Wood Framing & Building Hardware Tips by Greg Vandenberge

If you're framing a house today, there's a good chance that it has more hardware in the home today than five years ago. It's starting to get a little overkill and I don't really know how much more hardware one of these wood framed houses can actually take. With that said, I would like to share a few wood framing and building hardware tips with you, to make your job a little easier.

1. Familiarize yourself with the building hardware and how it attaches to the wood framing. Make sure that you understand what types of nails, screws or bolts you need, before you end up using the wrong ones.

2. Don't deviate or replace specified building hardware ever. If the building plans call out for one type of building hardware, make sure that you use it. I don't know how many stubborn contractors run into problems like this, year after year.

3. Review the building plans thoroughly, to make sure that you're not going to have problems installing certain types of building hardware. Something like this could hold a job up for a long time.

4. If you've ever nailed a MST 48 Simpsons strapped onto 2 x 4 plates with 16 -d mails, there's a good chance that the lumber split. Ask the engineer for advice and have him provide you with a written correction to prevent problems like these.

5. Don't let the building inspector, homeowner, other contractors, architect or engineer have you install or remove any hardware that's specified on the plans, with out something in writing.

6. This is probably the most important building and hardware tip I could give you. If it's on the plans, you had better install it in the house. Your job as a framing contractor is to assemble the wood framing, not to reengineer the home.

If you really want to become a better framing contractor or framing carpenter, I would suggest that you start to familiarize yourself with all of the different types of framing hardware. The building hardware is constantly being updated and modernized. Some of the hardware you are using today might be obsolete within five years.