Truss Tales

Wall panels gradually insinuated themselves into the minds of homebuilders throughout the 1930s, helped greatly by government actions. As these builders were unable to sell their custom models during the Great Depression, a few of them experimented with lower-cost construction methods. The...

For most of the 20th century, engineers did not study nor would they normally specify wood trusses. Wood was thought to be suitable only for houses and barns, so steel was the material of choice – except when there wasn’t enough steel. That was the situation the Army Corps of...