An unfortunate downside to gang nail plates is their contribution to sudden roof collapse in fire situations, making it more dangerous for firefighters to attempt on-the-roof operations. The large surface area of the plate conducts heat into the wood joint area, encouraging it to burn first and fail faster than one fastened with nails.
Over here in Germany these prefabricated trusses held together with gang nail plates became known for being the central failure point of many standardized discount store buildings in case of fire. As I understood it, once the roof space has reached a certain temperature the gang nail plates (at least the ones used over here) tend to just let go, causing sudden and unpredictable roof collapse. This is why fire departments will not enter these types of store buildings when they assume the fire has spread into the roof space above the shop floor.
By the time that happens you would either be dead from the fire or smoke - or you would have evacuated already. Fire departments can't magically save burning homes. Even if they try the water damage destroys the building anyways.
@Drcassette that is an interesting design difference, in the uk all such buildings are steel framed (like barns) and yes steel if not protected from fire will buckle under its own weight.
A gang nail plate cut a gash into my leg when I was using an unused wooden truss as a ladder for a treehouse I built during the construction of my parents' house as an 8-year-old kid, when I slipped and tried to catch myself. I still have the scar. 21 years later, I am now in graduate school for architecture at IIT in Chicago. Thanks to this video, I finally have a name for the piece of metal that left that scar, and another explanation for why I don't like McMansions.
I'm from Naperville so sometimes I have a little soft spot for certain McMansions but you're so lucky you get to hang out at that gorgeous mies van der rohe campus
My high school drafting teacher at Bishop Noll Institute, Caesar Qeyqep, was simultaneously a professor at IIT. Thought I’d become an architect. Not to be. Instead, I became a carpenter builder/renovator. I had NOOOO idea at the time just how much this fellow’s instruction would have on my life. My renovation “see through vision” is directly down stream of those four years of drafting studies. College level in high school!
Real-estate industry also started to push for legislation to enlarge the minimum size of bungalows. That caused the smaller sizes to go out of code requirements about the time the gang nail plates became the norm. Tax base increased with the property needed for McMansions making suburbs more profitable by the larger minimum standards. By the early 2000's building codes in CA made making granny flats even difficult to permit and build. Fortunately that seems to be trending the other way.
Interesting theory.. as a designer working in this space and scale frequently I can admit that pre fab trusses do allow for a decoupling from rational plan layouts and thinking - and therefore proportions and scale. For whatever deeper reason, a roof line and facade proportioned off more traditional roof framing limitations is more pleasing to the senses - and results in interior plans that are more orderly, human scaled and comfortable..
I live in a mid-century modern neighborhood, all houses built in the 1950s. One of my neighbors builds McMansions (although he prefers modern architecture). I asked him about this just a couple days ago, and he also said the banks play a role. The borrowers are very timid about lending to build anything "out of the ordinary", although he could build small, modern homes, the bank often won't lend to build houses like that.
I know this isn’t the point of this video, but as someone who stresses a lot about lighting in my own videos, I’m really impressed you were able to film this video quickly enough enough that the sun didn’t set. It looks like you filmed it during the golden hour.
I think he's using a green screen, buddy. I was just looking at "light" coming from the left of the picture and it didn't move once throughout the whole video (or shift in any direction).
I've seen these metal plates in the roof triangles, when they were stacked at a new building site or on the back of some trucks delivering them to new construction sites. I always wondered what the story behind them was. This was very interesting. I took wood working in High school back in the 90's. But we never leaned about these. Thank you.
My house was built in 1977. It has cathedral ceilings, so up to the attic to see these truss plates and…not used to build this house! Guess they really don’t build them like they used to. Great video!
A couple things on trusses, that weren't quite mentioned that (I believe) make them more beneficial, especially here in the northeast are 1) Energy Heels. Trusses made energy heels possible by moving the slope of the roof above the bearing point of the truss itself. This creates more room over the exterior walls for insulation, where in the northeast, using standard insulation methods, needs a more space for the amount of insulation needed for meeting the R-value required. A common issue here on older homes is ice damming, where heat loss through the insulation melts snow and ice on the roof which sheds down over non insulated spaces, like porches and other overhangs, and refreezes, creating a dam where the water above will gather and work under shingles, making leaks in the interior of houses. Having more space for insulation alleviates this, somewhat. Along with other methods such as ice and water shield, since you can't stop ice damming completely, but it prevents leaks in the house. And 2) Floor trusses. People's need for deeper garages and floor space with open space below needs a member than can span further without support. TJIs can do this, but the real max span for a TJI (even the biggest ones) is in the realm of 32'-8" (this being a 560 series 16" TJI, 12" O.C. [which is nuts, expensive, and hard to find]). Plus, with open webbing, it allows for electrical, plumbing, and HVAC to be run without cutting or modifying the member, plus larger tops for sheathing ease. Only down side is it creates a large open cavity for fires, which is accounted for in the code with maximum cavity size. All of that being said, there are still many houses and needs where a raftered roof is preferred. Great video!
+1 for the open webbing of trusses which facilitates a much-easier installation of mechanical systems. As for the void space and fires, the code allows for blocking or draftstopping to compartmentalize and manage the fire risk.
Gang Nail plates, (also on as gusset plates too) has had an extremely adverse overall affect fire has on a home. It went from 20+/- minutes of fire exposure before roof failure with more traditional construction to as little as 5 minutes with modern truss sustems. Would love to see an in depth video catering to both people in the know and the layperson explaining the adverse affects of modern, lightweight construction on fire loads. *If you do ever make this video, i’m sure me and many others would love to use it for training purposes for others
I'm just a focus group of one, but in my life I have had three houses, all older (the newest built by the owner in 1948) and had very few problems with any of those, yet both my mom and sister bought fancier new build houses (the 1980's through early 2000's) and I they both have had constant issues. Admittedly (and thankfully) none with framing which is the topic of this as usual great Stewart video. But at least with my experience I will never consider a new build houses no matter how much showy lipstick decorations they put on it.
You hit on the main reason I don't like truss construction, unusable attic space. I feel as though if I am paying to enclose that space, I should be able to use it. With the size of the McMansions, there is a fair amount of floor space that could be finished into living area. It could provide that private space for when one wants to get away from it all, or a nice little hobby niche. That is also a reason why I want a basement, preferably with 8 or 9 foot ceilings.
