So an advantage of TJ-Is is that they are all uniform
baloney, define uniform………
we have been draging our feet to switch to TJ-Is
we just got a shipment of TJ-Is
Its a good size house, 3600 sq feet on one floor.
they are 450 series 11 7/8
size runs anywhere from 11 7/8 to 12 1/8, ( maybe a 1/4 inch difference does not bug some people on a floor at 16″ o.c ) but it does me.
but the height difference ….is this normal ???
If so , whats uniform ????? the clothes the guys were wearing when they made em ????
maybe Im just expecting too much.
sure like the light weight though.
Replies
Normally the TJIs are spot-on. Any chance yours were sitting out in the rain for a while? I've never had a problem with variations in TJIs.
I have had problems with LVLs being taller than they're supposed to be, all due to weatherization and improper storage. Had that happen ONCE...the LVL was up to +5/8ths variance in height. After a "strong discussion" with the supplier it hasn't happened since. Mind you, he still has bad LVLs, they just don't get sent my way.
Can you tell me what is improper storage for LVLs? My supplier stores them outside, uncovered. Shrinkage of all lumber in the form of plaster cracks is a given as I see it. Am I a sucker?
The manufacturers say to keep them covered from rain. Get the cheat sheet - data sheet and show the supplier how he's screwing you up. That is part of the premium price we pay for the things.
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84 Lumber just leaves them laying out in the yard... :-(
Re the different lumber species, we get some of that, but not as much as you are talkin'. Must be all those rich yankees with lots to spend. How about sending a donation my way? We do have electricty, but I'd like to run some out to the out house! ;-) Do I need a sub panel? Can I hang it with SR screws? Matt
Did I word that all too strong?
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NA - just messin' wit' ya! Matt
Engineered products need to be stored under cover.
The problem is that when they get wet, they swell, and the swelling isn't always uniform. Plus, when they dry, they don't tend to shrink back to the original dimensions.
Realize that an engineered product is...engineered. You and I can look at a nature-grown 2x10 and if it has a flaw, experience tells you that it's still a good piece of wood, or that it's an okay piece of wood, or that it's a piece of crap.
A damaged piece of engineered lumber? If it's damaged, you don't know what it will or won't do under load...either today, next month, or five years down the road.
Is swelling all that bad? Well, if the water damage takes strength away from all those little pieces or waste wood and all that glue used to bind it together...yes, it's bad.
Once-upon-a-time wet and since-swollen LVLs can still be strong in terms of load carried until failure...but they have a higher propensty to creep or sag or deflect under that same load. And that's not what we're paying a premium for.
Really ticks me off to see LVLs stored outside without covers. No way would I buy any from a company that doesn't cover them.
It doesn't bother me so much that they get wet - It's what happens when they dry out that's the problem.
The side that's exposed to the air dries out more quickly. Since it shrinks when it dries out, it cups. (Sometimes pretty dramatically) The other side eventually dries out and they straighten up, but that takes a while. Framing with cupped LVLs is a nightmare.
.
Keeping them inside is difficult. You buy them in either 48' or 60' lengths typically. And the margins are slim enough that it doesn't pay to build a building specially for LVLs and/or I-joists.
SO most of them sit outside. But they still should be covered.The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it [Theodore Roosevelt]
Boss Hog brought up an excellent point about how the LVLs move when they get wet.
The building inspector told me about one job he saw. The main beam was three LVLs sistered together. He thought the beam looked funky, so he took a closer look.
All three were slightly different heights, and the height variation between the three pieces changed over the length of the beam. The thing that caught his eye, though, was the beam looked like it wasn't set plumb vertical. What it was was that two of the beams were thicker at the top edge than at the bottom edge. When sistered together, the beam measured 5-1/8ths inch thick on top and 4-1/2" on the bottom. In cross-section the three LVLs looked like a trapezoid instead of a rectangle.
Red X from the inspector on that one.
OK, I need a dry LVL source around Boston. Arlington and National - builder friendly yards both stock them but store them outside. If I buy from someone who orders them in do you think their source would be straight about where they are stored? Or should I get my moisture meter out for the LVL delivery?
Mongo, I'm just curious, how did the different widths affect the integrity of the total beamage?
And on another note, in only one time in over 30 years have I ever seen an inspector question the quality of a framing job. As a matter of fact, there's even something in the codebook that says that's not their job...supposedly there's enough zealots out there already<G> Don't worry, we can fix that later!
We use TJI 210 never have any problems. Call Truss Joist (True TJIs?) they will stand behind their product if you bought them from a real supplier. Could they been sitting @ the lumber yard for a few years?
The house I'm framing now has TJIs that run from 11 7/8 to 12 1/8. I didn't think it was a big deal, but the architect had a TJI rep come out. He measured, he gave us hats, he said the joists were within specs.
Andy
Arguing with a Breaktimer is like mud-wrestling a pig -- Sooner or later you find out the pig loves it.
Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think that what I have to say has more lasting value. --Robert M. Pirsig
I agree Andy, its not a big deal.
At least you got a hat!
I'm glad I shed that perfectionist curse.
blue FRAMING ADVICE ALERT!!!! DON'T TAKE ANY FRAMING ADVICE FROM ME. I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT. IF YOU WANT GOOD FRAMING ADVICE, JUST ASK GABE. DON'T ASK ANYONE ELSE....JUST ASK GABE! REMEMBER, I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT FRAMING...I JUST BS ABOUT IT.
END OF ALERT!
I had some Weyerhaeuser Paralams a couple of years ago that were about 1/2" oversize.
The rep tried to shine me on, but I went to the engineers who said that if it's oversize, it got wet and it won't shrink back and it has lost its engineered strength.
I still had some juice with Weyerhaeuser and had new, dry, true-dimension parallams the next day.
I use mostly BC-I's (Boise Cascade), but occasionally get TG-I's. There are plants within a 150 mile radius, so with the exception of the the parallam deal, the I-joists from both manufacturers have always been dry and right on the money.
".,..I went to the engineers who said that if it's oversize, it got wet and it won't shrink back and it has lost its engineered strength."
That's total B.S. LVLs don't lose their strength when they get wet. And they *DO* shrink back to their normal size when they dry out.It is necessary for us to learn from others' mistakes. You will not live long enough to make them all yourself. [Hyman G. Rickover]
Parallams are NOT LVL's.
"Parallams are NOT LVL's."
Same thing applies though -
Getting them wet doesn't ruin them. And they'll shrink when they dry out.The liberty of speaking and writing guards our other liberties. [Thomas Jefferson]
Boss, that was my first instinct, then I realized that I haven't used enough paralams to make an educated guess. I have used lvls and can safely say that they remain strong even after they swell up with elephantitis.
blueWarning! Be cautious when taking any advice from me. Although I have a lifetime of framing experience, some of it is viewed as boogerin and not consistent with views of those who prefer to overbuild everything...including their own egos
Additionally, don't take any political advice from me. I'm just a parrot for the Republican talking points. I get all my news from Rush Limbaugh and Fox and Friends (they are funny...try them out)!
Well, I've sold both glulams and LVLs for a long time. And I've never heard of a manufacturer of either one say you couldn't use their product after they've gotten wet and swelled up.
Since the manufacturer is the one who's ultimately responsible for the product, I'd go with their recommendation.
If getting the beams wet really caused problems with their performance, the manufacturers would be triping over themselves to put out all sorts of warnings about it.Why are they called buildings, when they're already finished? Shouldn't they be called builts?
Boss;
I don't really want to keep picking this sore, but Paralams are those "beaver-barf" things that are quite unlike LVL's or laminated beams.
To be more specific, the beams I was installing had been stored in an open yard and under wrap, but had obviously been the bottom course of a stack and had been laying there long enough to pull rust stains off the pile bottoms and suck up ground moisture. Since this was my first experience with them, I didn't realize there was a problem until I had one of the beams cut, raised inside a building and found it was too fat to fit into a beam pocket.
They were heavy with moisture to the core. I can only repeat what their engineer said about their ultimate inability to recover dimension and their loss of engineered strength.
The dry replacements weighed about half of what the wet beams weighed.
To be honest, I don't care much for OSB, parallams or most anything that is depending on a lot of resins to hold it together.
I'm pretty familiar with the manufacturing process for LVL's, plywood and laminated beams, having worked at some level in those plants.
But the engineered products made up of pine, aspen and birch chips and squeezed together with exotic resins strike me as being course versions of particleboard and MDF, products whose manufacture I'm also familiar with and products that fair poorly when over-exposed to moisture.
I'm not out to pick a fight here, but in the case of the paralams, I seriously doubt that I could depend on those swollen beams to return to dimension. Besides, the engineered dimension was critical to the structure I was building, and I didn't have the luxury of waiting a year for the beams to dry out.
