We were setting 66′ 6/12 scissor trusses on a commercial building. 18′ CMU walls with scissors on top. This is not a typical job for us- we are helping another contractor and are not running the site, just hired guns so to speak.
This morning, we had about 20 trusses set by 11:00 AM. While setting the last truss, it was noted that there was a significant bow in the top chord on one side. The bow was traced back to one of the first trusses set and some measures were taken to correct the problem.
Unfortunately, one of these measures included removing a brace that was thought to be pushing the trusses “out”. Conversely, this brace was actually keeping the trusses “in”, so the removal of said brace allowed most of the trusses to bow even more.
At this point, frantic efforts were made to try to shore up the trusses to stop the creep. A scissor lift was placed against the trusses to try to push them back (which did not work) and various other measures were employed to correct the problem. An attempt to hook the crane back up to the last truss to add some support placed a man in a scissor lift as close to the ridge as possible.
Well, approximately 3 minutes after this picture was taken (and the scissor lifts moved safely away) some of the trusses collapsed. I don’t know why only 6 went, I cannot fathom what forces would have restrained the remaining trusses from following suit.
No one was hurt, which I consider to be a minor miracle. There were two guys in the trusses when they collapsed, but they were in the section that remained upright. There were no people under the trusses when they went.
Lessons learned:
1. Even if you’re not in charge, don’t let an unsafe situation continue. I should have spoken up, but failed to effectively communicate what we needed to do, which was install more bracing prior to the bow forming.
2. When the trusses started to move, I was quite fearful as I could tell they were not looking good (see first picture above). This is a church building, and many of the hands on site are volunteers so many did not appreciate the risk of the situation. Some were scampering around trying to fix the trusses, but this was not safe. I don’t know the best answer for this- I don’t think one should start screaming to the other people that they are not being safe, but it needs to be communicated in some way. I think specifically of the older gentleman in the scissor lift near the peak. He was 26′ above concrete in a 32″ wide scissor lift just minutes before they came down. Fortunately, he was convinced to come down and remained safe because of it. As everyone knows, just because there is an emergency that doesn’t mean that frantic, poorly thought out effort is going to help.
I don’t know if I’ve ever had a day like this at work. Seeing those trusses come down gave a feeling of nasuea, even after confirming that no one was under the pile of broken trusses.
I would be lying if I said I was not glad that this was not our job. Since I was involved, there is a feeling of responsibility because I could have spotted the problem. At least that feeling of responsibility does not include someone’s injury or worse- death.
Don’t ever neglect to brace trusses properly, and don’t ever neglect to speak up when appropriate.
Replies
i'm sitting here with my mouth hanging open, what in the world kept these from all going down? and then you mention volunteer help, i have done some hfh stuff,when something like this happens,it multiplys with guys that don't see what could happen.
unbelieveable no one was hurt. that made it a good day.
the older i get ,
the more people tick me off
>>>While setting the last truss, it was noted that there was a significant bow in the top chord on one side
Significant?
Wow, based on that pic alone, I'd say "significant" is an understatement.
Super glad noone was hurt. That could have been a whole lot worse.
Scott.
Scott,The pictures shows the condition after the brace being pulled. I think Boss hit it on the head, there may have been x pounds of force on those top chords, but when the brace was removed, the force was x multiplied many times.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
Here are some pictures from today's efforts.
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All of the trusses are now braced off and we were able to set 11 additional trusses. It's surely not the only reason to install trusses properly, but the repair efforts to get the trusses that had not fallen back on layout and plumb took much, much longer than a proper bracing job would have taken in the first place.
There have been many things said about diagonal bracing in this thread. I think that our circumstance removes much of the need for diagonal bracing, but I reserve the right to be proven to be 100% wrong. The end (gable) walls are 12" CMU with horizontal reinforcement, cores filled with grout and rebar approximately 48" OC, a bond beam top course, and (most importantly), and wall that intersects this gable wall that is full height and about 16' deep. For this reason, I think (and we did) plan to use the 2x12 top plate on the CMU wall as a "fixed" point.
We now have the trusses nailed at the plates, 3 braces on each top chord, and a brace along the ridge. Diagonal bracing has been installed on some of the intermediate webs, along with the continuous lateral bracing on some other webs. I feel pretty comfortable with the trusses as the are installed now.
