Whether you’re designing and building a one- or two-story single-family residence, or doing the same for a multifamily, mid-rise wood-frame structure, fire and smoke protection features must be considered, and in most cases are required. When a fire starts, time is of the essence and the longer the flame and gases can be contained and the spread of the fire to adjacent spaces is kept in check, the greater the chance firefighters and first responders will have to defeat the blaze. Though many building jurisdictions have slightly different requirements and provisions, the three primary modes of fire rating that codes consider are an F-rating (flame), a T-rating (temperature rise), and an L-rating (air or gas leakage). The F and T ratings are gauged on a resistance per hour basis and the L rating is based on a rating of air leakage in cubic feet per minute per square foot of opening, or CFM/sq.ft. These ratings and provisions are in place to help safeguard against the spread of fire and smoke within the immediate structure as well as to contain the spread of fire to other structures.
Category: Building Codes
It can be hard to keep up with or understand all of the building codes. That’s where Simpson Strong-Tie’s engineers coming in.
Wall-Bracing Alternatives to Help Designers and Builders Navigate the Lumber Shortage
As lumberyards continue to recover from pandemic-related supply issues, there’s been an ever-increasing shortage of building materials, creating many challenges for building contractors. These shortages have impacted availability of wood structural panel sheathing and, as a result, our field engineers and sales team have received many questions about potential alternative solutions to meet the wall bracing provisions within the International Residential Code (IRC). Simpson Strong-Tie Branch Engineer Silvia Dyer has researched these provisions and compiled this useful information for our team. At Simpson Strong-Tie, customer service is one of our top priorities. Our engineering team is always available to discuss your wall bracing situations and to help you investigate unique wall bracing solutions. Read Silvia’s research and suggestions below.
Introducing the Code-Listed Strong-Wall® Site-Built Portal Frame System for Prescriptive Design
Many of you reading this may already be familiar with our Strong-Wall site-built portal frame system, or PFS for short. Simpson Strong-Tie launched the PFS last spring to provide designers, builders and contractors in prescriptive markets with a simple and cost-effective solution to meet code-prescribed wall bracing requirements for narrow wall widths.
Business Owners Today: What Else Could Happen?
How can a “Back-to-Business” plan help communities and business owners recover after a damaging event? In this guest blog post, David Cocke, S.E., explores the history of “B2B” programs and how they help expedite the inspection process so owners can get back to normal faster.
Business leaders have a lot to think about nowadays. With the current pandemic crisis, we have to consider health (ourselves, our families and our staff), liabilities, cash flow, workload, client retention and the pipeline for future work. Knock on wood that we don’t have to deal with any kind of natural disaster on top of this current situation, but more on that topic later…
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Snow Loading for Trusses: Why Specifying a Roof Snow Load Isn’t Enough
You might wonder what a quote about winning basketball games could possibly have to do with snow loading on trusses. As with basketball, the importance of close teamwork also applies to a project involving metal-plate-connected wood trusses – for the best outcome, the whole team needs to be on the same page. For purposes of this blog post, the team includes the Building Designer, the Truss Designer and the Building Official, and the desired outcome is not a win per se, but rather properly loaded trusses. Snow loading on trusses is one area where things may not always go according to the game plan when everyone isn’t in accord. This post will explain how to avoid some common miscommunications about truss loading.
Construction Referees: Evaluation Processes for Alternative Building Products
In a perfect world, every single product used in building would undergo a rigorous, independent evaluation process to determine its compliance with established safety codes and standards prior to its appearance in the market. “Alternative” building products and design methods are very much a reality of the construction industry, however. All the same, when Designers and building officials must decide whether to specify or approve such products, there are still review organizations and processes that help them evaluate whether or not the products meet the required safety standards to protect the public. In this post, Jeff Ellis, Simpson Strong-Tie Director of Codes and Compliance, delineates the process involved when an evaluation service entity, such as ICC-ES, issues an evaluation report (ER) for an alternative building product or method.
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Simpson Strong-Tie® SET-3G™ Adhesive Offers a Ductile Solution for Post-Installed Anchorage near a Concrete Edge
Designing post-installed anchorage near a concrete edge is challenging, especially since the ACI provisions for cracked-concrete anchorage went into effect. In the following post, one of our field engineers, Jason Oakley, P.E., explains how SET-3G™ and Anchor Designer™ software from Simpson Strong-Tie make it easier to design a ductile anchor solution.
Engineers often provide holdown anchoring solutions near a concrete edge to help prevent overturning of light-frame shear walls during a seismic (or high-wind) event. Sometimes a post-installed anchor must be used if the cast-in-place anchor was mislocated or misinstalled, or is located where a retrofit or addition is needed. Since the cracked-concrete anchorage design provisions went into effect more than a decade ago, it has been challenging for engineers to offer a near-edge post-installed anchoring solution. This is especially true for structures subject to earthquake loads in seismic design category (SDC) C through F. Simpson Strong-Tie’s new SET-3G epoxy is the first anchoring adhesive in the industry to offer exceptionally high bond-strength values that permit ductile anchorage in concrete near an edge. This blog post will cover a specific example that focuses on Chapter 17 of ACI 318-14 to design a threaded rod, anchored with SET-3G adhesive, used to secure a holdown located 1 3/4″ away from a single concrete edge (Figure 1).
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AC398 Now Includes Moment Evaluation of Cast-in-Place Post Bases
This week’s post was written by Jhalak Vasavada, Research & Development Engineer at Simpson Strong-Tie.
When we launched our new, patent-pending MPBZ moment post base earlier this year, the evaluation of the moment capacity of post bases was not covered by AC398 – or by any other code, for that matter. There wasn’t a need – there were no code-accepted connectors available on the market for resisting moment loads.
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Introducing the New and Improved Simpson Strong-Tie Strong-Wall® Bracing Selector
It’s been said that the World Wide Web is the wave of the future. Okay, maybe this is slightly outdated news, as it’s been 25 years since Bill Gates penned his internet tidal-wave memorandum, but it’s a good lead-in to this week’s blog topic – web apps. More specifically, those apps that have been developed to address the wall-bracing requirements defined in the International Residential Code® (IRC). Designers and engineers have no doubt noticed that over the last several code cycles, the wall-bracing provisions in the IRC have become increasingly complex. To help navigate these requirements and calculate the required bracing length for a given wall line, Simpson Strong-Tie introduced the Wall-Bracing-Length Calculator (WBLC) a few years back, as discussed in an earlier blog post. I’ll also mention that the WBLC has since been updated to the 2015 IRC.
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What Structural Engineers Need to Know About the New OSHA Silica Dust Standards
In March of 2016, the United States Department of Labor issued new OSHA standards on how crystalline silica dust should be handled in various workplaces including within the construction industry. The changes are intended to limit workers’ exposure to and inhalation of silica dust on the jobsite. These regulations will replace the current standard, which was issued in 1971. Compliance with the new rules will be required on construction jobsites starting September 23, 2017, and will be enforced through OSHA from that time forward.
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