Page 33 - HW October 2019

frame & truss
“The take-up of floor cassettes is really about the builder’s choice. If the builder sees value in it then they’ll do it because, although it does increase their trade & truss price, the selling point is that it decreases the overall price of the building.
“It’s a question of whether they buy into it – if they do, then it tends to go well.”
WHAT IS PREFABRICATION ANYWAY?
The New Zealand prefab / panelisation lobby has done well to attract attention to its cause, but prefabrication or elements and variants thereof are also part of the future for the tried and tested and already super-efficient frame & truss industry.
Several frame & truss players I spoke to have already been attaching RAB board to frames by way of a basic panel outlook, but I’m also hearing that this demand has been patchy at best and some builders have been preferring to swallow the extra cost of fixing by doing it themselves on-site rather than buying it from the plant.
Mike van der Hoek agrees there’s been “lots and lots of talk about pre fabrication” and is equally firm in his belief that there’s “lots of capability within our existing factories to do more” starting with floor cassettes and, eventually, roof cassettes.
Mike Stanton takes up the cause: “Work with existing partners who are making a success of it already. Let them morph or work with them so they can morph into what the Government wants or what the requirements are.
“Don’t latch on to something just because you hear it’s faster. Understand that the frame & truss industry is healthy – you know there are some very smart people in the industry.
“We’re one of the first MiTek branches in the world to do flooring cassettes in our software. So our industry is very technologically advanced and I think sometimes the Government doesn’t understand the technology that’s available in frame & truss.
“There’s maybe a view from the outside that frame & truss is a dirty, dusty environment with low skilled labour but the machinery and the technology that’s in some of these plants is very advanced.”
Mike Stanton for one believes that flooring cassettes are “the start of the modernisation of how fame and truss plants will evolve over the next few years. If you can do a floor cassette this year, what say those frame & truss plants that have that technology cannot also move into panels?
“That’s a very positive thing for the industry and these are exciting times, I think.”
Lintel Fixing
made easy
ASK YOUR FRAME AND TRUSS FABRICATOR TO INSTALL STUDLOKTM Alternative to Table 8.14 and Figure
8.12 NZS 3604:2011, using BOWMAC® StudLokTM SL125 eliminates the need for builders to hammer straps on-site saving time and effort.
www.miteknz.co.nz
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OCTOBER 2019 | NZHJ 31