The replacement trusses are coming on Friday and we will finish off the job then.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
I'm going to attempt to prove you wrong. I'll use an extreme example to prove the point.Let say you have that 2x12 anchored perfectly and the wall is very stout: there is no worry ?it collapsing. Given that criteria; what is the weak link? Now..the extreme example. Lets say you were building a very long building...1/2 a mile long. Would you just keep standing up trusses, knowing they are laced to that 2x12? At what point do you decide that you want to isolate some sections of trusses? Do you run the entire mile? Me?....I opt for safety because the bracing is going to go in there sooner or later. If the finished specs call for x bracing every 20', I put it in there as we install the trusses. It doesn't add any more time in the job but I don't get to stand there idle waiting for a truss to come in. I'll answer my own orginal question: The weak link is the nails that attach the lacer to the 2x12. Do I want to rely on two or four nails or create mini sections of well braced trusses. I opt for the mini sections of well braced trusses. If those nails on the original lacers fail, everything keeps standing.
PS: I would not be satisfied with the temp bracing that I'm seeing on the "new and better" pictures.
What would you recommend?
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
I would be running bracing from the peak to the floor, with a block screwed into the floor every 10 trusses. In fact on a building of that size we always run 3 braces down to the floor. Every other brace should be reversed!
You are asking for trouble not bracing that back to the floor IMHO.
Don't worry, all the 2x4 will be used in permanent truss bracing!
Dave
Edited 11/4/2009 7:58 pm ET by frammer52
Frammer,A floor to peak brace would likely be about 50'+. I would think that brace would contribute little to truss movement.From what I have been told (I haven't looked at all of the truss details myself), the only permanent braces will be two rows of CLB's on the upper single ply webs. I can believe it, as the center section is three ply (the trusses come in 4 pieces) and the sheathing and GWB will restrain the top & bottom chords.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
I realize it would be long. We have done many and for saftyies sake we always did this.
I would double check that permanant truss bracing. Anytime we had trusses that large, we used a ton of lineals for bracing.
You need to check the schedule in the packet that was delivered with the trusses.
Good luck!
I don't know if I agree with Frammer about bracing back to the floor. That's an awful long flimsy brace. The thing that caught my eye was the lacers that started but weren't continued. I also noticed a lack of diagonal bracing. On trusses like that, you have to treat the bottom planes (the ceiling) and the top planes separate. Those were large trusses so I'd probably put a minimum of three lateral braces on the ceiling plane and three on the top plane. Each of those lateral braces would be diagonally braced back to the sidewall plate line. Clarification: on the ceiling plane, I'd lace one on each slope and one on the peak for a total of three. On the roof plane, I'd do the same. I'm making this "guess" based on the picture. I would not hesitate to add more if the trusses were shaky at all. I hate working on shaky cathedral trusses. I'm much more tolerant on "regular" trusses. I would continue that pattern all the way across the building. My test would be shaking the set after I got them braced. If they weren't feeling locked solid, I'd add lateral and diagonal braces. The explanation is this: you can lock the top solid but that set is so top heavy that the bottoms want to flip up. That causes a lot of pressure on the bracing. On a building like that, I need to know that everything I've installed behind me is permanent and I don't have to worry about it. Is it possible for you to take a picture of the truss spec sheet? I'd be curious to see how many lateral braces they have specced. They typically will have one or two on some of the compression struts. They also might show lacers on the bottom chords. I think the "guidelines" call for lacers every ten feet. In residential, they allow for the drywall to be the brace so the lacers are optional or only used for temp erection procedures.
Jim,I think you are right about bracing on the bottom chords. They have one row at about the 2/3 point up from the wall plate, but I can see that needs to be more. The WTCA B-1 sheet calls for 10-15' max bottom chord lateral bracing, so I will strongly recommend we employ that guideline.I will see if I can check the permanent bracing requirements. We are going back on Friday to help with the front section, I fully intend for that to go smoothly.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
Jon, count your blessings.
I saw my share of crazy unsafe conditions before my apprenticeship was served. After that, I had no problem saying NO and refusing to participate in ANYTHING unless the situation was abated or I took over all control of the job.
The job that you have posted is one of the toughest sets of trusses to safely set. The key to setting those trusses is to get a great anchor, and then install all, or most, of the permanent lateral bracing as you set the trusses. Included in the lateral bracing would be the required intermittent "X" bracing as detailed in the specs.
