Fire retardant lumber, also called FRTW, is used when a project has a requirement to reduce the structures’ ability to burn and to reduce the structures’ contribution to the spread of fire. Most fire retardant materials also reduce the development of smoke and the release of...

As MiTek has been hard at work to improve the way the building industry works by increasing the use of offsite components, we have heard from Architects of Record and Engineers of Record that they need more support to be able to specify components. In multifamily construction, there is a high...

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...

My favorite place to meet with a customer is on the job site. Always has been. I started in this industry approximately 20 years ago as a young truss salesman for UFP in Southern California. My training consisted of building trusses in the yard, creating estimates, and completing engineering...

One of the first mixed-use designs I worked on as a consulting structural engineer was a four-story wood-frame building over two levels of parking. Designing the main lateral-force-resisting system with plywood shearwalls was a challenge for this project that required new details to meet the...

Insulation is a fundamental element in providing thermal comfort within a building’s indoor environment. Utilizing the correct, high performing insulant and the “fabric first” approach to building design allows light-frame system manufacturers to achieve low u-values through...

Whether you’re designing and building a one- or two-story single-family residence, or doing the same for a multifamily, mid-rise wood-frame structure, fire and smoke protection features must be considered, and in most cases are required. When a fire starts, time is of the essence and the...

The work the American Wood Council (AWC) carries out makes it easier for code officials, engineers, designers, and builders to ensure that wood products are used in accordance with the most up-to-date consensus-based building codes. Two AWC publications that support the code and design community...

In this article, Paul McEntee follows up on our July 25 webinar, Making Wood Connections Work for Two-Hour Fire Walls, by answering some of the interesting questions raised by attendees. We presented an hour-long webinar recently about using fire wall hangers in Type III wood-frame buildings,...

My wife made furniture shopping a family event last weekend, which meant I had to go. The showroom was in a concrete tilt-up with open-web steel joists and a wood roof. My oldest son asked me who decides what construction materials are used, and why. He’s starting college in the fall and...