor and the ground level designed to eliminate sound transmission between floors, said Kevin Kuffler, a lead journeyperson for Caslin.
The contract called for attaching the springs to hangers fixed to a wood frame. Each coil spring has a different load based on the capacity calculated of foot traffic in the room above. The ¼” gap that is between the ceiling drywall and the walls is “sound caulked” to eliminate vibration. The floor above is heavily insulated with acoustical matt and ¾” plywood. “You can’t hear anything above you or below you,” Kuffler said.
The job also called for some HVAC equipment to be pre-installed where the coil springs were specified. At times, the manufacturer had to make site visits to revise the coil placements to allow for equipment clearance. “Anytime we had to move a spring we had to recalculate [the loads],” Hendricks said, adding that because the job was broken up into various rooms with different heights and uses, “it was one of the most challenging ceilings we’ve done.” He said the acoustical ceiling/floor system was designed to ensure the comfort level of clients at the high-end inn.
Sometimes, specialty ceiling work is where you least expect it. Caslin installed a system of 4×8 perforated bamboo panels hung as a series of clouds in the library of a middle school. “They angled the grid with the vaulted ceiling and installed bamboo clouds level with the floor,” said Braedon Davidson, a lead journeyperson for Caslin. The panels, which were coated with vegetable oil-based clear stain at Caslin’s shop by Davidson, are backed with a black sound absorbing material and a random pattern of bamboo panels accent the walls as well. Specialized ceiling and wall jobs are becoming more frequent at public schools in the region, Davidson said.
One of Davidson’s highlight jobs was a wall and ceiling contract for the Marion County Fire District No. 1 in Salem, a fire hall he had volunteered at as a firefighter for nine years. While the contract didn’t call for custom or specialized ceilings, “it was probably my favorite because I had been there for so long. We had to attach deflection track to wood for drywall up to the metal roof. It was trickier to install because the building was all wood framing and nothing was really plumb.”
Clients Moving Away from Metal
Metal studs and drywall represented about 20% of the contractor’s work until a few years ago. Metal has now tailed off to about 5% of Caslin’s work today because of rising metal prices. “Engineers and architects are just drawing wood when they can for jobs such as vineyards, churches and medical clinics. We are adapting to that,” Hendricks said.
But wood can be difficult to work with. “Metal is true; wood never is. Trying to get windows and doors to fit in can be a problem.” Add to that the challenge of a ceiling with a twisted wood wall. “It is tougher to make it look good.”
Kuffler said materials shortages have been cyclical since the COVID-19 pandemic. “Right now, certain insulations are two to six months out. Just to get the material for the sound panels is an example. COVID definitely had a big impact on the supply chain, and I don’t think things have recovered yet.”
The rising costs weigh heavily on the industry. While labor rates are up, materials are the big hit to the company, Hendricks said. “A project we bid five years ago for a million dollars is probably $1.4 million today.” On the bright side, metal prices have dropped 6–7% in the past quarter.
Building on Success
Caslin’s business volume last year was in the range of $4 million. “It was an awesome year,” Hendricks said. However, increased competition is resulting in thinner margins. That is not a problem in the short term, and the contractor recently hired another estimator because it is bidding on more work than ever. “When you have good people you want to keep them busy. You don’t want to lose them,” Hendricks said.
Hendricks, who started work at Caslin 18 years ago as a carpenter’s apprentice, is in line to take over the company in a couple of years. Kuffler said at that point he will start cutting back his workload. “My focus is to help John make the transition to be the new owner and help him build the company he wants before he takes over ownership.”
Successorship planning is important to Kuffler. “Now, we’re even looking at people in their 20s who work for us who we think might be candidates for that kind of advancement down the road. We try to stay ahead of the game.”
Don Procter is a freelance writer in Ontario, Canada.