I can't even begin to tell you what I would have done to save the situation as you are describing if I had seen it happening as I was walking by. The guy in the cage was most definitely risking his life, foolishly, I might add. One thing is for sure....there wouldn't have been anything REMOVED until I added significant bracing and crossbracing.
Sometimes it's impossible to do a great job plumbing the first truss or two. In those cases, I'd temp brace it until I could get the second or third truss standing. Usually, then, we could run braces back through the standing trusses to create a solid anchor that was plumb, level and straight. After that, we would do some disconnecting, if required, to get the first two trusses lined up. It was all manageable though....we weren't trying to keep twenty trusses from collapsing. After we'd get those first three or four standing, we'd x brace them securely and do that every ten feet or so.
I'm glad to hear that no one was hurt, especially you.
Thank God no one was hurt.
Situations like this make me sick. The bracing on those trusses was pathetically inadequate. (No offense intended to you, Jon)
If you look at an erection bracing sheet you'll see that rows of bracing are required on the top chord of trusses this size every 8' or so. (Going from memory) I see maybe one horizontal row in about a 35' top chord?
The diagonals look good at first. But the diagonals are supposed to be there to brace the horizontals runs. Since there are no horizontal runs it's a miracle that the trusses stayed up as long as they did.
.
I don't know what else to say. Accidents like this piss me off, because they're do easily preventable. I preached about truss bracing for 20+ years to local people and even here on BT. Sometimes it feels like no one is paying attention.
.
BTW - I don't like the term "truss collapse" - It implies that something was wrong with the trusses. In cases like this the trusses simply fell over.
Ron,
For those of us who don't work with large trusses often, could you post a 'typical' erection sheet? I don't do but one truss job every few years, and it's always been on somebody else's site as just another chump swinging a hammer. I've never even seen such a sheet.
Actually, every truss-setting job I've been on has been a Chinese fire-drill, some less nutz than others but confusion reigning is the general rule. The owner or framing sub is so cranked about not keeping the crane past the 3-hour minimum that they won't slow down for anything till all those trusses are up there. Any screw ups they figure to fix afterwards.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
The HIB-91 that Matt referred to is one good source.Try this:http://www.sbcindustry.com/docs/06_BCSI_booklet_FINAL.pdf?PHPSESSID=d3oigkat5r7ea68t3tv1fu6dn3AitchKay
Thanks, dude, but that's a 20-meg PDF; you could copy it out by hand and get it to me by snail-mail before I could finish downloading it on this 20 kbps dialup connection....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
115 pages.
How bad do you want it? If you're not in a hurry I can download and print then bring it up some time.
Give me an excuse to go see ya.
Wait on the printout; let's see what Boss can come up with. I'm not planning on designing any trusses that big this week anyway....
But if ya need an excuse to come up and see me, I've got four of 'em sitting in the beer fridge right now.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
I always get a kick out of the fact that two of the most prolific posters on BT (you and Pif) have squeezed BaaZillions of lines of text through dialup connections. Just goes to show you.....Scott.
Aw, shucks....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
I'll try to post some stuff about it tonight. Just got out of bed, and have to get to work now.
To be upset over what you don't have is to waste what you do have.
Thanks, Boss. Hope you can squeeze it into 100kb or less ;o)....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Here's one I had.You get out of life what you put into it......minus taxes.
Marv
Seems like reading page 2 would have solved a lot of problems....RTFM
Thanks, but that's still 3 meg. :-(
This notebook is designed for high-speed wireless; I had to buy a plug-in modem that only lets 26kbps thru. Even if I try to download it in the office on the 'big' computer, the max speed of the line is only 43kbps.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
I'll try to post some useful thoughts and keep the size down so you can view it easily. I borrowed some images from the PDF that Marv posted. (Thanks Marv)
To set trusses ya have to start out with something solid to build from. If the braces are really long they may need lateral braces to keep them from buckling. (The green braces in this drawing)
This drawing isn't the only way to start out. But whatever you start out with has to be stable.
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This diagram shows the maximum recommended spacing between runs of bracing. (The green braces) Note that for trusses 60' to 80' they recommend runs of bracing no greater than 4' apart. On the 66' trusses Jon posted about it looked like there was only one row on the entire top chord.
Note also the angled (Red) braces. They start out at something solid like the heel of a truss and go to one of the horizontal runs.
