Building by Numbers
- The Silent Floor™ way
In the past, Australian builders
and carpenters have preferred to build subfloors
using traditional hardwood bearer and joist construction.
With the introduction of engineered wood products
to Australia over the last couple of years, we are
seeing a significant shift as builders take advantage
of engineered timber I-beams and deep floor joists.
Here we speak with Central Coast builder, Laurie
Blair about why he made the switch from solid hardwood
subfloors to Trus Joist's Silent Floor™ System
"'Purveyors of Quality' is our motto,"
says Laurie Blaire of Laurie Blaire Constructions
on the New South Wales Central Coast.
| Laurie has been in the building
game for over 20 years, starting his career as an
apprentice carpenter. These days, Laurie's wife
handles the books while he focuses on one major
building works project at a time. The business focuses
on domestic projects with half the turn over coming
from building new homes and the other half from
alterations, additions and major renovations.
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Currently Laurie is working on a
substantial executive residence on the Central Coast
with over 870m2 under construction. More than 570m2
of this is floor area where Laurie has installed
the Silent Floor™ System.
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"I much prefer a timber subfloor
to a concrete slab," says Laurie. Before he switched
to using the Silent Floor™ System, Laurie built
with traditional hardwood timber bearers and joists
for ground floor structures and solid hardwood deep
floor joists for second storey construction.
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This is his second project using
the Silent Floor™ System and there's no going back
for Laurie Blaire Constructions.
| Laurie was particularly impressed
with the design team at Trus Joist who helped develop
the floor design, made recommendations for improving
floor performance and produced accurate floor plans.
His current project is so big that the design team
needed to produce A1 plans.
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"I gave the Trus Joist guys my plan
and they worked out the most economical way to design
the floor. Then they produced an A1 colour-coded
plan with product and cutting lists with reference
numbers," says Laurie. "The various components are
then delivered to site packed and numbered as per
the plan. So it's like painting by numbers!"
This project required excellent
floor performance with as little deflection as possible
given the high quality home under construction.
The design team recommended that joist centres be
decreased and that 90mm flanges be specified for
wet areas to improve floor stiffness.
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Two-thirds of the floor in this
home are to be tiled with large, imported ceramic
tiles. "I screw-fix particleboard sheeting straight
down over the TJI®s so I need the joists to
be perfectly level so that tiles won't crack," says
Laurie.
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This is where the Silent Floor™ System makes a huge difference to the builder. The
joists and beams in the Silent Floor™ System will
not split, bow or twist, but most importantly, they
are "dead straight and true" according to Laurie.
"If you get your bearers right,
the Silent Floor™ System is idiot-proof!" says Laurie.
"Just get an accurate dumpy level on your bearers
and then bang your TJI® joists in place. It's
that easy."
To demonstrate, Laurie picks up
a 15-metre joist and launches it across the installed
Silent Floor™. The joist slides smoothly across
the parallel joists that Laurie has been nailing
off all day.
The products in the Silent Floor™ System are manufactured in 16.2m lengths meaning
less work for builders. They are also about half
the weight of solid hardwood beams and can be installed
in a fraction of the time.
Another benefit that Laurie points
out is the wider flange width. Conventional hardwood
timber joists are 50mm wide while deep floor joists
are only 45mm. The standard TJI® flange is 70mm
but 90mm is also available. This gives the subfloor
more stability and a wider area for particleboard
or timber flooring to rest on, resulting in a firmer
floor.
The Silent Floor™ System includes
TJI® floor joists and rafters, e-Rim® rim
boards and cantilever reinforcement, TimberStrand™ LSL beams, lintels, purlins and columns and Microllam®
LVL beams, lintels and purlins.
Take out box:
Benefits of the Silent Floor™ System
include
- The system can be adapted to
virtually any construction situation
- No splitting, bowing or twisting
- No packing, planing or crippling
required because the TJI® beam is manufactured
within very tight tolerances
- Half the weight of solid timber
- Manufactured in 16.2m lengths
so there is less joining required
- Wider flange makes for a more
stable floor
- Technical support from the
design team is available to help builders with
floor designs and cutting lists
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