Mark your calendars for June 23, 2011 and come have lunch with us.

Wake up...............

Wake-up! Yea, we have engineers working here at Matthews and every once and awhile they bore us to death in our sales meetings. One of them got a hold of your ear this time. Now it's time to wake-up! I promise I will change the password so they can't get in here anymore.

The one upside is they are here to help. You, our customer if you ever have a need for them so keep that in mind. They can size beams and help you with all kinds of design issues.

So now for a little wisdom, yep we are gonna make you a little smarter just by reading this. I think smarter is a word, if it ain't it ought to be! So here we go, do you realize that Asian people always say a last name first. I learned this today and everybody I have mentioned this too had no ideal.

suzuki ichiro

It started with a conversation about Ichiro Suzuki. Have you ever wondered why he would have his first name on his jersey, no one else in baseball does! As you see I have written his name under his picture the American way.

Now in this picture he doesn't look to happy about it. So I will admit that the way I did it is wrong. Sorry

Mr. Ichiro. I will respect your traditions and write your name as I am supposed too. So the next time you see some reporter ask him a question and say; Ichiro blah blah blah. You will look at the TV and have a little trivia to tell your wife about. Because I bet she doesn't know this fact. You got to admit you always want to look smarter than you really are in front of the wife.

Speaking of wives, he has a pretty hot one. Of course I say that with respect, I don't want him to chase me down with that bat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What in the World is L/360?

Have you heard the term L/360 before? Looks kind of geeky don’t you think? In the residential construction industry L/360 is the maximum allowable Live-Load deflection. Live-Load is considered everything in your home that can move. Yes, the upright piano that has sitting in your home, in the same spot, for twenty-years is considered Live-Load.
Another term that you will see, or hear of, is L/240. This control is for the Total-Load deflection, which by the way, is the Live-Load plus the Dead-Load. For sake the conversation; Dead-Load is all the building material in your home.

Well now…that is just about as clear as mud. Maybe an example is in order. Let’s look at a typical floor joist, and let’s assume the joist has a span of 15-feet.

Tip: The L in the equations above represent the span, and it has to be in inches.

Step 1: 15-ft x 12-inches per foot = 180-inches.
Step 2: Allowable Live-Load deflection = 180-inches/360 = 0.5-inches (1/2-inch).
Step 3: Allowable Total-Load deflection = 180-inches/240 = 0.75-inches (3/4-inch).

So given the above condition and a loading pattern that would push the controls to their limit these values would be the vertical displacement we could expect to see in our floor system.
So now…that was not so bad, was it?

I bet you are thinking right now, where is my MBS Blog writer!? He wouldn’t write this kind of….

If you are thinking this, then you are correct! Let’s say that I too have access to MBS’ Blog. So before I get caught with my hand in the cookie jar, I want to know is there anyone out there that can tell me what the Dead-Load deflection would be in our example. Email us your answer.

Website.............

It seems like every other day we get a compliment or complaint about our website. Does this bother us, no. But it does make you want to improve. The contractors seem to be the crowd who loves it, they understand the "business". As in the lingo.

When we started this site it was 3 years ago and the building industry was in full swing! At that point in time we of course had the need to cater to the contractor base of the industry. Then of course the building industry took a nose dive and we have been realigning ourselves with the ever changing landscape since.

Not to complain about any of our customers, but that leaves the home owner crowd. We want to make things as easy for you as our contractors. So if you have any comments please feel free to leave them thru our website and we will try to use them as we improve.

We have made a few changes in the wording already. If you refer to a prior post titled "millwork", that was a post in reference to what I am talking about. In closing feel free to leave a comment, you won't hurt our feelings. Anything we can do to help you our customer.................