If you have a lot of horizontal runs but no diagonals, the horizontals just hold all the trusses together so they can fall over together.
If diagonals are just thrown up anywhere (Like in the trusses in the original post) they don't really do much. They need to go FROM something TO Something.
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One more drawing that shows the function of the diagonals braces. Note that each diagonal goes from one horizantal run to another one. That way you can trace a solid line all the way up the slope of the trusses.
If you can line up the horizontal runs with the ground braces I think that's best. But in reality it's not easy to do.
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here's the 1st paragraph:
I left out the picture that the para was referring to to make it easier for you to DL. Let me know when you want the next para.
Hope this helps.
7g
Boss. Aren't scissors trusses, due to their very shape, more inclined to be less stable during the setting/installation? They're center of gravity is moved even further above the plate line or bearing point than a standard truss.
Also, the distance between the temporary lateral bracing of the top and bottom chords is less, exerting more stress/force on the bracing.This was a perfect example of the proverbial case of an accident looking for a place to happen.
You are correct about the center of gravity. That's why I mentioned earlier that those particular trusses are extra worrisome. On a set like that, we'd probably have six or more lacers running and each lacer would be solidly anchored. We'd also x brace every 10 to 15 feet depending on the specs and situation. We used to spray paint the location of the required lateral bracing. When possible, we'd install the specified lacing as we installed the trusses including the required diagonal bracing. Even if a crane is involved, it usually doesn't take anymore time if the bracing points are known. It takes time to put temp bracing on and it takes the same time to put permanent bracing on.
"Aren't scissors trusses, due to their very shape, more inclined to be less stable during the setting/installation? They're center of gravity is moved even further above the plate line or bearing point than a standard truss."
Yes - Scissor trusses are more difficult to brace. But not because of the center of gravity.
"Also, the distance between the temporary lateral bracing of the top and bottom chords is less, exerting more stress/force on the bracing."
Yes and no.
The real problem is that since there's a lower angle between the top and bottom chord, the top chord has more compression in it than a flat bottom chord truss. More compression means more need for bracing.
I've used the illustration of a yardstick before: Imagine taking a yardstick and putting one end on the floor so it’s in a vertical position. If you put one hand on top of the yardstick and pushed down, the yardstick would buckle.
More pressure on the yardstick would mean it would want to buckle more, and would take more bracing to keep it in line.
I thought I'd add a few more thoughts.I think what happened in the case of the trusses in this thread is a sort of "bracing creep", for lack of a better term. Just making up some numbers here to illustrate the point: Let's assume that the top chord of the trusses had 500# of compression in them just due to their own weight. I'll also asume that the top chords weren't installed perfectly straight. Maybe they were originally an inch out of line.Since the top chords aren't perfectly straight and there's compression in them, that inch out of line means that at the point where a brace crosses there's 10# of horizontal force. As you set the trusses, each truss is spaced 2' from the last one and has that 1" misalignment built in. So each truss adds 10# of force to the horizontal brace. If you get 15 trusses set at 10# each, that's 150#.As the brace gets a more and more force put on it things slip a little. And of course you set more trusses Pretty soon each truss is 2" out of line. You have 20 trusses set with 20# of force on the brace, so you're up to 400# total. Set maybe 10 more trusses, and you're now up to 30 trusses times 20# each, or 600# of force on the brace.Then as Jon said they pulled something loose to try to straighten things up. If it slipped another couple of inches the trusses ar e now 4" out of line. That means 30 trusses with 40# of force on the brace, or 1,200#. No 2x4 brace in the world is gonna hold that. Somewhere something pulled loose and the trusses simply fell over. Or they buckled so far that the chords snapped.
And a few more thoughts:At times I've been asked if the recommendations on the HIB sheets are too restrictive. My answer is yes - I think they're ridiculous. No way in the world can anyone afford to follow those guidelines. So what *IS* important, and how do you keep this from happening to you?#1 Start out with a solid anchor. If you don't start out well you aren't likely to end well.#2 Add more horizontal runs that you think you need. I know they cost money. But it costs MORE money when big ones fall down.#3 Add diagonal bracing. Brace FROM something TO something. Don't just throw them on anywhere that looks good. #4 Put the nails in all the way. Too often there are a couple of 16D sinkers stuck in a brace with the heads sticking up so they can be pulled easily. They need to be tight to do their job.
