We received a request from Martin H., one of our blog readers, to discuss the method for determining roof wind pressures on an open front agricultural building. The inquiry was regarding clarification on analyzing the roof pressure when a combined external and interior pressure exists and whether these are additive. As can be seen in … Continue reading “Open Front Structure Wind Pressure Design”
Prior to joining Simpson Strong-Tie, my career involved the design of projects in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. When designing the primary lateral force resisting system, I would have several pages of seismic base shear calculations and, oh yeah, a one- or two-line calculation of the wind forces – just to show that seismic governed. … Continue reading “Ignore Seismic Requirements When Wind Controls?”
Over the past few years that I’ve worked as an engineer for Simpson Strong-Tie in Texas, work-related events have brought me to a few great beach destinations: Clearwater and Destin, Florida, to name a few. But tightly packed schedules always left me feeling like I didn’t get to enjoy the fullness of the locations I … Continue reading “Damage Assessment and What It Teaches Us About How to Build Stronger”
Did you know that Simpson Strong-Tie offers free education and training to the construction industry? Indeed, we do. For several decades, Simpson Strong-Tie has made a commitment to supporting the development of our industry, and each year we educate tens of thousands of industry pros — engineers, architects, dealers, contractors and building inspectors — about the latest … Continue reading “Trainer to the Pros — How Simpson Strong-Tie Educates the Industry”
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 … Continue reading “Choosing Resiliency: Lessons from Hurricane Michael”
Introducing James P. Mwangi, Ph.D., P.E., S.E. – our first annual Simpson Strong-Tie Engineering Excellence Fellow with Build Change. James Mwangi will write a quarterly blog about his experience throughout the Fellowship. I’m delighted to have been asked to contribute this post and feel honored to be the first-ever Simpson Strong-Tie Engineering Excellence Fellow with Build … Continue reading “Meet the First Simpson Strong-Tie Engineering Excellence Fellow with Build Change”
He huffed, and he puffed, and he blew the roof sheathing off! That’s not the way kids’ tale goes, but the dangers high winds pose to roof sheathing are very real. Once the roof sheathing is gone, the structure is open and its contents are exposed to the elements and much more vulnerable to wind … Continue reading “Keep Your Roof On”
Back in January, employees at Simpson were given the opportunity to learn more about the 401K retirement and investment plan. The big takeaways from my training session were a) save as much as you can as early as you can in life and b) use asset allocation to diversify your portfolio and avoid too much … Continue reading “SEAOSC Safer Cities Survey Results: How Are We Building Strength and Transparency in Our Communities?”
It seems that each major hurricane tends to teach those of us in the construction industry some lesson. With Hurricane Andrew, the lessons were the importance of protection from windborne debris, and the importance of proper construction of gable end overhangs. There are two main areas where gable ends can fail.
When it comes to wood-frame construction, hurricane ties are among the most commonly specified connectors. They play a critical role in a structure’s continuous load path and may be used in a variety of applications, like attaching roof framing members to the supporting wall top plate(s), or tying wall top or bottom plates to the … Continue reading “How to Select a Connector – Hurricane Tie”
