Category: Connectors

With nearly 70 years of field and R&D experience, Simpson Strong-Tie® connectors are manufactured to the industry’s highest standards. From framing angles to straps to heavy-duty girder hangers, we offer the most diverse product line so that you have the right product for the job. Find out how Simpson Strong-Tie connectors can help you build the right way every day.

Questions Answered: CSHP High-Performance Coiled Strap

We recently hosted an interactive webinar in which our new high-performance coiled strap’s product manager, Thom Murphy, and I discussed how an innovative embossment is a game changer for coiled strap, making it easier and faster to install with a standard framing nailer. During the one-hour webinar, we reviewed the benefits of a continuous load path as well as key uses for coiled straps. We also related what was involved in the design and testing of the embossment. If you missed the conversation, you can still watch the on-demand webinar and earn PDH and CEU credits here.
Continue Reading

Choosing Resiliency: Lessons from Hurricane Michael

In this post, Doug Allen, P.E., a structural engineer with Simpson Strong-Tie, looks at the choice homeowners in disaster-prone areas face between simply building to code and building to standards of resilience or IBHS FORTIFIED Home™ standards instead.

Resilience, or resiliency: The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. The ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.

In the wake of the most recent and very devastating hurricane seasons, the theme of structural resiliency has resurfaced with renewed urgency for increasing numbers of homeowners, builders, Designers and civic planners. Hurricanes pose a triple threat of high winds, substantial rain and storm surge. Extreme weather has cost the nation nearly $100 billion in damage during 2018. Accordingly, awareness has risen within affected and surrounding coastal regions regarding their communities’ existing structural resilience ratings (low or high) and the need to improve in view of the losses as well as the time and cost to rebuild what was destroyed.
Continue Reading

5 Ways the Quik Stik™ Tool Raises the Bar on Overhead Fastening

Our “Quik” line of tools now has jobsite efficiency covered from subfloor to drywall to rafters. The Quik Stik overhead assembly fastening system is our most recent innovation in a line of fastening systems that also includes the Quik Drive® PRO250G3 subfloor system and the Quik Drive PRODW drywall system. It provides contractors with a versatile solution that makes fastening rafter and truss connections faster and easier than ever. Here are five ways the Quik Stik raises the bar on overhead fastening.
Continue Reading

Still Using Lag Screws? Consider Self-Tapping Wood Screws Instead

Lag screws are traditionally specified for many structural loads in wood construction. However, recent innovations in engineering for self-tapping wood screws have made them an increasingly popular, labor-saving alternative to lag screws. In the following post, Aram Khachadourian, P.E., of Simpson Strong-Tie discusses the structural and economic advantages of this option.
Continue Reading

Questions Answered: Resisting Uplift with Structural Fasteners

Of course you know about creating a continuous load path with either connectors or rod tiedown systems, but have you considered using fasteners instead? In this post, Bryan Wert follows up on our May 2 webinar, Drive a New Path: Resisting Uplift with Structural Fasteners, by answering some of the interesting questions raised by the attendees.

On May 2, Simpson Strong-Tie hosted an interactive webinar where we discussed different methods of creating a continuous load path for wind uplift resistance. Most of the hour-long webinar was devoted to the innovative structural screw system comprising our Strong-Drive® SDWC Truss screw and the SDWF Floor-to-Floor screw with TUW take-up washer. In addition to sharing load capacities, installation details and various benefits of this system, we included a design example with illustrative specification options. In case you weren’t able to join our discussion, you can watch the on-demand webinar and earn PDH and CEU credits here.
Continue Reading

SDWS Timber Screw – The Evolution Continues

Simpson Strong-Tie® R&D engineers are always looking to make products even better and more cost effective, in ways that will improve life not only for homeowners, but also for Designers and builders. In the following post, Aram Khachadourian explains how the newly designed SawTooth™ point on our code-listed Strong-Drive® SDWS Timber screw makes driving faster and easier with no predrilling. The flat head also makes connector and sheathing placement a lot smoother.
Continue Reading

Drive a New Path: Resisting Uplift with Structural Fasteners

Structural screws are designed and tested to do hard work, but that doesn’t make them hard to use. In this post, Simpson Strong-Tie structural engineer Bryan Wert explains how the load-rated strength, versatility and easy installation of the code-listed Strong-Drive® SDWC Truss screw and SDWF Floor-to-Floor screw make it a cinch to create a continuous load path to resist wind uplift. 

Winter’s finally shedding her blanket and unveiling springtime in Texas. There’s now a short window of picture-perfect weather where my purchases at Home Depot are no longer foam hose bib covers to protect outdoor faucets from freezing temperature, but aren’t quite yet tiki torches and floats for the pool for hot and humid summer days. I find myself in the garden center looking at the freshly delivered trees, shrubs and flowers, along with just about every other adult in my city. This year, my wife’s decided we need to surround our outdoor living space with hanging planters displaying perky red, purple, yellow and blue flowers.
Continue Reading

Beat Building Drift with the New DSSCB Drift Strut Slide Connector from Simpson Strong-Tie

Structural engineers concerned with building envelopes are always looking for better solutions that help isolate the cladding from the primary structure in conditions where large building drift is a concern. Simpson Strong-Tie has an answer with a unique and innovative solution, the new DSSCB (drift strut sliding clip bypass).
Continue Reading

Holdown Anchorage Solutions

A couple years ago, I did a post on selecting holdown anchorage solutions. At the time, we had created a couple engineering letters that tabulated SSTB, SB and PAB anchor solutions for each holdown to simplify specifying anchor bolts. About a year later, a salesperson suggested we tabulate SSTB, SB and PAB anchor solutions for each holdown. You know, to simplify specifying anchor bolts…

This conversation reminded me of the difficulty in keeping track of where design information is. In the C-C-2024 Wood Construction Connectors catalog, we have added this material on pages 46-47. Which should make it easier to find. I thought I should update this blog post to correct the links to this information.

A common question we get from specifiers is “What anchor do I use with each holdown?” Prior to the adoption of ACI 318 Appendix D (now Chapter 17 – Anchoring to Concrete), this was somewhat simple to do. We had a very small table in the holdown section of our catalog that listed which SSTB anchor worked with each holdown.
Continue Reading