It's cost that you don't understand. You can pour foundation and frame space under trusses cheaper than you can frame an attic. Also understand if youre doing a basement that it isn't valued the same as above grade. It's about 1/10th the value. If your house is a thousand square feet at $100sf with a full finished basement valued at $10sf. $110,000 at appraisal. If it's two stories on slab at $100sf. At appraisal $200,000. If your basement walls are 51% above grade It's valued at $100sf. So if you have flat land leave the basement exposed and put retaining walls out around 10 feet from the wall Only bury up to the bottom of the standard windows and you should be good. Lift a drink to me when you're done with you above grade basement that was cheaper than a second floor. Pocket the extra 90k when you sell or use it as the equity on a 60% loan to value and get better rates. If you're paying cash you now have a nice flower bed or pet area outside the basement windows instead of .etal window wells.
It's pretty common that someone invents something with a certain viewpoint of how to make use of it, and later is shocked that someone else is "using it wrong", unintended consequences arise quite often. You can't always imagine every unintended consequence, but you can bank on human nature being what it is, someone will come up with a reason, usually economics-related, to pervert an invention. I interviewed the guy that created the modern confinement system for hog production. (Trust me, this is related) He regrets it and feels like Doctor Frankenstein. He envisioned a very small operation to supplement an individual family farm for home production and some diversification of output, to keep small family farms strong. Instead, factory farming of hogs using his slatted-floor setups have driven small family operations out of business. The meat companies have turned the pork producing families into high-tech sharecroppers on their own land, with highly restrictive contracts, that split the farrowing and finishing stages of the pig life cycle, making the farmers bear the costs of production while the company pockets all the profit, and the effluent coming out of these contained animal feeding operations (CAFO's) makes the equivalent of a small town's sewage output, every day, untreated and sitting in open ponds that can leak into streams and groundwater.
This video captures a microcosm of the problems / unnecessary excesses in America. I've been in, and lived around McMansions in multiple US cities, and what I can definitively say, is that families that live in these enormous houses, stay almost exclusively in 2 rooms during the day--the kitchen and the "TV room"..(About 800 square feet of space).. ALL the other square footage of these monstrosities is wasted space, excepting a few bedrooms where people only sleep, or your teenager hides out. But otherwise, there are areas in these homes that no one ever steps foot in..
That was true of my family of four (grandparents, uncle and myself) growing up in a 1600 square foot 3/2 mobile home 😂 The bedrooms, kitchen and 'family room' were used, the 'living room' was basically just an oversized and furnished hallway people had to pass through when they weren't using the actual hallway on the other side of the equally unused dining room. In our case we weren't sofa diners, but our kitchen had a nice bar extension of the counter where we all ate together. 800 square feet is probably in the ballpark of the space we actually used as well.
My rich friends growing up always had a "family room" they never used and were forbidden to step foot in and a formal dining room they only ever had Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner in; otherwise, these rooms were never touched. I know a guy who grew up and lives in one of these houses so I have since learned, some of them also have 2 - 3 bedrooms that are either storage, guest rooms, or a room that solely houses a doll collection. That house also has an In-Laws quarters. Rich people are insane.
I calculated how much power you used to distribute your opinion to a world that does not care and have deemed it unnecessary excess. Now get back to your abbot and resume self flagellation. :)
Then there are people with nowhere to stay at all, and families spending their lives renting trailers and small apartments that sap equity and doom them and their descendents to poverty. What a dystopia...
The next invention that changed building was the joist hanger. Roofs with trusses could only go in one direction and basically have a single roof line. Hangers paved the way for hipped roofs and multiple roof lines. It probably did more for the McMansion than the gusset plate.
The ability to make trusses like this allowed some people with mobile homes to build additional roofs for them when the manufactured ones were inadequate. The irony is that the increased house prices caused by the McMansions made all of the mobile homes virtually unsellable.
6:15 - As a structural engineer and inventor I just wanted to take a moment to provide some further clarification. The gang nail plate didn't allow for open floor plans - it allowed for open floor plans cheaper. While this might sound pedantic - it is not. The gang nail plate was not "new" technology. It was just a better way of doing the same thing. The idea that some small innovation changes the planet is techno babble. "This innovation saved 15% on house construction," is not a very sexy title or video narrative, I concede.
Architect here, one more further clarification: to translate that open plan to a two-story structure, you also need the invention of engineered floor joists that will span 14+ feet
It's a fun theory but I don't agree with it. Traditional rafter construction is still common here in California in home construction. Code requires hurricane/earthquake ties to greatly strengthen the roof structure. The modern truss system is cheaper to build and faster to install but is associated with lower quality construction. McMansions are a developer's attempt at maximizing profit and thus it makes sense that they'll employ the cheapest roofing system. If factory-made truss systems didn't exist, developers would still build McMansions with traditional rafter construction since that would be the only method allowed them.
I totally agree with you. We (california framers) were cutting and stacking complex roofs for decades. McMansions existed in the 19-teens. In track homes where piecemeal production framing was born, framers like Larry Haun could cut and stack a roof in a day. The only change these plates had was lowering the cost of complex roofs, maximizing profits for developers.
You think they'd exist at the scale they do now? I think the point he touches on that you're not giving sufficient weight to is how the offsite preconstruction allowed the proliferation.
@@ekjswim As I mentioned, truss systems are cheaper to design, build, and install versus traditional rafter construction. It saves money regardless of the home type whether it's 600 square feet or 6000 square feet. Developer's have it easier with truss systems but it's not a make-or-break situation in my opinion.
Most places in the United States are not subject to the same extreme weather conditions as California, so I doubt they would have as much concern for homes’ structural integrity.
The one positive of truss plates is that it enabled me (a roofing contractor by trade) to build my own house and do the framing (with my roofing crew) ourselves. It is not impossible to learn roof framing, but it is SO much easier with trusses. But Mcmansions as a whole are the bane of my existence as a contractor trying to waterproof impossible angles with valleys terminating in walls and the such. I can waterproof them with the help of water & ice membrane because the siding is not yet installed enabling me to run the membrane up the walls. But...when these houses get re-roofed due to age or a hail storm, the next contractor will not be able to waterproof them near as easily. Long-term maintenance is rarely considered. I built a two-story colonial - simple yet elegant roof lines that never goes out of style!
The use of joining plates and cleats allows a lot of workers with minimal skill to assemble lumber into poorly built homes. The roof may remain tied to the house in a strong wind thanks to Simpson Strong Tie, but the houses are wonky boxes that have structural issues forever. Skill enhanced with technology and quality materials results in long-lasting quality construction. No technology can save not having the skill to do a good job. This is my opinion (and I'm sticking to it) from personal involvement working on the home I grew up in (built with skilled workers), restoring older homes, and observing neighborhoods of homes sprout like mushrooms after a rain as Plano, Texas rapidly grew from a population of ~75,000 in 1980 to just under 300,000 in 2018. The million dollar McMansions were constructed by people who slapped crappy materials together, put a roof on it, and left town before things started coming apart. We currently live in south east Texas in the 1927 small farmhouse with seven gables my husband grew up in. The house is quirky 1920's style construction but stable as a rock.