O.K. - One more post and I'll stop. This thread just hit a hot button with me. It's not all that often I can post useful info here on BT, so I ain't gonna miss out on the chance.(-:I posted this back in 2003 when I was talking about truss bracing. It maybe doesn't EXACTLY apply here. But it's close enough:I've been involved in several situation where trusses weren't braced properly and fell over. Typically the script goes something like this:Customer calls, says the house he was framing blew down. Wants to know if we'll send out the crane to stand the roof trusses back up. Unfortunately, the answer is "NO".The reasoning behind the refusal is this: When trusses fall/blow over, they can obviously be subjected to streses way beyond the capacity of the lumber. Some of the damage can easily be seen - Broken webs, chords, etc. But some of the damage might be hidden. So the engineers we use won't design repairs for trusses that have been involved in a collapse of any sort.The builders tend to get really, really ticked off at this point. They assume we just want to sell them another set of trusses. But that's not really the case. We would be subject to a HUGE amount of liability if we oferred advice on something our engineers wouldn't back up.Sometimes they try to repair the trusses themselves. Other times they end up scrapping the damaged ones and buying new ones. Either way it costs a lot of time and money.So what do you do? The best thing is obviously to prevent the collapse in the first place. Every job that I've seen come down had very poor bracing. Skimping on bracing is easy to do, as framers tend to see it as a waste of time to put something up that they'll only have to remove later.Never set trusses on Friday and leave them over the weekend without plywood on the roof.Read the bracing sheets that the truss companies send out. I haven't seen a roof yet that was braced like they show in those sheets - I know they're awfully conservative. But they offer some sound advice and ideas.Use diagonal braces to brace the bracing. (This is one of the ideas from the bracing sheets) Every job I've seen come down had few diagonal braces, or none at all. Imagine standing up a row of dominoes, and hooking them all together. Push one over, they all fall together. Unless the bracing is fastened to something solid it isn't stable.One builder that I knew fairly well went through a collapse once. The insurance adjuster all but called him a swindler for having a claim right after he took out a builder's risk policy. They told him to get a crane out there and remove the trusses so they didn't damage the rest of the structure. Then the adjuster came out and accused him of removing the trusses to hide evidence. They drug the investigation on forever and gave him a lot of grief.Ended up taking up almost a week of his time, setting the house about 2 weeks behind schedule, and costing him several thousand dollars. (According to him)
Regarding your #4: How about double-head nails? Those would drive the brace down tight and still be easy to pull later.
Another question comes to mind: Any problem with running the bracing under the top chords? I've seen this done and it makes it possible to lay the sheathing on without having to pull the braces first.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
"How about double-head nails?"
They're absolutely fine. But that's not something I generally see around jobsites.
"Any problem with running the bracing under the top chords? I've seen this done and it makes it possible to lay the sheathing on without having to pull the braces first."
Good point - I forgot to address that.
It would work fine, but would be a pain to install.
What I would suggest instead is when the trusses are still in a bundle, mark a line at 4' - 8' - 12' - (etc.) up from the tails Then put braces on a few inches above those lines.
So if a brace is 8' 6" up the slope, you can put 2 rows of plywood on, then stand on the plywood to pull the braces loose.
To live outside the law you must be honest. [Bob Dylan]
Dino, I hate to break the news to you but we now live in a world where they have nail guns LOL.So, we just shoot two nails into every brace. Later, if that brace has to be removed, it's a simple matter to pop it off using a lever and hammer. On temp braces, we always shot in studs. Later, as we worked our way up the roof sheathing, those temps were our roof kickers. Later, as we continued framing, we'd pull the roof kickers and make all sorts of stuff with them.No self respecting framer would use double headed nails. Those are concrete guy's nails. I will admit that I tried them in my apprentice days...all they did was tear up clothes but didn't make life any easier.
I'll bet my oldest framing gun is older'n your oldest framing gun....
Senco SNIII.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Don't bet your farm LOL. I gave away that old Senco III many years ago.
That's not that old. I have a Senco SNIII.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
That's not that old. I have a Senco SNIII.
Awright! he only gun I've ever run with more 'ooomph' than that old III was my BIL's IV. I don't think the newer ones come up to either of them.
