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Slippery Slopes: Keep Winter Road Conditions in Check

  • Making sure your vehicle is in good operating condition is one of the best defenses when driving in winter weather.
  • Put together a basic cold-weather emergency kit for each vehicle in your fleet.

Remember Four Things

  • Brand your company as "The Solution" for all of your customers’ needs.
  • If you offer wall panels, engineered wood products, steel trusses, and turnkey labor, or engineering design services in addition to wood trusses, be sure to market them.
  • Work with the design and specifier community to help streamline the front end of the construction process and value-engineer structures.

Code Reference to BCSI

  • The IRC 2006 references BCSI 1-03 in two locations—R502.11.2 and R802.10.3.
  • In 2006, BCSI 1-03 was revised and retitled Building Component Safety Information; Guide to Good Practice for Handling, Installing, Restraining & Bracing of Metal Plate Connected Wood Trusses.
  • Although BCSI 1-03 is referenced in IRC 2006, you should use the most recent version of the booklet—BCSI.

Parting Shots

Let the Countdown Begin, OSHA's Top 10 Safety Violations

  • OSHA’s Top Ten list is a great place to start for reviewing safety issues at your facility.
  • Three of the 2006 Top Ten (one, three and nine) fall under OSHA’s Safety and Health Regulations for Construction (Part 1926) and don’t apply to component manufacturing.
  • The remaining seven violations relate to standards that are important to comply with as a component manufacturer.

Understanding the OSHA Powered Industrial Truck (Forklift) Standard

  • OSHA defines a powered industrial track (PIT) as any mobile, power-propelled truck used to carry, push, pull, lift, stack or tier materials that can be ridden or controlled by a walking operator. 
  • OSHA requires you to implement a PIT vehicle training program and verify that each operator has been properly trained and evaluated.

Ideas for Safe Material Handling

  • Remember safety when you consider material handling in your operation. 
  • Creating a safety committee is a great way to inspire a culture of safety and discuss areas of the plant to examine.

Parting Shots

Determining & Verifying Truss Repairs

  • When a truss member is damaged, the anticipated flow of loads through the truss is disrupted, and that load must be resisted by another member(s).

Keeping Your Young Workers Safe

  • High school and college students can be a valuable resource during the summer months. 
  • Their inexperience can also bring a unique set of safety risks. 
  • Create a safe environment for your summer help with a few simple adjustments.

Tightened Screws Call for Closer Contract Review

  • Component manufacturers need to be wary of builders demanding deep discounts not agreed upon in contracts already in place. 
  • Although you may feel like giving up trying to understand insurance requirements, it is possible to learn about them. 
  • If you aren’t aware of what your insurance coverage actually provides, you are exposing yourself to tremendous and avoidable risk.

Readers Respond

Height Limitations of Wood Framed Buildings

  • Wood-framed buildings over three stories above grade should be designed under the IBC. 
  • These buildings fall outside the prescriptive/conventional construction provisions of the IRC and IBC and must be designed using engineering principles.

Ready, Get Set for Whole House Design

  • To fully understand how loads interact with each other, they must be tested as a system instead of as an individual element. 
  • WHD is here to stay, building momentum and bringing the structural integrity of buildings to a whole new level.

Unbalanced Snow Loads

  • A new provision was introduced to the wood truss section (i.e., R810.2) of the 2006 edition of the IRC that permits the use of roof snow load computed using 0.7pg. 
  • Engineered design, through ASCE 7, is required in instances where the limitations on which the IRC is based are exceeded. 
  • ASCE 7 snow load design provisions require the evaluation of other conditions that may produce load surcharges in addition to the balanced uniform loads of pf or ps.

Parting Shots

The Irony of 9th Grade Geometry

  • Being involved with industry organizations at the local, state and national level is beneficial. 
  • Without WTCA and the component manufacturers that volunteer their time, manufacturers would be on their own to develop training programs.

Minimum Required Bearing

  • The required bearing length provided on the Truss Design Drawing is based on the lumber used in the truss. 
  • The bearing area for the wood wall or beam may need to be increased to prevent crushing of these members. 
  • Table 1 includes the maximum allowable reaction load that selected species of lumber used as wall plates can resist without excessive crushing.