I started doing roof repairs in 1976. I soon realized that I could find a neighborhood full of those houses and simply put flyers on the mailboxes when the houses were about 3 or 4 years old. If there was one leak in the neighborhood there would be many more. I made a good living working alone for about 20 years.
Unnecessary complexity is how I refer to the mess in attics of modern houses! The insulation & thermal barrier is often very poorly installed & effective if even present. I saw so many attics in million $ houses that had bare ceilings & walls in Phoenix!
"Building a certain way just because we can isn't the same as building the way we should" Can you make a video summarizing the "should" for residential structures --- key practices that you know to be durable, resource-efficient, etc.?
I agree A distinction needs to be made between the extravagant style and the cheap/greedy bones and assembly. A McMansion could be built well and a non-McMansion could be built poorly.
Good video. Terrific topic. Gluelam beams are probably as key to the MacMansion as the trusses. Nailon trusses have been around a lot longer than MacMansions. Laying out and cutting rafters is tricky but I've know dozens of carpenter who do this efficiently and quickly -- but no one is quicker than a stack of premade trusses hoisted by crane to the top of a house. I can cut rafters, but I have to check everything multiple times. Toe nailing isn't difficult and is very strong. (I've done a lot of it.) Another factor are purlins. These are stringers that run between rafters about a third of the way up from the perimeter wall. These tie the rafters together so they work like a web (Similar to blocking.) Stretchers going down from the rafters to the ceiling joists and another stringer also stabilize the ceiling solving plaster/drywall cracks. Of course purlins and stringers, and floor blocking are not as common in old homes as they should be. I remember installing a lot of more of them in old houses to fix long term problems. Another thing that trusses and gluelams caused. In the 1980s there was a fad for 'cathedral ceilings.' I saw a few Broad homes where a corner of something on the second floor was eliminated so next to the staircase there could be two floors of open space. It was less cathedral than it was shaft. It was a gimmick and was just bad architecture. But people liked them. (Broad also eliminated basements because buyers looking at two houses don't see that one doesn't have a basement.) When I extended the back of my house in Los Angeles in 1994, the building code required brackets and bolts from the foundation to the top plate. But hurricane ties to the rafters were not required. I put them in. (I also made every wall a double sided shear wall. Didn't add much to the cost.) My thinking was I don't want to meet the standard after the previous earthquake (Loma Prieto) I wanted to meet the standard after two or three large earthquakes in the future. The Northridge Quake happened during the renovation. (Everything was good, except that mesh drywall tape. I never used it again.) And firefighters used to recommend going around to all the nailon plates and putting in a few nails. This was easy with a nail gun. The thinking is that a nailon plate in a fire softens and looses its strength so the roof -- and the fire fighters on it are more likely to collapse.
"It shifted our values from the hand-crafted to the mass-produced." No it didn't, corporate greed did that. You said it yourself, the builders became the main characters and started building giant homes that no one asked for.
If no one asked for them, who is buying them? Businesses have always been greedy. The problem that I see is that you can't easily build a simple home between accelerated infrastructure requirement and gold plated core systems like HVAC and electrical. If it is a good strategy to maximize return by having a large mortgage and expecting housing to inflate, then you have an incentive to make it hard for other people to build and to buy what you think will sell rather than what you need. And, in most cases size is the cheapest aspect of housing - lumber is cheap, framers and drywallers are the worst paid trades.
Municipalities play a large role in this trend with huge minimum lot sizes and codes that make turning a profit on building small homes almost impossible for builders. Practically nobody is building houses under 2000 sq.ft. these days because it's impossible to make any money doing so.
Corporate greed has existed as long as corporations, which is longer than America has even been a country. Building codes encourage using standardized methodology that reduces risk and the cost of compliance, such as using these devices.
As a journeyman carpenter I have set thousands of trusses, I have built Mc Mansions and mansions, the last one I worked on sold for 23 million dollars, I think any large house with stick frame and stucco is a Mc mansion. The real mansion here are built with masonry construction. Fortunately I’m a finish carpenter now lots of woodwork in those big houses. Great video.
Wow, thank you for pointing this out. I am totally onboard with you pointing out problems related to McMansions. It would be interesting to know what percent of people live in them.😊
I grew up in an area of northern Virginia with a ton of these and although they were beautiful the main floor areas were almost never used. We'd gather in the bedrooms or, if it had one, the smaller more closed off areas on the main floor. The spaces were just too big and felt more like a commercial or government building than a home. I'm working on moving to England and the shape and size of the houses is something I'm really looking forward to as I haven't been able to find anything here that's not open floor plans and rooms way too big for people. My master bedroom suite is over 500sqft! I rent it out and you can fit a family of 3 in there comfortably! It's just insane and so wasteful.
I thought the windward side of the roof was under high pressure with the leeward side of the roof being underlow pressure. However, the wind can get under the large overhangs, creating a huge positive pressure underneath the overhang.
Don't blame the tool, truss plate..... blame the people wielding them, developers, which are spured by supply and demand. Think levittown PA. in the 40's.
When pickup trucks sales slow down all it takes is to lower the gas price 50 cents to revamp the buying frenzy. People are strange. Developers capitalize on ignorance as what is genuinely a "quality construction".
They have tremendously increased labor productivity which has the effect of ... nothing. Any such improvements just results in greater efforts to make it harder to develop and raise expectations with respect to required building standard and purchasers expectations.
@ From the video: “I personally cannot think of a single invention that is so simple that has created such a profound effect on the way that we build.” I was pointing out the effect of power tools on home construction (although not as simple as truss plates). I get your point, but you are speaking about what is built, not how something is built.
And now I know ! Wow who would have thought this. Thank you for throwing this knowledge to us as it is truly amazing to understand. This video is also a self growth video (at least for me) because it just kicked open somthing in me that makes me look at things in a new way and I have a better understanding of not only the building of trusses and houses but of the foot print we are leaving on the planet and who knows maybe in the galaxy. Again thank you for flipping that switch in my brain that gave me a better or bigger view and comprehension to the building blocks of knowledge.
It’s interesting that much of today’s neighborhood pushback against updated zoning laws (that ironically mimic the way things used to be before zoning laws existed … ) is because homeowners “know” developers build for personal gain. That experience comes from the death of sane planning and design.