I use a newish Paslode most of the time now (magazine is bigger and the feed is less sticky) but I still get the Senco out when I've gotta nail bracing on a dock under water, or if I need to put an other gun up on the roof.
But my point was to acknowledge Jim's needling me that yeah, you can nail down bracing on trusses with a nail gun instead of double headed nails. I usually don't because when I'm crawling all over a buncha still-wobbly trusses 'way up there inna sky, the less crud I gotta drag behind me, the better I like it.
Pouch fulla double-headers and a hammer is a lot easier to climb with than an 8 pound nail gun with 50' of hose hanging off it...especially since you've always got the pouch and hammer with you, too. ;0)
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Dino, I WOULDN'T ALLOW anyone to nail lacers up in the air with double headed nails. They would be trip hazards and I'd be the first to tumble.If you insisted on handnailing, I'd cut your pay in half and give you some 16cc sinks.
Me, I'm of the school of thought that a man's methods of doing what I need done are--generally--less important than the result. There are always exceptions, but micromanaging a guy's every move wastes both my time and his. If I tell him to bring me a left-handed whirligig blade for the inside-out tubing cutter, I don't care if he carries it up the staging in his teeth as long as he doesn't drop it on the way.
If it's your site, you get to call it the way you want it. If I'm just swinging a hammer, I'm getting paid by the hour to do precisely what you want the way you want, so it's no skin off my nose.
But don't try to cut my pay for handnailing up in the trusses; I'll betcha a large Tim Horton's Double-Double I can move faster and more safely through the webs than the guy dragging a hose--enough to more than make up for the extra two secs it takes to handnail.
;0)~
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Send me that Tim Hortons.I have hand nailed. I have gun nailed. I understand the nuisance of the hose. The nuisance is not severe enough to offset the slowness of hand nailing. I'll take the coffee black please and toss in a doughnut.
For framing, or nailing off strapping on a wall, or sheathing or roof decking or subfloor, I agree with you 100%. In fact for any nailing where the carp can move from one nail to the next without crawling or climbing, a gun is 'way faster.
However, for this particular situation I won't agree. Last time I set trusses it was on a weekend, to help one of my regular guys who was building his own place. My compressor and guns and all that were at another site, and he only had one gun so he used it.
I beat him crosseyed. Standing there waiting for him to catch up, scratching my nose....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
We always ran the guns. The people in the middle nailing tends to be the less experienced, there for the slowest. Liked a gun in their hands for that. The two on the walls most always hand nail. Less chance of them getting tangled in the hose. Especially on the two story buildinga!!!
"Less chance of them getting tangled in the hose."If you are seriously worried about your guys getting tangled in hoses and falling off the walls, you need a new set of crew. Dino: I suspect that if you had the nail gun and the guy you were helping had the handpounders, you'd have beat him that way too. We are not going to have a discussion about whether handnailing is faster than nail guns. Just send the coffee LOL! Don't forget the donuts.
about your guys getting tangled in hoses and falling off the walls>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Has something to do with the insurance com.
Good thing we don't work for Jim.... ;0)
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Last year I asked him for a job. The commute might be a little long, but....
He hired someone else!( glad he did)>G<
Yah. Dat's a loooooooon commute....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
about your guys getting tangled in hoses and falling off the walls>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>"Has something to do with the insurance com."Your insurance company requires that they tangle themselves up?!!! Get a new crew and get a new insurance company.
Opposite, now you are being ridiculus!
not sure how old yours is,mine is a old duofast,from 1977. i swear the body is cast iron. good thing is ,it never kicks. but i'm getting to old to reach out and hold the thing. if i remember right it's around 12lbs.the older i get ,
the more people tick me off
not a chance...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
"Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints"
SNII
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
"Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints"
SNII
Shoulda known you'd have one older'n me!
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
I bet Piffin has an SN.9
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
Those aren't nail guns, those are boat anchors!!>G<
Yer jest saying that 'cause I use mine underwater....
View Image
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
How well does that work?
Works quite well. A lot easier than swinging a hammer. All you hear is a 'thunk' and then a blast of bubbles goes sailing past your face. The fish find it very curious.
Pneumatic impact guns work well, too, as do pneumatic drills.
When you're finished, you do want to run the tool until no more water comes out the exhaust, and drench the air motor with oil.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
they're nick named Cannons and can be fitted with magazines to take 20d's...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
"Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints"
erection bracing sheet
Careful before you get banned
Wow - sounds like you all really dodged the bullet... Those few guys who were up in the trusses when the others went down... dirty underwear? :-) When reading that about the first thing that came to mind was HIB-91.
