The Stoler Report with Michael Stoler: Henry Rosenwach

0:00 Speaker 1 Good morning. This is Mike Stoler for the Solar Real Estate Report. The subject the water tanks is in the news each and every day, but the subject of companies running a business for fifth degeneration is totally different and diversion today. So today I have somebody who’s been here is the fifth generation of the water tank business. Also

0:24 in the real estate business development, I have Henry Rosenwak. Thank you for being here today.

0:32 Speaker 2 Thank you, Michael. It’s a pleasure and honor to be here with you.

0:34 Speaker 1 Okay, So tell me about the fifth generation.

0:38 Speaker 2 Well, I started from my great great grandfather.

0:41 Speaker 1 Who bought the business for what fifty five.

0:42 Speaker 2 Dollars fifty five dollars. We have the deed in our office back in the eighteen hundreds and his name was Harris, And for the past one hundred and fifty plus years, it’s been passed down from father to son for five generations, so from Harris to Julius great grandfather, from Julius to Wallace, my grandfather who you have known in the past, my

1:08 grandfather to my father Andrew, who’s sitting here with us today, and one day it will be passed down to me. If I work hard.

1:18 Speaker 1 Enough, I think you’d been working hard enough, So talk to me about what is the water tank and what’s the requirement for an owner of the building with regard through that.

1:27 Speaker 2 Sure, So the water tank is synonymous with New York. You look at the skyline and you can’t see a water tank without seeing New York. When you see it on TV, you know where you are when you see it in movies. It’s a New York icon and it’s the heartbeat of a building. It serves three purposes for

1:47 the building. It’s you know, your domestic water supply, your fire reserve for sprinkler and stampipe to put out any fires. And in new construction there’s a push to be green lead certified. And they have tanks now that are retention tanks to collect rainwater.

2:08 Speaker 1 Now you build these water tanks, And somebody said New Jersey.

2:11 Speaker 2 Yes. Previously it used to being Willingsburg on North ninth and Wife. That was the original horse stable that we would be manufacturing the wood tanks from. And as the neighborhood grew and became more popular, it was more difficult to operate there. So we decided to do a ten thirty one exchange and moved out to Somerset, New Jersey,

2:34 in a corporate campus like setting with you know, grassy fields and big box like atmosphere. So we have a two hundred thousand square foot property or two hundred thousand square foot building on a twenty acre site, and then we just finished a construction of an additional one hundred thousand square feet of warehouse space.

3:00 Speaker 1 You’re right now. You assemble the water tank there and you bring the pieces to where the job is right.

3:09 Speaker 2 So the shop basically makes a big puzzle, and we try to do everything in the shop as much as possible so that when it’s in the field, the job is seamless. So we cut everything the size, we mill everything, and before it leaves the shop, the tank is packaged in bundles and we take it to the job site

3:30 deliver it piece by piece to the roof or sometimes it’s craned to the roof, depending on the building or new construction, and when we get to the site, the men erect the tank, usually in one day.

3:45 Speaker 1 So let’s talk with regard to the different type of tanks out there the would steal.

3:51 Speaker 2 Sure, the typical tank you normally see is wood, and that’s because they’re outdoors. And that was what was used for one hundred year. Then you have steel tanks, either carbon steel or stainless steel, and a lot of the new buildings are opting for that type of tank. Given the longevity that the tank will last, a wood tank

4:13 would give you maybe thirty years, whereas a steel tank is close to maybe a lifetime if it’s stainless steel.

4:20 Speaker 1 What’s the requirements for building to have awarded tank?

4:24 Speaker 2 So the new codes are more strict than the old code, and they require a certain amount of gallons depending on the engineering of the building, but the typical size that we see now is twenty two five hundred gallons. The fire department code changed also saying anything equal to or greater than fifteen thousand gallons has to be two compartments.

4:48 So through my father’s leadership, we were the first company to engineer and design and get approved by DOB the two compartment would tank, which is the tank that from the outside looks like one vessel, but if you ever looked inside, there’s a dividing wall and is separate into two compartments, and that meets the code. So in these

5:10 buildings that are very skinny with limited roof space, this is the ideal product to comply with the fire department requirements.