You are clearly clueless. People buy a house where they don't understand the zoning rules. Then, when things change, 😮 make up a change they think will stop the change the font like. Now, they don't understand the new effects of their idea.
When I saw the title of the video my immediate thought was trusses and engineered joists. I'm super sad to see it now expand into LVL lumber to achieve those massive open-concept homes. The fire hazards are unbelievable and it's incredible insurance in North America lets builders use these materials.
regarding hurricane proofing, "hurricane ties" between walls and ceiling joints instead of toe nailing is standard minimum in Canada, risk of hurricanes being moot.
And then there's the French barrel or Mansard roof. French Philibert de l’Orme* invented a new building method: “à petit bois." It spanned wide distances with what amounted to a thin truss. Look it up! Brilliant. *Also stereotomy, which is another level of cool.
Yeah, when the builder is good at their job and knows what to do, they're awesome. Inspection video after inspection video shows the biggest builders have the lowest standards.
So form does follow function after all. We made an engineering change that eliminated the need for traditional structural decisions so we are REQUIRED to build ugly houses. Great graphics and images on this one!
Whole point of 2x framing construction at its start was that semi-skilled adult and teenager w/o attitude can build the livable structure. Perforated plate is a further improvement to that building philosophy.
There is no labor saving device that has ever made housing more affordable in general. Nothing out weighs our ability to run up the cost by regulations and land use limitations, to run up prices by making long term mortgages, and driving expectations from those who can afford them, and to impose unavoidable minimum standards on those who can't.
Desire and facilitation often go hand-in-hand as you said. Interestingly, everything ballooned at the time - houses, cars, hair and jacket shoulders - some are ballooning still. Is it a perverse reaction to environmental demands? As always, thought-provoking video.
10:05 Isn't this "induced demand"?... Just like adding a lane on the freeway. I grew up in a 1961 Florida home with the newfangled plates. We also had cement tiles for a "hurricane proof" roof... NOBODY says something is hurricane proof anymore, not even the developers selling them. I've built both kinds of roof-stick framed and truss, I actually like designing and building my own trusses for movie scenery.
You still toenail the truss to the plate. And it can all still blow off if you do not add steel connectors to the wall structure. Now some framers use long screws from under the plate to secure rafters and trusses. Trusses like this are pre-fabricated and pre-engineered, so the plate itself is part of an engineered construction, so not independently approved in the code for other uses.
and this important point..... saw it play it a few weeks ago before the first snow.... when a builder has to get things done to a certain point because of weather, the fact that you can get the roof on the structure in a few days is so important....eh!
I hate trying to design solar installations for McMansions. The roof is taken us by weird angles that makes it hard to fit modules. Cut out the weird angles and there is a lot more roof available for solar.
We were able to take out a wall in our house and make it completely open concept because the roof above was constructed with engineered trusses. They are an absolute game changer for flexibility and I was really intrigued when I learned about that construction technique at the time, so it's great to see it explained here. I still think in Canada and US we're missing out on building even more of the house off-site to get costs and time down, we need to take this concept and go further!
Fully pre-manufactured homes have existed in the US since at least the 1950's. My home was built in 1962, and was constructed like a piece of flat pack furniture from Ikea. The interior walls were unloaded off of a trailer with drywall, electrical outlets, and everything installed and ready to go. They simply brought them up onto the deck of the house and nailed them down. It probably took a crew of workers less than a day to go from a bare foundation to a fully framed in structure.
Som UA-camr talking about 9/11 some ten years ago said never trust a truss. If the comments are anything to go by here, fire looks like the Achilles heel of these things.
This does honestly feel fundamentaly opposite of north Europe currently, here buildings are small, cramped, extremely ugly and hillariously owerprized for what it is. Something like this would honestly feel like a vitamin injection.
Wait until they see the cost of roofing all those McMansions when the shingles go. The first ones are coming due soon. Valleys cost a lot to roof as do dormers. My brother is a framer/roofer, he can't wait to see how much money he's going to make on the side.
An unfortunate downside to gang nail plates is their contribution to sudden roof collapse in fire situations, making it more dangerous for firefighters to attempt on-the-roof operations. The large surface area of the plate conducts heat into the wood joint area, encouraging it to burn first and fail faster than one fastened with nails.
Over here in Germany these prefabricated trusses held together with gang nail plates became known for being the central failure point of many standardized discount store buildings in case of fire. As I understood it, once the roof space has reached a certain temperature the gang nail plates (at least the ones used over here) tend to just let go, causing sudden and unpredictable roof collapse. This is why fire departments will not enter these types of store buildings when they assume the fire has spread into the roof space above the shop floor.
Great info, thanks
By the time the building is hot enough to weaken the plates you wouldn't be entering anyways.
By the time that happens you would either be dead from the fire or smoke - or you would have evacuated already. Fire departments can't magically save burning homes. Even if they try the water damage destroys the building anyways.
Would adding a few screws or conventional nails help with this problem?
@Drcassette that is an interesting design difference, in the uk all such buildings are steel framed (like barns) and yes steel if not protected from fire will buckle under its own weight.
A gang nail plate cut a gash into my leg when I was using an unused wooden truss as a ladder for a treehouse I built during the construction of my parents' house as an 8-year-old kid, when I slipped and tried to catch myself. I still have the scar.
21 years later, I am now in graduate school for architecture at IIT in Chicago.
Thanks to this video, I finally have a name for the piece of metal that left that scar, and another explanation for why I don't like McMansions.
the real money is in treehouses bro. better clients too.
I'm from Naperville so sometimes I have a little soft spot for certain McMansions but you're so lucky you get to hang out at that gorgeous mies van der rohe campus
Congrats on getting into grad school. It sounds like the real life version of a radioactive spider biting you.
My high school drafting teacher at Bishop Noll Institute, Caesar Qeyqep, was simultaneously a professor at IIT. Thought I’d become an architect. Not to be. Instead, I became a carpenter builder/renovator. I had NOOOO idea at the time just how much this fellow’s instruction would have on my life. My renovation “see through vision” is directly down stream of those four years of drafting studies. College level in high school!
Real-estate industry also started to push for legislation to enlarge the minimum size of bungalows. That caused the smaller sizes to go out of code requirements about the time the gang nail plates became the norm. Tax base increased with the property needed for McMansions making suburbs more profitable by the larger minimum standards. By the early 2000's building codes in CA made making granny flats even difficult to permit and build. Fortunately that seems to be trending the other way.
Interesting theory.. as a designer working in this space and scale frequently I can admit that pre fab trusses do allow for a decoupling from rational plan layouts and thinking - and therefore proportions and scale. For whatever deeper reason, a roof line and facade proportioned off more traditional roof framing limitations is more pleasing to the senses - and results in interior plans that are more orderly, human scaled and comfortable..
