Undoubtedly you’ve seen many articles talking about mass timber, but you may not be very familiar with what products are included and some of their applications. In speaking with some light-frame component manufacturers over recent years, I have heard many of them mention that they are, or...

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.” – Ralph Nichols, American psychologist and communication theorist, often referred to as the “Father of...

As North America’s largest lumber manufacturer, West Fraser supplies the truss market with mechanically graded lumber, dimension lumber, and premium products such as Prime, Select Structural, and HiLine. Founded nearly seven decades ago West Fraser began operations in 1955 when...

In the evolving landscape of engineered wood product (EWP) processing, Hundegger is setting new standards with an innovative solution that seamlessly merges software and hardware capabilities. The Hundegger TURBO-Drive II represents more than just a piece of equipment; it is a comprehensive saw...

To complete this floor series, it’s worth examining how we’re doing against I-joists. [For all graphs and images, See PDF or View in Full Issue.] Mixed Signals: Many CMs think trusses are slowly making gains, and this is backed up by the brisk sales of floor machines. However,...

The American Wood Council (AWC) released its three new 2024 wood design standards: the National Design Specification® for Wood Construction (NDS®), Wood Frame Construction Manual (WFCM) for One- and Two-Family Dwellings, and Fire Design Specification for Wood Construction (FDS). These...

Builders have been testing the viability of floor trusses, and they are now considering the results. Many of them switched from I-joists only because they were forced to do so. Either they couldn’t get them, or they didn’t want to pay double the price. Yet today, as they are seeing...

With the recent passing of Tom Denig, which was not long after Gene Toombs’, we should take a moment to reflect on their stunning success, gained while working separately and together. They both took over highly technical companies in the early 1990s, Denig at Trus Joist and Toombs at...

Among the first advocates for floor trusses were two men who would later create an acclaimed component plant. Dwight Hikel and Chris Ditzel made early inroads at Fort McHenry Lumber, such that Ditzel declared in 1972, “I think we will be eventually doing 2-1/2 times the volume in floor...

Over the last decade — in outlets reaching from construction industry journals to the Boston Globe and the Economist; from CNN and Fast Company to Popular Mechanics; to Nautilus and TED talks — we’ve been hearing increasingly about mass timber and related phenomena:...