My name is Francesco Vitale and for over 18 years I have been dealing with reinforced concrete, providing my clients with carpentry for the most diverse structures.
My love affair with carpentry started a few years earlier, when I was still a child
Well yes, … and it even started not knowing what I was going to do.
I remember with a smile that moment when a friend of mine, the son of a local entrepreneur, invited me to leave the work I did in the "after school" and holidays for some years already.
I was a pastry chef, and I had just started the state exams for the lowest average license.
One of the things I've always loved is to engage in what I do and have an insatiable hunger for new knowledge.
Perhaps for this reason, both my teachers and my parents did not agree with my choice and preferred that I continue my studies.
The teachers, in rebound, did not allow me to complete the oral phase of the exams, while my father repeated to me:
"Do you know what it means to be a carpenter and how heavy it is to work?"
And in the end, as if to intimidate me, since in the meantime the work with my friend's father was no longer available, he committed himself to finding a place as a carpenter in the enterprise of a cousin of my mother.
Their efforts were of no use and I think I can define that summer as the turning point of my life.
I didn't like the job, but I was so passionate about it.
I'm not saying I was always the first to arrive – sometimes I had to chase the van too – but for sure, I was always the last one to leave.
I always volunteered for that extra shift that would allow me to learn new things.
So soon and with the same instinctiveness as the first choice, I found myself diving headlong into it.
And in 2001 I started opening my first carpentry business.
I could not remotely imagine the path I would take from that moment to now.
Throughout my career I have been fortunate to have faced some of the most difficult and complex cases related to the world of reinforced concrete construction.
Water villas, hospitals, wind farms and squares are just some of the cases that almost every day I find myself having to deal with.
All this thanks to one of the greatest teachings that comes from further afield and from a different seed…
… from my first "employer" in that barbershop:
"Offer a service that never creates problems and customers will always come back to you"
These were his words that, since I was a child, he repeated to me day after day, when my job was only to sweep the floor.
Perhaps it was his way of enticing me to perform a task so trivial for me (because I already wanted to take the scissors), to me anyway, it remained an almost obsessive care for details.
In recent years, however – thanks to the last financial crisis – I have seen a worrying trend.
As much as I tried to keep the level of my service high, giving the maximum availability, I saw more and more customers trudge between a thousand difficulties related to the management and management of the construction sites that were entrusted to me.
Cuts of experienced staff, a lack of budget and an ever-increasing tendency to live in the day were turning work, of those who have the country's economy in their hands, into a nightmare.
Most likely you know what I'm talking about. Maybe even in your business live on your skin this situation.
Some carpenters – taking advantage of the situation – travelled in full sail selling, as nothing was, a simple construction of meters, trapping customers with the mirror of the low price.
So they were interested in doing "the meters", without raising too much concern about problems that someone else will have to go and "put a piece" with the finishes.
I confess that I was about to give up fighting what seemed like a lost war at the start.
It seemed to me to be the only one interested, to make "skeletons that could be beautiful even without clothes" and above all able to be "healthy" for decades without creating problems.
The structuralists were sensitive only to the problem of 2 cm of iron cover. For them it was enough that the aesthetics did not question the idea of stability and everything else was superfluous if it entailed a higher cost.
So, as if that were not enough, also paying close attention to the problems related to regularity and safety, the solution that seemed viable to me was to adapt to the market.
But all this came out of my beliefs, came out of my ideals of work and what goes beyond the simple work.
I couldn't give up, and so one day than a few years ago, a thought rumbled through my mind:
"I have to make it easier for my customers to use my service. I have to think about the problems they might face and then tell them how to prevent them. It doesn't matter if they're not aware, it's my duty to inform them and help them get the most out of what I offer them."
Of course, it sounds like a trivial statement.
But in reality, how many of your suppliers actually behave like this?
Over the next few days, I put my brain wheels in motion a little bit. I squeezed my brains out looking for a way to put into practice what had long been curled up in my head.
This is how the Total CarpenterIa Method was born.
I have realized that over the years I have solved many problems in the field of carpentry.
Working with hundreds of customers I was lucky enough to see my services employed in almost all different construction sectors.
So I decided to share this knowledge with those who – like you – have to take care of the construction of reinforced concrete structures and thus ensure that the chronoprogram is always respected at full speed WITHOUT hitches.
But I want to make an important point clear immediately.
I am a ONLY expert on reinforced concrete carpentry and how to make it properly implemented to ensure 100% an ideal start of the construction site, eliminating emergencies and stoppages caused by errors in the early stages.
It is very likely that you can apply my advice to other stages of construction as well, but since I am outside my competence I recommend that you turn in those cases to the makers who surely know more than I do.
One thing I don't want is to pretend to be a general construction expert. It's a matter of professional honesty.
I grew up in the midst of nails and concrete and only for these stages can I be really useful.
In addition, collaborating with many of my clients, I was able to touch first hand the difficulties and problems posthumously at the structural phase that maybe you also fight every day.
No more sudden hitches.
The Lord of Total Carpenteria.