BTW - who was in charge? A real contractor or one of the volunteers?
I'm just glad you typed this posting - rather than one of your loved ones having to type it for you.
I'll take my chances at getting thrown out for saying something like this, but......
You mention that there were guys in the trusses when the collapse occurred, but that they were uninjured because of the incomplete nature of the collapse.
And you mention that this is a church, with some being volunteers.
Being "in" the trusses is probably even more dangerous than being beneath them in a collapse. Yet these guys were spared.
To me, that is directly related to the fact that this is a church building. What stopped the truss collapse from being complete? They're (the workers') maker did.
I won't be laughing at the lies when I'm gone,
And I can't question how or when or why when I'm gone;
I can't live proud enough to die when I'm gone,
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here. (Phil Ochs)
WOW!
That is what I was thinking! Reminded me of one like that in Syracuse several years ago. That time it was not the truss bracing that was the problem, but lack of bracing on the walls.
Glad no one was hurt!
Edited 11/3/2009 9:49 am ET by frammer52
Lots of opinion here already about the techy end of truss setting. Here's another slant.
A job that has lots of volunteers onsite always has lots of energy and push to get on with it. I wonder if that contributed to this problem.
Lots of guys with lots of enthusiasm. Maybe some experience but not that much working up high in the webs. Maybe quite a few older guys not as agile as they once were. Maybe some residential builders not used to 18' walls and long span trusses.
So then the details start to slide and bracing gets poor in the interest of speed and more immediately gratifying work.
Whoever's in charge, no matter how competent, starts to feel like he's herding cats.
Problems start to show up and each guy has his own idea of just what's needed to fix it and things get even more scattered.
Suddenly it's too far to go back.
Maybe some things ought not to be done with volunteer crews.
j
ps - does all of it have to come down to fix the problem? almost seems that you'll need to start over again.
You are right! A fellow who was working on the roof of his church as a volunteer, slid down the steep pitch and died. He was not tied off. OSHA standards apply to volunteer projects.While Demoing and old house with many additions I got a pic of this.
<While Demoing and old house with many additions I got a pic of this.>Nice. Is that at Fort Qu'Appelle or somewhere else?I'm embarrassed to say that I've actually done something like that. It was years ago and I was running volunteer crews on low-income rehabs. Demolition was the most dangerous thing we could do 'cuz everybody got excited and just hard to manage. So, when possible, we left everything where it was and just built over it. j
Jeff, yes that is/was in Fort Qu'Appelle. This one was a head scratcher. The roof was so water damaged we could not pick it apart from the top, and close to to buildings so we could not use a loader for the most part.We stripped it the tied a couple ropes and pulled it with a one ton. landed right were we wanted. Cut the roof up and the went at the floor.Well Thursday we were using a loader to pull the floor off and the now fired yuts running the loader was pissed at the controls. This is the first time I worked with this guy.He got stuck and had a big chunck of crete behind his wheel and could not back up. I told him what was going on and and told him to rest his bucket put down his outriggers so we could either move the crete or put some more so he could back up. He noded OK. so three of us were tring to move this chunck and It was stuck so we were adding some bricks. All of a sudden I heard the revs going up and started to back up an the out rigger came flying past my face about an inch away. He didn't even wait for us to back up and give a OK sign.Well the other two guys were mad as heck X2 so I went next door to the GC told him what happened. He came out and very tacktfully got this guy out of the loader. The rest is history.I don't know if you ever heard the KINK'S a British band. The did a song called "Demoliton" That was running thru my brain on the ride home. I called DW and told her I was alive and happy to make it home. I'm to old for this carp any more. I will never again work with a guy running a machine I don't know.
You're a fortunate guy. Lots of close calls with machinery stuck on sites and guys getting in a hurry about it. You had the benefit of being on a crew site with a decent GC who was willing to put the boots to an operator who needed it. It's been a while since i had a close call on a site. I remember, though, just getting on with the work day at the time but then later, in the truck, on the way home, it sinks in how nasty it could have been. hope your week goes better than last one. j
The guy in the lift is fearless or something else....
Something else.An eager volunteer who is very lucky he is still walking around.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA