Several of the three-minute videos in this library are separated into two audience categories: “builder customer” and “framer customer.” The code required to embed the video on your company’s website is provided with each video below. Review the Toolbox Guidance Documents to explore how these videos can be used to promote specific products or your overall marketing campaign in conjunction with other CM Toolbox materials.
U.S. Housing Permits Chart: 2003 - Present
U.S. Housing Starts and Permits 2003 - Present [Source: U.S. Dept of Commerce]
Canadian Housing Starts 2005 - Present [Source: Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp.]
Housing starts and building permits are leading monthly indicators of residential building activity. Building permits are issued by building departments, signaling a green light to begin construction, and they indicate future construction. Housing starts reflect the number of homes, apartment buildings or townhouses on which construction began in a given month.
U.S. Housing Starts and Permits compared with BCSI Documents and Jobsite Package Sales 2003 - Present
From a sales perspective, do you anticipate 2012 will be better or worse than 2011?
View the results of the March 2013 One Minute Poll.
View the results of the January 2015 One Minute Poll.
View the results of the December 2015 One Minute Poll.
Gross rates shown below are for members of the Structural Building Components Association (SBCA). Non-members add 30% to gross rates or visit the SBCA website for more information about membership. Rates shown are gross cost per insertion at the frequency indicated. Earn a 15% discount on gross billing when ad materials are received by the Materials Due deadline.
Six bedrooms, seven full bathrooms and three half baths. A three-car garage, elevator, theater, exercise room, billiards room, library and six fireplaces. Is this a description of a quaint bed and breakfast? No, it’s a residence, a mansion in fact, in need of a roof. Initial plans for this 18,203 sq ft mansion called for a stick-built roof, but the team at Riverside Roof Truss in Danville, VA, proved the benefits of component construction both conceptually on paper and in the field.
“In the almost five decades I have been in the component manufacturing business, I have never had a lumber mill ask me what I thought they should produce,” said Bob Ward (Southern Components). “They didn’t care what I needed; instead, I had to choose from what they provided.”
While frustrating for component manufacturers like Ward, and less than optimal for both sides, the top-down model of lumber suppliers dictating the lumber properties they sell and essentially telling their customers, “if you do not buy what we produce, we’ll sell it to someone else,” has been standard operating procedure throughout the years.
At the inaugural summit, 71 participants, including key lumber industry leaders, the top five lumber producers in North America, and component manufacturers representing approximately 700 million board feet of U.S. structural lumber purchases, attended.
There was general agreement by those in attendance that the short-term goal of this group was to prepare for upcoming and anticipated Southern Pine design value changes. The aim was to forego the traditional adjustment process that can take years and is typified by the circular questions of component manufacturers asking, “what grades and sizes can you sell me?” and lumber suppliers replying by asking, “what grades and sizes do you need?”
Focusing on that short-term goal, summit participants discussed creating a series of standard grades or design value ranges that manufacturers could use and lumber producers could readily produce.
The invention of the modern-day metal connector plate in the mid-1950s is commonly attributed to A. Carroll Sanford and J. Calvin Juriet. As the baby boomer generation was being launched, houses could not be built fast enough for America’s fledgling families striving to capture the dream of homeownership. Connector plates gave builders a method to assemble homes more quickly and spawned over 50 different types of plate configurations and manufacturers.