5:19 Speaker 1 Okay, with regard to they each and every day people talking about this legionnaires. Let’s talk about that in water. Thanks.

5:26 Speaker 2 Sure, it’s a hot topic now. A lot of a lot of problems are being created by this legionella and you see it in the media every day. And from what we understand, the crux of the issue is coming from cooling towers, which is not a water tank. There’s a misconception.

5:49 Speaker 1 Specifically, what’s the difference.

5:51 Speaker 2 So cooling tower is an HVAC piece of equipment that works with the entire building system in the chiller, so that’s for your air conditioning building produces hot water, goes through the cooling tower to cool it back off, so it recycles back through the building. The water tank is a separate item, unrelated to the cooling tower, which is

6:11 your domestic water, your fire protection, or irrigation. So the media sometimes has it backwards because they talk about legionella, they say water tank in the article and they show a wood tank, but they really mean cooling tower or vice versa. They get the two products confused. So to set the record straight, the legionella is mostly from cooling

6:34 towers and not water tanks. But regardless, a lot of the buildings and a lot of our customers are doing their due diligence and they’ve requested us to go out and take Legionella samples from the water tanks and all of them have come back none detected so far.

6:52 Speaker 1 What are the challenges you see in this business today affecting the business?

6:58 Speaker 2 Finding people want to work and are enthusiastic about work and really focus on doing the right job. We’re a family business, so we’re lucky to have a lot of a lot of sons working with their fathers in the field, and it’s one big family. We employ about one hundred and fifty people and we consider everybody part of our family.

7:23 It’s not just the Rosenwalks, it’s the rosen Walk company. So trying to just find someone to pick up a phone, for instance, it’s difficult in this generation. But I’m hopeful to just continue finding good people to work together with.

7:42 Speaker 1 Now, do they have to be the license?

7:45 Speaker 2 No, they would be working under our licenses. So my father’s master licensed master plumber. I will be licensed master plumber in short time and they can work under the supervision of our licenses.

8:00 Speaker 1 How long does it take to get a license master plumber?

8:03 Speaker 2 Seven years of experience, two years as a journeyman, and then you have to take a written exam and then pass and then you can apply for the practical exam and pass very difficult test and it was, you know, very trying, took a lot of effort and time. And once you pass that, then there’s a whole background check,

8:31 medical records that you have to produce, and they just want to make sure that you’re a proper person to uphold the license for the for New York City. So it’s there’s only a few thousand licenses out there for plumbing.

8:48 When you look at doctors and lawyers, there’s hundreds of thousands of doctors and lawyers out there. So in our opinion, it’s a it’s a valuable asset.

8:56 Speaker 1 It’s the big question of how many people want to go into the business.

9:00 Speaker 2 It’s true, it’s a dying breed and the trades are going to be necessary. They are necessary. AI can’t can’t change a tank.

9:09 Speaker 1 Okay, you said to me you had a lender recently from a client.

9:14 Speaker 2 Oh, I’d love to comment on that. And it’s not every day you get a good feedback from your customers. So this gentleman is a new customer on the Upper West Side and he took time out of his day to let us know how appreciative he was of our service.

9:37 I’ll just read the email. Good morning. I hope all is well. I just wanted to answer this email again now that have a bit more time, I want to tell you that I’m so impressed and thankful for the type of service your company provides. We’ve been dealing with this tower for months with another company and getting the

9:53 run around. Your guys came and worked on the tower for one day and we’ve been up and running since then. We called back a little called back about a little leak on a pump issue. Your supervisor came the next day and when he saw the issue, he borrowed a couple of tools and sorted out the issue. Exclamation point,

10:11 exclamation point. I know you have a huge company, but it does not get more mom and pop than that. I love it and appreciate it. Exclamation point. I hope you have a great day and thank you for what you do.

10:23 Speaker 1 And I would thank you for what you do. We thank New York. You see it all over the city and I think I have the premier company today. Thanks Smith Henrieve for being here.

10:34 Speaker 2 Thank you Michael