My original point, which I probably wasn't clear on, was that sometimes, sales people or reps will try to deflect complaints....Sometimes it pays to go up the food chain when there are problems.
I haven't seen that much variance in I-joists.
I was under the impression that they weren't allow to be talled than they should be, but could be up to 1/8" under.
I'm kinda like Mongo in thinking that these might have been wet and swollen. Some suppliers keep I-joists covered, some don't. The OSB in them changes size a great deal when wet.
Every time I get in an elevator, the operator says the same thing to me: "Basement?" [Rodney Dangerfield]
Maybe it's a brand thing. I'm guessing the origional poster is talking about the Truss Joist brand. I'm with Boss as far as what I thought were the allowable variances. I know one time we had a bunch of rim board one time that was 1/8" - 1/4" shorter than the I-joists and the rep came out. Really didn't offer any solutions or hats ;-( If I remember correctly, those were BCIs. I was in the same boat: "hey, I thought this stuff was supposed to be uniform!!!". So much for the marvles modern manafacturing... Other floor system packages delivered at the same time were fine. Matt
I have never seen a variation problem like that; however, 4X8 sheets of just about anything are really getting unreliable in terms of both size and aquareness.
If I did run up against this problem, I would make sure that the shorter pieces would be placed between taller pieces and place an extra thick bead of glue on the shorter ones.
It just occurred to me that this variance in TJIs could be used to compensate for some of the pisspoor foundations that I have had to deal with.
I had a framing carpenter put in TJIs at one end of a bathroom remodel. Now they're 3/16" lower than the 2x10s in the rest of the bathroom (which are dead level). Carpenter's fault, or due to the fact that they were sitting out in the open when I picked them up at the yard?
Currently planning on furring with luan strips based on some discussions on this forum....
Oh and a TJI is showing wear in the ply and the OSB in one place.... Talk about buyer beware....
Mine were all Trus-Joist. Some of the 230s had OSB flanges, some LVL flanges. The biggest difference was between the two materials. Don't get me started though, on the height difference between the 11 7/8 in. 230s, 360s and 560s we used on one particularly odd section of floor.
Framer's perspective --- Shut up and be happy with I-joists. All of them are lighter, straighter, and more consistent than the 20 ft. green DF 2x10s that we did the house's roof with. <G>
AndyArguing with a Breaktimer is like mud-wrestling a pig -- Sooner or later you find out the pig loves it.
Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think that what I have to say has more lasting value. --Robert M. Pirsig
"20 ft. green DF 2x10s"???? I thought you lived in New Enbland. They have Douglas Fir in New England???? 2x10 rafters, must have been quite a roof...Matt
Okay, wait a minute....
I thought that dimensional sameness was one of the selling features of the i-joist camp?
Heck, I just got done doing my floors not too long ago with 2x12 spf and the biggest variance I had was 1/4".
Sure, i-joists can come in extraordinarily long lengths and they are supper light and for the same depth, they can carry longer spans (that's a big one in my book) but....
So if you are doing a regular span (12-15 ft) you can use i-joists that don't make your back hurt, don't jive dimensionally any better than spf or df, and cost more. Yep, sign me up!
To tell the truth, I am very disappointed to hear that they are not all that great dimensionally cause that was one of the things that really go my goat when doing my floors (either ignore the dimensional differences between joists and keep framing or goof around an awful lot to try and compensate). I ignored it and am now sanding my subfloors to make the under carpet situation a little more copacetic. Gee, I thought i-joist would solve this problem.
Rob Kress
Welcome to reality Rob. If you got a beef, send it upstairs...the big guy grows the stuff.
blue FRAMING ADVICE ALERT!!!! DON'T TAKE ANY FRAMING ADVICE FROM ME. I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT. IF YOU WANT GOOD FRAMING ADVICE, JUST ASK GABE. DON'T ASK ANYONE ELSE....JUST ASK GABE! REMEMBER, I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT FRAMING...I JUST BS ABOUT IT.
END OF ALERT!
Trucks drive across the country all day long.
I remember a few yeaars ago, that trus Joist or was it GP lost the pattent on these wonders of modern technology and everyone and his mother's brother were starting small plants to make them all over the country. The original pattent holder was voicing concerns that quality would soon fall off and complaints would lead framers to suspec the material and begin avoiding it.
so here we are...with generic wood I-joists leading us down the slippery slope.
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Right Piff...and now were back to boogerin...
just where I like it.
blue FRAMING ADVICE ALERT!!!! DON'T TAKE ANY FRAMING ADVICE FROM ME. I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT. IF YOU WANT GOOD FRAMING ADVICE, JUST ASK GABE. DON'T ASK ANYONE ELSE....JUST ASK GABE! REMEMBER, I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT FRAMING...I JUST BS ABOUT IT.
END OF ALERT!
Yeah, we have Doug fir in New England. And in NJ, where I used to build. It's by far the most common framing lumber in both areas. Why not? It's stronger than the closest alternative, SPF, and doesn't crawl off the job on its own the way the next choice, SYP, would do.
AndyArguing with a Breaktimer is like mud-wrestling a pig -- Sooner or later you find out the pig loves it.
Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think that what I have to say has more lasting value. --Robert M. Pirsig
Ok - edjumacate me... Isn't all DF from out west? Matt
Yes. It all grows out west except for a few specimen trees. It comes in on trucks, railroad cars, even ships. In fact, it's common for lumber to be loaded onto trains and shipped east without a buyer. Lumber brokers sell it as it rolls east. Also, the lumberyard I worked for in NJ had a tractor trailer that made two runs a day to the docks in Newark to pick up DF. The most expensive way to ship it is by truck, and I'm pretty sure most of it travels by train or ship.
AndyArguing with a Breaktimer is like mud-wrestling a pig -- Sooner or later you find out the pig loves it.
Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think that what I have to say has more lasting value. --Robert M. Pirsig
It grows out west and is cut out there, but trucks drive across the country with DF on the back end and it gets unloaded at lumberyards and sawmills. My favorite yard gets in 12x12 green DF forty feet long and they will cut me beams any size I want. They can get sixty feet long on a special order, but that would take three weeks lead time.
We can get red cedar too, and that comes from the west coast.
Today, I varnished up some trims made of radiatta Pine - from down under. I guess they used a floating truck to get that stuff here.
There is a bunch of Siberian Spruce around here too.
And the Ipe` comes from south America
Something tells me that southern yellow pine doesn't grow up north either.
is the light starting to come on?
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Doode, we have electricity down here, just no doug fir<G>...personally, I love SYP. got it for my floors and countertops as well as floor joists...you just have to know how to play with the locals...LOL Don't worry, we can fix that later!
That radiata pine is plantation grown import in Australia. Native trees - mostly eucalypt family - are mostly insanely hard, make oak look like softwood. Also very little native forest left so radiata plantations are supposedly the answer. With the year-round growing season those things are harvestable in 20 yrs or so. Makes for very soft lumber but acceptable price.
My $0.02 worth on TJI: nothing's perfect. They have crown too, but still better value than solid lumber joists. I haven't seen a new construction project using solid joists around here for more than 5 years.
Lignum est bonum.
<better value than solid lumber joists>
as in more bang for the buck?
I find tji floor systems almost 75% more than spf systems and don't agree with that assessment of value. their place is in the realm of long spans and even then i'd go for a floor truss for the sake of other trades.
tji hangers are prone to sqeaking esp around stairwell opennings where they tend to be doubled up etc, and that is a whole other world of grief with compression fillers and so on
also define stored dry. like on the west coast in december? over a long framing process how wet does the 1st floor pkge get? enough to de-value a tji?
Could be that tji popularity has to do with marketing (such as Tyvek) and percieved enviromentally friendliness
I would also be curious to know if anyone could compare them to 2X in terms of stiffness , not strength?
Our estimators occasionally do materials/labour cost analysis on solid framing vs TJ but haven't spec'd a solid joist floor in 5 years I've been here. Maybe TJs are priced better closer to the source here in BC - although dimension lumber should also be cheaper under that premise. Our company is pretty large ($70-90 million annual turnover) so we deal directly with TrusJoist (Weyerhaueser), maybe we get better pricing because of volume. I know we get good service because we deal with the producer directly. All the layout and size spec is done by their own in-house eng. tech. and we mostly get precision cut packages - joists cut to actual installed length. Guess that one cuts both ways - better productivity provided your foundation and wall framing are accurate.
Storage... again, we get the product direct from manuf. and not from lumber yard where provenance is unknown. It stays in its protective wrap until needed. Not usually a problem.
