Lumber Briefs: Lumber Market Forecast Matt Layman COVID Shipment Delays WILL RISE The global pandemic surge is further exacerbating shipment schedules, lengthening many commodity and specialty items that are weeks behind already. Some truckloads of basic commodity Canadian lumber are just now catching up on two-month delays despite prices... Read More December 2020 Issue #12257 Page 84
Going Modular Can’t Fix Affordable Housing Crisis Gary Fleisher Usually I am the first person in line shouting the benefits of modular construction to help the affordable housing market, but not this time. That’s because it doesn’t matter how you approach the affordable housing market if there isn’t enough factory capacity to keep ahead... Read More December 2020 Issue #12257 Page 96
Comments on “The Enduring Problem of Truss Partition Separation” Lecil Alexander When I saw the article on ceiling separation, The Enduring Problem of Truss Partition Separation, written by my friend Frank Woeste in the November issue of The Advertiser, I was excited to read it. As Frank writes, this problem has been around since there has been a metal plate connected wood... Read More December 2020 Issue #12257 Page 100
The Speed and Safety of Roof and Floor Cassettes Greg Watson In the quest for site speed and safety, panelized systems for components, such as roof trusses and floor joists, are the natural progression from installing single frames. In the United Kingdom, these panelized systems are becoming increasingly popular for volume house builders and Social... Read More December 2020 Issue #12257 Page 104
Damage Assessment and What It Teaches Us About How to Build Stronger Doug Allen Over the past few years that I’ve worked as an engineer for Simpson Strong-Tie in Texas, work-related events have brought me to a few great beach destinations: Clearwater and Destin, Florida, to name a few. But tightly packed schedules always left me feeling like I didn’t get to... Read More December 2020 Issue #12257 Page 116
The Last Word: The Last Word on Travel Joe Kannapell You probably need to get away from the truss business for a while, and now is the best time to plan for it. Travel has never been cheaper. Facilities have never been cleaner or less congested. And you can book holiday plans now with little risk – hotel rooms and plane tickets are largely... Read More December 2020 Issue #12257 Page 139
Advertiser Forum: What Do They Say To You? Anna Stamm Every month, I encourage our advertisers, industry professionals, and others to write what they would like to say to you. That, plain and simple, is the purpose of the open forum program we began 5 years ago when I started at The Advertiser. And, you are invited to say what you would like to... Read More November 2020 Issue #12256 Page 6
60 Years of Machines, Part XII: Best of Both Joe Kannapell Once auto-jigging enabled 4-minute truss setups, some thought we could go no further. Not so, said our Canadian compadres. Their claim was hard to fathom, since our last Benchmark Test results seemed unbeatable. But it was worth investigation, even if the plant involved was 2500 miles away. So,... Read More November 2020 Issue #12256 Page 10
Building Better Walls with Spida Cullen Ellis As wall panel production techniques evolve, Spida is at the forefront of the industry in offering a range of machines to provide efficiently and accurately built walls. About 3 years ago, we introduced the first of the new generation of Spida wall panel extruders. This new generation is designed... Read More November 2020 Issue #12256 Page 16
Fight the Management Drift Ben Hershey Many of us started 2020 with resolutions/goals both for ourselves and our businesses, but then our year was turned upside down with the Covid worldwide pandemic and other issues such as lumber prices topping highs we thought we would never see. While many LBM/component businesses are working at... Read More November 2020 Issue #12256 Page 26