Glazing a Small Percentage of the Specialty Construction Pie

The “Top 600 Specialty Contractors” list, recently released by ENR, included a breakdown of the top-20 firms in a handful of construction categories—one of which was the glazing and curtainwall sector.

The top-20 contract glaziers totaled just under $1.1 billion—less than a sixteenth the revenue of the top-20 in the electrical sector, a third of the excavating and foundation sector, a third of the concrete sector and half of the wall and ceiling sector.

Here’s a breakdown of the top-20 totals (in millions):

PowerPoint PresentationElectrical – $16,684.2

Excavating/Foundation – $3,148.9

Concrete – $3,302.0

Wall/Ceiling – $2,154.4

Roofing – $1,892.3

Glazing/Curtainwall – $1,091.4

Painting – $1,077.3

Masonry – $466.1

Where They Ranked in the Top 600

The top-600 specialty contractors included 14 representatives from the glazing and curtainwall industry, accounting for just 1.2 percent of the total revenue among the all of the contractors.

While those numbers may seem low, they’re not necessarily indicative of the big picture, as 10 of the 16 specialty contractor groups came in at under 3 percent thanks to the large presence of the electrical and mechanical sectors. Electrical and mechanical owned a bulk of the revenue share at close to $29 billion and $18 billion, respectively, combining for 53.1 percent of the share.

Eagan, Minn.-based Enclos, which ranked at the top of the glazing and curtainwall firms, was 71 overall, moving up from number 95 the year before. Harmon, out of Bloomington, Minn., wasn’t far behind at 92 overall—the same position it held in 2012.

The glazing segment of Walters & Wolf, based in Fremont, Calif., would have been ranked at 102 overall on its own, though the firm actually was at number 66 because of the other services it offers.

Nanuet, N.Y.-based W&W Glass moved from 200 overall to number 170.

Other glazing and curtainwall firms that made the top 600 and/or would have even without their other services were Crown Corr Inc. (Gary, Ind.), A.C. Dellovade Inc. (Canonsburg, Pa.), Karas & Karas Glass Co. Inc. (So. Boston, Mass.), Tower Glass Inc. (Santee, Calif.), Kovach Inc. (Chandler, Ariz.), Ajay Glass & Mirror Co. Inc. (Canandaigua, N.Y.), National Enclosure Co. LLC (Pontiac, Mich.), Giroux Glass (Los Angeles, Calif.) and R&R Window Contractors Inc. (Easthampton, Mass.).