TJI hangers don't squeak if you do it right. A dollop of glue on the bearing flange of hanger and then one screw in from underneath. No other fasteners unless specifically noted. If you toenail the top chord into the beam you are asking for trouble. Use the hangers and fasteners spec'd by the manuf. They are part of the system. Our guy specs Simpson and they come with the package.
Remember this is an engineered system. You need to do the whole thing, not just the parts that seem reasonable. The best TJs and hangers in the world can still be part of a squeaky floor if the subfloor isn't glued and screwed properly.
WallyLignum est bonum.
"If you toenail the top chord into the beam you are asking for trouble."
Please elaborate on "trouble"...The framing carpenter that put in my TJIs did do some toe-nailing.... At this point I'm hoping that the system was sufficiently over-engineered (by me) that it will overcome the lumber yard's poor storage and the carpenter's installation mistakes....
The main problem from toe nailing top chord at hanger is squeaks. The rep from TrusJoist recommends installation into hanger as I described: glue and screw, no nails. The hanger and the sheathing will stabilize the top of the joist.Lignum est bonum.
sly
Thanks for the info, could be that there is more margin in an engineered product hence a better price break for co.s such as yours. The killer is mostly the rimboard I think.
Your framing sub(s) will have the program down pat for sqeakless floors, do they charge the same regardless of the material used? i suppose that repetition will bring them up to a speed that it would take me many years to get to since we frame only 2 or 3 houses a year.
This change in materials and methods always seems to have ramifications like changing from tar paper to tyvek.
We do some framing and sometimes it is subbed out, typically where it is a significant piece of the overall project. The core business is project management and structural concrete but they will do some framing where they think they make a buck. Some estimators sub off framing on anything they bid, others take it on a case by case basis. My crew seems to respected well enough for framing expertise that we mostly get to do our own framing. Hardly surprising that some specialization occurs as we have about 20 superintendents running crews. Some guys do only concrete, some get full-spectrum start-to-finish condo projects, one does only renos and tenant improvements. Sometimes I think the question about framing in-house or sub is decided by the availability of our two main framing subs.
As to your original question, the sub's price is always based on TJ because that's all that we see spec'd for years now. In an interesting side note, the subs are so busy these days that they are getting very picky: neither of them will do stairs any more. They get a price per square foot but their contract specifies that the GC is responsible for stair framing. Guess stair work isn't enough gravy for them. I'm sure that will change eventually once this boom dies down and they are a little more hungry for work. Of course with all the Olympic projects about to get underway next spring in Vancouver and Whistler (only 4-5 hours away) there will be a trades shortage for years to come.
WallyLignum est bonum.
"I would also be curious to know if anyone could compare them to 2X in terms of stiffness , not strength? "
Have you seen the thread on Floor Vibration
?
I don't think they can be compared directly in terms of stiffness - Apples and oranges. It's how you USE each one that makes the difference. Push the limits on ANY floor system - no matter what thematerial - And you're asking for trouble.Bumpersticker: If this car is being driven courteously it's been stolen.
Boss hog
I have seen it and found it immensely informative, esp the ice/tightrope comparison. In general, I find most of your opinions logical and useful.
I also liked the 1/18 rule of joist span, it coincides with what I see in practice.FYI, the stiffest floor i've ever been on was a 12" floor truss at 19" spanning about 16'3". The problem with it was the co. who supplied it spec'ed in 2x12 stair hole headers and did that ever crack the drywall.
cheers
When talking value, you can't just look at the cost of the joists themselves, but the cost of the final finished floor system.
On my 28 x 38 I set all the TJIs and had almost all the sheathing glued and nailed in in just one day, working alone. The joist setting took about six hours.
Working with heavier solid lumber and having to set a center beam for them, I would have tripled my labor time to get a poorer quality product.
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Piffin
i assume that you had 28' long tj's and i did mention in my post about long spans being the place for tj's and other such products. However, i find the added work of hangering and compression furring and doubling up around opennings a detriment to the speed of even somewhat complex floor systems, forget about complicated floors.
i also assume you have built with tj's more than myself so what is your definition of poorer quality?
regards
Speaking of 'floor systems' one framed with solid lumber is poorer in terms of straight and flat.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Where are you getting OSB flanges.
They came from Trus-Joist through Northwest Lumber in Cornwall Bridge, CT. An excellent yard, btw.
AndyArguing with a Breaktimer is like mud-wrestling a pig -- Sooner or later you find out the pig loves it.
Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think that what I have to say has more lasting value. --Robert M. Pirsig