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frame & truss
Talking about more targeted investment going into frame & truss, Pryda’s Steve White for example also reports growing demand for floor truss manufacturing equipment.
“Floor trusses have been around forever,” admits Steve. “It was just the market moved one way because they were probably looking at a shelf price, whereas now they’re being forced to relook at floor trusses.
“And as part of that process, they’re learning that floor trusses might have been more expensive off the shelf, but in the end, with the cost on-site of all the other work that’s associated with solid beams that you don’t get with floor trusses, then builders are starting to see that it’s actually a cheaper option.”
Although frame & truss is a small part of his business, a well-stocked Rob Lawson at Simpson Strong-Tie holds up the Australian market’s adoption of structural fasteners as an example of different ways of working.
“They’re looking for ways to be more efficient,” he says, with products like joist hangers which are faster to install.
“The faster the better, the cheaper and instead of one bracket with 18 nails or screws, you can do it with one or two screws.”
Tony Castledine at MiTek NZ holds up the company’s PosiStrut system as another way to get around the shortage of certain size timbers.
“It’s forcing people to rethink how they can provide solutions,” he says. “A lot of our fabricators are erring now towards PosiStrut, because it’s a viable option as opposed to solids, which are obviously hard to come by.”
Prenail operations are “rethinking how they can achieve the same structure using alternative methods, whether it’s PosiStrut, whether it’s plywood, whether it’s I-beams. It’s certainly forcing people to rethink how they can achieve the same effect.”
And just as well, seeing most operators are forecasting 2022 to see another all-time high of demand.
CHANGED ATTITUDE TOWARDS MATERIALS?
As mentioned above, it’s no secret that SG8 and SG10 stick timber has been in short supply.
Worse, direct timber alternatives are thin on the ground.
Engineered wood products like LVL, which can be a direct substitution for stick timber, have attracted much interest. But from what we’ve been hearing LVL is also in short supply...
Interesting to note here that the shift towards LVL isn’t simply a recent reaction to supply issues.
According to MBIE’s Building & Construction Sector Trends Annual Report, when it comes to wall framing, timber still dominates at around 90% per cent of houses.
“However,” says the report, “its use has been easing in the past 6 years”, alongside a “rapid increase” in the use of LVL, which comprised fully 12% of timber framing even back in 2019.
FTMA’s Peter Carruthers agrees that there has clearly been “a bit of a migration” to LVL-based frames.
“There’s a lot of competition between the different suppliers and I think the price point between, let’s say high-grade SG8 or SG10 timber and LVL was not too far different from the solid
timber price.”
On top of which, “People are looking at alternatives where
wood fibre is used more sparsely,” says key LVL supplier Nelson Pine’s Paul Dalzell, adding that builders’ reluctance to adopt LVL based on the product taking longer to dry out following sustained contact with water has decreased: “Once they’ve tried it and followed the cardinal rule of not getting it wet it does perform very well.”
Trouble is, adds Paul, recent converts to LVL may well be frustrated when they try and reorder...
“We are trapped by the limitation on what we can supply,” he admits.
“Engineered wood product manufacturers are either tapped out or haven’t taken advantage of the opportunities to build their volumes,” he regrets, noting that Nelson Pine falls into the former category.
Nelson Pine for example is already running 24/7 and hasn’t been able to increase its LVL8 allocation beyond meeting the needs of existing customers, mainly at the lower end of the South Island.
“We’re getting to the stage where we are not able to take on new customers because our existing customer base has proved loyal,” says Paul Dalzell.
“It’s inappropriate to go outside that circle of devoted followers or supporters while we’re not satisfying all their requirements.”
New Zealand has simply absorbed the plant’s product “like blotting paper, it’s insatiable at the moment,” he says.
I ask Mark Buckenham, does PlaceMakers for example see LVL as a real alternative?
Quality-wise, he says, LVL is a good step up from much stick timber, but again, supply is a pinch point.
Cromwell’s Truss Tech is just one among many other Mainland plants to have been a firm advocate of the use of LVL in frame & truss for almost a decade now.
LVL has “really come through in the long run,” says Manager Hayden Todd, adding that many other plants have now realised how much builders appreciate the relative stability of LVL in the South Island context.
I also ask new Silverdale frame & truss plant Riviera Prenail if they are still using mainly stick timber or LVL and why?
“We are using traditional stick timber for now. The cost
of LVL versus solid timber frames makes it difficult to be competitive,” says the company, before adding: “Looking ahead, perhaps the growing crisis in timber availability may force a change of approach across frame & truss manufacturers and the building industry in general?
“LVL is a great product, the resistance is around cost,” concludes Riviera Prenail.
HEALER HEAL THYSELF?
More than one Auckland frame & truss operator applied for one of the few exemptions to be able to operate during Level 4 lockdown, only to be frustrated by not being permitted to fire
32 NZHJ | OCTOBER 2021
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