Just looks more right. Right?
I live in a mid-century modern neighborhood, all houses built in the 1950s. One of my neighbors builds McMansions (although he prefers modern architecture). I asked him about this just a couple days ago, and he also said the banks play a role. The borrowers are very timid about lending to build anything "out of the ordinary", although he could build small, modern homes, the bank often won't lend to build houses like that.
I had exactly this wonder: why Americans never build European style minimalist houses with single slope roofs and big double or triple glazed windows
@@imakro69 Double glazed is pretty much standard these days. The complicated roofs are a fashion trend.
amazing. i have seen these at home depot and had no idea. fantastic one.
I know this isn’t the point of this video, but as someone who stresses a lot about lighting in my own videos, I’m really impressed you were able to film this video quickly enough enough that the sun didn’t set. It looks like you filmed it during the golden hour.
JJ! Love your videos! Happy to share the secret anytime.
I think he's using a green screen, buddy. I was just looking at "light" coming from the left of the picture and it didn't move once throughout the whole video (or shift in any direction).
@@solitivityI'm pretty sure he just put a little whatever it's called thing that makes a shadow in front of a studio light
@@moth.monstergobo! it took me a while to remember the name.
JJ your the man, love the videos
I've seen these metal plates in the roof triangles, when they were stacked at a new building site or on the back of some trucks delivering them to new construction sites. I always wondered what the story behind them was. This was very interesting. I took wood working in High school back in the 90's. But we never leaned about these. Thank you.
My house was built in 1977. It has cathedral ceilings, so up to the attic to see these truss plates and…not used to build this house! Guess they really don’t build them like they used to. Great video!
A couple things on trusses, that weren't quite mentioned that (I believe) make them more beneficial, especially here in the northeast are 1) Energy Heels. Trusses made energy heels possible by moving the slope of the roof above the bearing point of the truss itself. This creates more room over the exterior walls for insulation, where in the northeast, using standard insulation methods, needs a more space for the amount of insulation needed for meeting the R-value required. A common issue here on older homes is ice damming, where heat loss through the insulation melts snow and ice on the roof which sheds down over non insulated spaces, like porches and other overhangs, and refreezes, creating a dam where the water above will gather and work under shingles, making leaks in the interior of houses. Having more space for insulation alleviates this, somewhat. Along with other methods such as ice and water shield, since you can't stop ice damming completely, but it prevents leaks in the house.
And 2) Floor trusses. People's need for deeper garages and floor space with open space below needs a member than can span further without support. TJIs can do this, but the real max span for a TJI (even the biggest ones) is in the realm of 32'-8" (this being a 560 series 16" TJI, 12" O.C. [which is nuts, expensive, and hard to find]). Plus, with open webbing, it allows for electrical, plumbing, and HVAC to be run without cutting or modifying the member, plus larger tops for sheathing ease. Only down side is it creates a large open cavity for fires, which is accounted for in the code with maximum cavity size.
All of that being said, there are still many houses and needs where a raftered roof is preferred. Great video!
+1 for the open webbing of trusses which facilitates a much-easier installation of mechanical systems. As for the void space and fires, the code allows for blocking or draftstopping to compartmentalize and manage the fire risk.
Gang Nail plates, (also on as gusset plates too) has had an extremely adverse overall affect fire has on a home. It went from 20+/- minutes of fire exposure before roof failure with more traditional construction to as little as 5 minutes with modern truss sustems. Would love to see an in depth video catering to both people in the know and the layperson explaining the adverse affects of modern, lightweight construction on fire loads.
*If you do ever make this video, i’m sure me and many others would love to use it for training purposes for others
I'm just a focus group of one, but in my life I have had three houses, all older (the newest built by the owner in 1948) and had very few problems with any of those, yet both my mom and sister bought fancier new build houses (the 1980's through early 2000's) and I they both have had constant issues. Admittedly (and thankfully) none with framing which is the topic of this as usual great Stewart video. But at least with my experience I will never consider a new build houses no matter how much showy lipstick decorations they put on it.
You hit on the main reason I don't like truss construction, unusable attic space. I feel as though if I am paying to enclose that space, I should be able to use it. With the size of the McMansions, there is a fair amount of floor space that could be finished into living area. It could provide that private space for when one wants to get away from it all, or a nice little hobby niche. That is also a reason why I want a basement, preferably with 8 or 9 foot ceilings.
Put the 25% savings into making my the house larger or adding a basement.
It's cost that you don't understand.
You can pour foundation and frame space under trusses cheaper than you can frame an attic.
Also understand if youre doing a basement that it isn't valued the same as above grade. It's about 1/10th the value.
If your house is a thousand square feet at $100sf with a full finished basement valued at $10sf.
$110,000 at appraisal.
If it's two stories on slab at $100sf.
At appraisal $200,000.
If your basement walls are 51% above grade It's valued at $100sf.
So if you have flat land leave the basement exposed and put retaining walls out around 10 feet from the wall
Only bury up to the bottom of the standard windows and you should be good.
Lift a drink to me when you're done with you above grade basement that was cheaper than a second floor. Pocket the extra 90k when you sell or use it as the equity on a 60% loan to value and get better rates. If you're paying cash you now have a nice flower bed or pet area outside the basement windows instead of .etal window wells.
Maybe walk-up convertible attics should make a comeback.
It's pretty common that someone invents something with a certain viewpoint of how to make use of it, and later is shocked that someone else is "using it wrong", unintended consequences arise quite often. You can't always imagine every unintended consequence, but you can bank on human nature being what it is, someone will come up with a reason, usually economics-related, to pervert an invention.
I interviewed the guy that created the modern confinement system for hog production. (Trust me, this is related) He regrets it and feels like Doctor Frankenstein. He envisioned a very small operation to supplement an individual family farm for home production and some diversification of output, to keep small family farms strong. Instead, factory farming of hogs using his slatted-floor setups have driven small family operations out of business. The meat companies have turned the pork producing families into high-tech sharecroppers on their own land, with highly restrictive contracts, that split the farrowing and finishing stages of the pig life cycle, making the farmers bear the costs of production while the company pockets all the profit, and the effluent coming out of these contained animal feeding operations (CAFO's) makes the equivalent of a small town's sewage output, every day, untreated and sitting in open ponds that can leak into streams and groundwater.
This video captures a microcosm of the problems / unnecessary excesses in America.
I've been in, and lived around McMansions in multiple US cities, and what I can definitively say, is that families that live in these enormous houses, stay almost exclusively in 2 rooms during the day--the kitchen and the "TV room"..(About 800 square feet of space).. ALL the other square footage of these monstrosities is wasted space, excepting a few bedrooms where people only sleep, or your teenager hides out. But otherwise, there are areas in these homes that no one ever steps foot in..
And most of the house isn’t even furnished !! They can’t afford it
That was true of my family of four (grandparents, uncle and myself) growing up in a 1600 square foot 3/2 mobile home 😂
The bedrooms, kitchen and 'family room' were used, the 'living room' was basically just an oversized and furnished hallway people had to pass through when they weren't using the actual hallway on the other side of the equally unused dining room.
In our case we weren't sofa diners, but our kitchen had a nice bar extension of the counter where we all ate together.
800 square feet is probably in the ballpark of the space we actually used as well.
My rich friends growing up always had a "family room" they never used and were forbidden to step foot in and a formal dining room they only ever had Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner in; otherwise, these rooms were never touched. I know a guy who grew up and lives in one of these houses so I have since learned, some of them also have 2 - 3 bedrooms that are either storage, guest rooms, or a room that solely houses a doll collection. That house also has an In-Laws quarters.
Rich people are insane.
I calculated how much power you used to distribute your opinion to a world that does not care and have deemed it unnecessary excess. Now get back to your abbot and resume self flagellation. :)
Then there are people with nowhere to stay at all, and families spending their lives renting trailers and small apartments that sap equity and doom them and their descendents to poverty. What a dystopia...
Modern engineering exists in other countries but we don't have warehouses for homes.
Besides gang nail plates, the other secret ingredient is a culture with no taste.
Structural Engineer here. Love this video. Great job Stewart.
I've used a hydraulic press to attach one of those plates before and it's really really impressive
I now think there would be no Tony Soprano without the 'Gangnail' plate!
Woke up this moorning
Oppa gang-nail style...
You, I like you.
The next invention that changed building was the joist hanger. Roofs with trusses could only go in one direction and basically have a single roof line. Hangers paved the way for hipped roofs and multiple roof lines. It probably did more for the McMansion than the gusset plate.
The ability to make trusses like this allowed some people with mobile homes to build additional roofs for them when the manufactured ones were inadequate. The irony is that the increased house prices caused by the McMansions made all of the mobile homes virtually unsellable.
6:15 - As a structural engineer and inventor I just wanted to take a moment to provide some further clarification. The gang nail plate didn't allow for open floor plans - it allowed for open floor plans cheaper. While this might sound pedantic - it is not. The gang nail plate was not "new" technology. It was just a better way of doing the same thing. The idea that some small innovation changes the planet is techno babble. "This innovation saved 15% on house construction," is not a very sexy title or video narrative, I concede.
Architect here, one more further clarification: to translate that open plan to a two-story structure, you also need the invention of engineered floor joists that will span 14+ feet
I used to work at a truss plant that made roofs and walls. We called the houses we made them for McMansions.
It's a fun theory but I don't agree with it. Traditional rafter construction is still common here in California in home construction. Code requires hurricane/earthquake ties to greatly strengthen the roof structure. The modern truss system is cheaper to build and faster to install but is associated with lower quality construction. McMansions are a developer's attempt at maximizing profit and thus it makes sense that they'll employ the cheapest roofing system. If factory-made truss systems didn't exist, developers would still build McMansions with traditional rafter construction since that would be the only method allowed them.
I totally agree with you. We (california framers) were cutting and stacking complex roofs for decades. McMansions existed in the 19-teens. In track homes where piecemeal production framing was born, framers like Larry Haun could cut and stack a roof in a day. The only change these plates had was lowering the cost of complex roofs, maximizing profits for developers.
@@bjrnmagnusson5351 that's the real reason for the plates.
You think they'd exist at the scale they do now? I think the point he touches on that you're not giving sufficient weight to is how the offsite preconstruction allowed the proliferation.
@@ekjswim As I mentioned, truss systems are cheaper to design, build, and install versus traditional rafter construction. It saves money regardless of the home type whether it's 600 square feet or 6000 square feet. Developer's have it easier with truss systems but it's not a make-or-break situation in my opinion.
Most places in the United States are not subject to the same extreme weather conditions as California, so I doubt they would have as much concern for homes’ structural integrity.
This was an excellent narrative. Damn.
Hey Stewart! Miami-Dade county wind load requirements these days start at 165mph and reach up to 195mph in a higher risk category!
There, you have additional nail plates and steel straps designed to hold the floors and roof down, to tie the lifting load down to the foundation.
The one positive of truss plates is that it enabled me (a roofing contractor by trade) to build my own house and do the framing (with my roofing crew) ourselves. It is not impossible to learn roof framing, but it is SO much easier with trusses. But Mcmansions as a whole are the bane of my existence as a contractor trying to waterproof impossible angles with valleys terminating in walls and the such. I can waterproof them with the help of water & ice membrane because the siding is not yet installed enabling me to run the membrane up the walls. But...when these houses get re-roofed due to age or a hail storm, the next contractor will not be able to waterproof them near as easily. Long-term maintenance is rarely considered. I built a two-story colonial - simple yet elegant roof lines that never goes out of style!
My house was built in the early 1900's and the roof rafters are step lapped on a seat, pretty neat stuff...
The use of joining plates and cleats allows a lot of workers with minimal skill to assemble lumber into poorly built homes. The roof may remain tied to the house in a strong wind thanks to Simpson Strong Tie, but the houses are wonky boxes that have structural issues forever. Skill enhanced with technology and quality materials results in long-lasting quality construction. No technology can save not having the skill to do a good job. This is my opinion (and I'm sticking to it) from personal involvement working on the home I grew up in (built with skilled workers), restoring older homes, and observing neighborhoods of homes sprout like mushrooms after a rain as Plano, Texas rapidly grew from a population of ~75,000 in 1980 to just under 300,000 in 2018. The million dollar McMansions were constructed by people who slapped crappy materials together, put a roof on it, and left town before things started coming apart.
We currently live in south east Texas in the 1927 small farmhouse with seven gables my husband grew up in. The house is quirky 1920's style construction but stable as a rock.
The complex roof designs of McMansions serve to dramatically increase the likelihood of water intrusion.
I started doing roof repairs in 1976. I soon realized that I could find a neighborhood full of those houses and simply put flyers on the mailboxes when the houses were about 3 or 4 years old. If there was one leak in the neighborhood there would be many more. I made a good living working alone for about 20 years.
Unnecessary complexity is how I refer to the mess in attics of modern houses! The insulation & thermal barrier is often very poorly installed & effective if even present. I saw so many attics in million $ houses that had bare ceilings & walls in Phoenix!
"hiahlayuh city"
For future references its "hi-uh-lee-uh"
I was hoping I wouldn't be the first person to post it
Love his videos but fell out of my chair with that pronunciation of hialeah ahahah. Can't fault him for trying his best though lol.
I specifically logged in because I was going to correct it too.
"Building a certain way just because we can isn't the same as building the way we should"
Can you make a video summarizing the "should" for residential structures --- key practices that you know to be durable, resource-efficient, etc.?
I know many architects hate McMansions but they have a soft spot in my heart. I’ve been around them my whole life
I agree A distinction needs to be made between the extravagant style and the cheap/greedy bones and assembly. A McMansion could be built well and a non-McMansion could be built poorly.
Jevons paradox explained in one video. Loved it!
Good video. Terrific topic. Gluelam beams are probably as key to the MacMansion as the trusses. Nailon trusses have been around a lot longer than MacMansions.
Laying out and cutting rafters is tricky but I've know dozens of carpenter who do this efficiently and quickly -- but no one is quicker than a stack of premade trusses hoisted by crane to the top of a house. I can cut rafters, but I have to check everything multiple times.
Toe nailing isn't difficult and is very strong. (I've done a lot of it.) Another factor are purlins. These are stringers that run between rafters about a third of the way up from the perimeter wall. These tie the rafters together so they work like a web (Similar to blocking.) Stretchers going down from the rafters to the ceiling joists and another stringer also stabilize the ceiling solving plaster/drywall cracks. Of course purlins and stringers, and floor blocking are not as common in old homes as they should be. I remember installing a lot of more of them in old houses to fix long term problems.
Another thing that trusses and gluelams caused. In the 1980s there was a fad for 'cathedral ceilings.' I saw a few Broad homes where a corner of something on the second floor was eliminated so next to the staircase there could be two floors of open space. It was less cathedral than it was shaft. It was a gimmick and was just bad architecture. But people liked them. (Broad also eliminated basements because buyers looking at two houses don't see that one doesn't have a basement.)
When I extended the back of my house in Los Angeles in 1994, the building code required brackets and bolts from the foundation to the top plate. But hurricane ties to the rafters were not required. I put them in. (I also made every wall a double sided shear wall. Didn't add much to the cost.) My thinking was I don't want to meet the standard after the previous earthquake (Loma Prieto) I wanted to meet the standard after two or three large earthquakes in the future. The Northridge Quake happened during the renovation. (Everything was good, except that mesh drywall tape. I never used it again.)
And firefighters used to recommend going around to all the nailon plates and putting in a few nails. This was easy with a nail gun. The thinking is that a nailon plate in a fire softens and looses its strength so the roof -- and the fire fighters on it are more likely to collapse.
I’ve wanted to be a construction worker sense I was 4 years old and now I’m here working plumbing and learning more and more every day and I love it.
Incredible video with amazing renders that really help a visual learner like myself. Keep up the great work!
"It shifted our values from the hand-crafted to the mass-produced." No it didn't, corporate greed did that. You said it yourself, the builders became the main characters and started building giant homes that no one asked for.
Bingo.
If no one asked for them, who is buying them? Businesses have always been greedy. The problem that I see is that you can't easily build a simple home between accelerated infrastructure requirement and gold plated core systems like HVAC and electrical. If it is a good strategy to maximize return by having a large mortgage and expecting housing to inflate, then you have an incentive to make it hard for other people to build and to buy what you think will sell rather than what you need. And, in most cases size is the cheapest aspect of housing - lumber is cheap, framers and drywallers are the worst paid trades.
@@richdobbs6595 I mean when 18 percent of homes are owned by big business and probably counting upwards...
Municipalities play a large role in this trend with huge minimum lot sizes and codes that make turning a profit on building small homes almost impossible for builders. Practically nobody is building houses under 2000 sq.ft. these days because it's impossible to make any money doing so.
Corporate greed has existed as long as corporations, which is longer than America has even been a country. Building codes encourage using standardized methodology that reduces risk and the cost of compliance, such as using these devices.
Fascinating presentation. Lots of food for thought.
thank you for summarizing your video in the first sentence
Fascinating example of the dilemma where improvements in efficiency lead to increased consumption and reduced sustainability.
As a journeyman carpenter I have set thousands of trusses, I have built Mc Mansions and mansions, the last one I worked on sold for 23 million dollars, I think any large house with stick frame and stucco is a Mc mansion. The real mansion here are built with masonry construction. Fortunately I’m a finish carpenter now lots of woodwork in those big houses. Great video.
You didn't mention the southern yellow pine tree. The ying to the yang of the gang nail plate.
i don't like the wide open floor plans. ironically i feel like they make a massive house feel smaller when its just a couple of oversized rooms
Also you could probably save energy costs with more closed-off rooms
Wow, thank you for pointing this out. I am totally onboard with you pointing out problems related to McMansions. It would be interesting to know what percent of people live in them.😊
11:50 How about the role of the FED in the housing crisis/meltdown?
I grew up in an area of northern Virginia with a ton of these and although they were beautiful the main floor areas were almost never used. We'd gather in the bedrooms or, if it had one, the smaller more closed off areas on the main floor. The spaces were just too big and felt more like a commercial or government building than a home. I'm working on moving to England and the shape and size of the houses is something I'm really looking forward to as I haven't been able to find anything here that's not open floor plans and rooms way too big for people. My master bedroom suite is over 500sqft! I rent it out and you can fit a family of 3 in there comfortably! It's just insane and so wasteful.
Jevon's paradox at work!
I thought the windward side of the roof was under high pressure with the leeward side of the roof being underlow pressure. However, the wind can get under the large overhangs, creating a huge positive pressure underneath the overhang.
I built trusses for awhile. Sweatshop labor, and these plates will chew your fingers like looking for hay in a razorstack
But I want to live in a McMansion and I like how those neighborhoods look
This video kinda confirmed it right? Only negative was “stress from noise” lol open floor plans rule !
Don't blame the tool, truss plate..... blame the people wielding them, developers, which are spured by supply and demand. Think levittown PA. in the 40's.
When pickup trucks sales slow down all it takes is to lower the gas price 50 cents to revamp the buying frenzy.
People are strange.
Developers capitalize on ignorance as what is genuinely a "quality construction".
great take
5:18 Nail guns, and other power tools, had a huge impact on home construction.
They have tremendously increased labor productivity which has the effect of ... nothing. Any such improvements just results in greater efforts to make it harder to develop and raise expectations with respect to required building standard and purchasers expectations.
