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Imagine a third-party truss inspector is in the yard checking truss plates as part of quality control. The plate placement diagram indicates the web needs twenty-five teeth; however, the inspector counts twenty. Even though the shop positioned the plates as designed, is the plate placement...

It’s true that interest rates have been rising. With inflation at its highest in decades, the Federal Reserve (“the Fed”) had few options but to raise interest rates in its attempt to cool the upward movement of prices. And yet the job market continues strong, indicating the...

In our October article, Because Good Ingredients Matter, we focus on the word quality and the many ways that MSR lumber has become synonymous with high quality structural building components. Having laid the groundwork for why MSR has become so important for optimizing truss designs and an...

I remember the Great Recession and how many displaced candidates we had. Some stayed active but many went their way, finding new industries and career paths. From where I sat, it was 5 years of trying to find jobs for folks, knowing it was like finding a needle in a haystack. Single Family was...

Reading Thom’s article in last month’s issue, “JobLine Turns 30!”, brought back many great memories of the times I have worked with him. I’ve known Thom for over 25 years and worked with him numerous times, with one of our best projects being the training business...

ABC Supply is going to Canada. Lowe’s is leaving it. SRS Distribution continues to diversify. Builders FirstSource is right-sizing its company in advance of America’s expected home-building slump. And US LBM is still hungry for truss plants. These are among some of the strategic...

Not all post-installed mechanical anchors are created equal. There are key differences between screw and expansion anchor types — differences that include how they gain their holding strength, installation requirements, and overall anchor performance. In the following article, field...

With automated saws and auto-jigging tables, what remains is automated material handling, and that’s what we find at Builders FirstSource’s (BFS) Austin plant. House of Design’s (HoD) robotic roof line there extends the floor truss pre-plating methodology found at their Atlanta...

November is a time when we can reflect and be thankful for many things in our lives. But the truth is – anytime of year gives us reasons to be thankful for little things, even when those things are silly or trivial. The Monkey Wrench in the Plans For reasons unknown, when I attempted...

After Cal Jureit’s impressive debut at the 1958 NAHB Show, lumberyards and builders across America were anxious to start trussing, but they encountered several obstacles. Their deluge of inquiries couldn’t all be answered, and most were far away from the South Florida source of...