@ From the video: “I personally cannot think of a single invention that is so simple that has created such a profound effect on the way that we build.”
I was pointing out the effect of power tools on home construction (although not as simple as truss plates). I get your point, but you are speaking about what is built, not how something is built.
Who taught you this?! Fascinating
Great Video!
And now I know ! Wow who would have thought this. Thank you for throwing this knowledge to us as it is truly amazing to understand. This video is also a self growth video (at least for me) because it just kicked open somthing in me that makes me look at things in a new way and I have a better understanding of not only the building of trusses and houses but of the foot print we are leaving on the planet and who knows maybe in the galaxy. Again thank you for flipping that switch in my brain that gave me a better or bigger view and comprehension to the building blocks of knowledge.
It’s interesting that much of today’s neighborhood pushback against updated zoning laws (that ironically mimic the way things used to be before zoning laws existed … ) is because homeowners “know” developers build for personal gain. That experience comes from the death of sane planning and design.
You are clearly clueless.
People buy a house where they don't understand the zoning rules. Then, when things change, 😮 make up a change they think will stop the change the font like.
Now, they don't understand the new effects of their idea.
@@sparksmcgee6641Seems like you might want to edit that.
When I saw the title of the video my immediate thought was trusses and engineered joists. I'm super sad to see it now expand into LVL lumber to achieve those massive open-concept homes. The fire hazards are unbelievable and it's incredible insurance in North America lets builders use these materials.
then why are houses so freaking expensive!!!!! I'm crying!!!
regarding hurricane proofing, "hurricane ties" between walls and ceiling joints instead of toe nailing is standard minimum in Canada, risk of hurricanes being moot.
The trusses are still toe nailed the the top plate. They make connectors called hurricane ties to reinforce the connection.
11:20...Increased home size does not increase DEBT. Obviously. PEOPLE take on debt. PEOPLE make choices about what to buy......
I'm totally nerding out on this right now! 🤓🤓
And then there's the French barrel or Mansard roof. French Philibert de l’Orme* invented a new building method: “à petit bois." It spanned wide distances with what amounted to a thin truss.
Look it up! Brilliant.
*Also stereotomy, which is another level of cool.
Yay! Someone else to watch on Nebula. Even if you spell Stuart wrong 😂
Let’s do engineered wood buildings next.
Now I understand 🙌
That's amazing
My dad used to make trusses, so this is neat
Yeah, when the builder is good at their job and knows what to do, they're awesome. Inspection video after inspection video shows the biggest builders have the lowest standards.
9:20....I don't see "excess", actually
I keep calling this guy Stweart little in my head for some reason when I am thinking of his videos.
I think you talked to it in a way, but it wasn't the truss plate as much as greed corrupting it.
So form does follow function after all. We made an engineering change that eliminated the need for traditional structural decisions so we are REQUIRED to build ugly houses. Great graphics and images on this one!
@ScottBrownCarpentry should make a video showing the complex, time-consuming joinery foregone, skipped, with the gang nail plate.
Whole point of 2x framing construction at its start was that semi-skilled adult and teenager w/o attitude can build the livable structure. Perforated plate is a further improvement to that building philosophy.
There wasn't any trusses like that before. The plate created them.
Scott really isn't a joinery guy anyway he's just a finish guy.
There is no labor saving device that has ever made housing more affordable in general. Nothing out weighs our ability to run up the cost by regulations and land use limitations, to run up prices by making long term mortgages, and driving expectations from those who can afford them, and to impose unavoidable minimum standards on those who can't.
Desire and facilitation often go hand-in-hand as you said. Interestingly, everything ballooned at the time - houses, cars, hair and jacket shoulders - some are ballooning still. Is it a perverse reaction to environmental demands? As always, thought-provoking video.
10:05 Isn't this "induced demand"?... Just like adding a lane on the freeway. I grew up in a 1961 Florida home with the newfangled plates. We also had cement tiles for a "hurricane proof" roof... NOBODY says something is hurricane proof anymore, not even the developers selling them.
I've built both kinds of roof-stick framed and truss, I actually like designing and building my own trusses for movie scenery.
My immediate thought was lightweight 2x framing construction as a culprit but you went further.
Little perforated plate. Who would think of that?
You still toenail the truss to the plate. And it can all still blow off if you do not add steel connectors to the wall structure. Now some framers use long screws from under the plate to secure rafters and trusses. Trusses like this are pre-fabricated and pre-engineered, so the plate itself is part of an engineered construction, so not independently approved in the code for other uses.
and this important point..... saw it play it a few weeks ago before the first snow.... when a builder has to get things done to a certain point because of weather, the fact that you can get the roof on the structure in a few days is so important....eh!
I hate trying to design solar installations for McMansions. The roof is taken us by weird angles that makes it hard to fit modules. Cut out the weird angles and there is a lot more roof available for solar.
11:14 "psychological TRAUMA"?? Trauma? really?
We were able to take out a wall in our house and make it completely open concept because the roof above was constructed with engineered trusses. They are an absolute game changer for flexibility and I was really intrigued when I learned about that construction technique at the time, so it's great to see it explained here. I still think in Canada and US we're missing out on building even more of the house off-site to get costs and time down, we need to take this concept and go further!
Fully pre-manufactured homes have existed in the US since at least the 1950's. My home was built in 1962, and was constructed like a piece of flat pack furniture from Ikea. The interior walls were unloaded off of a trailer with drywall, electrical outlets, and everything installed and ready to go. They simply brought them up onto the deck of the house and nailed them down. It probably took a crew of workers less than a day to go from a bare foundation to a fully framed in structure.
5:23 Nails, screws, hammers, screwdrivers...
open concept is worse if there's a house fire!
Yup. And modern petrochemical materials and plastics are way more flammable.
Weird had they not heard of joints pre truss plates? Actually fitting beams together? Like proper furniture.
Okay so.. why are pre-built houses still 500,000$ then?
Gang Gang!
Still prefer rafters with hurricane ties.
Som UA-camr talking about 9/11 some ten years ago said never trust a truss. If the comments are anything to go by here, fire looks like the Achilles heel of these things.
YES!
This does honestly feel fundamentaly opposite of north Europe currently, here buildings are small, cramped, extremely ugly and hillariously owerprized for what it is. Something like this would honestly feel like a vitamin injection.
Wait until they see the cost of roofing all those McMansions when the shingles go. The first ones are coming due soon. Valleys cost a lot to roof as do dormers. My brother is a framer/roofer, he can't wait to see how much money he's going to make on the side.
Reinventing the wheel didn't change modern society. It was reinventing the nail 😲
"Aesthetic Erosion" 🤣