Single residences can be built safer, stronger and easier than ever before with lightweight steel flooring systems.
It’s what every property owner dreads – a fire. Even though the fire trucks arrived within 10 minutes of the fire starting, the Creamers’ stick-framed shop was destroyed.
The Creamers never wanted to have this experience again, so when they built a new home on Prince Edward Island, they were determined to build their home using non-combustible alternative materials.
Although the use of lumber joists was a factor in their fire, the Creamers weren’t aware of non-combustible flooring solutions so they felt they had no choice but to use it again. When their lumber supplier was unwilling to provide delivery dates and hard costs for their materials, Creamer did his own research and reached out to the innovative steel framing manufacturer TotalJoist, who put him in touch with their local supplier Nova Scotia-based Pinnacle Agencies Ltd.
Cold-Formed Steel is the Pinnacle of Homebuilding
“Our whole business model is to assist the construction process from the ground up,” says Marc Zinck, Technical Sales Representative for Pinnacle Agencies. “For more than 25 years, we’ve represented world-class manufacturers that have products suited for the Maritimes.”
Pinnacle has a project and sales team with in-depth knowledge and experience, and can often be proactive in helping engineers, architects and contractors. Zinck says, “They call us with their problem, even if it’s not product-specific. We work with them to provide the best solution, which in this case was TotalJoist.”
TotalJoist by Bailey Metal Products Limited is a North American leader in manufacturing easy-to-install, pre-engineered steel floor joist and framing components. One of its solutions is Composite TotalJoist, an innovative flooring system that includes steel joists, steel decking that acts as permanent formwork, and four inches of concrete. Zinck worked with Creamer and his architect to implement this non-combustible solution in their new home.
The Owners Did Their Homework
The Creamers chose to build their new home’s exterior walls of insulated concrete forms (ICF), which give the home non-combustibility, air-tight walls, moisture resistance and high thermal mass.
Their choice of Composite TotalJoist made the construction process even easier since the steel joists were designed by engineers to easily connect with ICF blocks using standard fasteners. With the strength of steel, their architect was able to extend the length of some rooms creating a more open-concept, less-restrictive layout. They were also able to reduce the number of joists.
Installation was fast and easier than thought, helped by the simple delivery, packaging and labelling of the joists. Each package that came off the delivery truck was in the right order, and each joist was pre-labelled to coordinate with the provided drawings.
The owners chose to do much of the flooring installation work themselves, with friends helping along the way. “The owners told me that the first floor of joists took only a weekend,” says Zinck. “Following that, they had a question about installing the steel decking, so one of the sales representatives did a video call with the site crew to explain exactly what needed to be done. The guys have been great to work with.”
Once the decking was installed, an in-floor heating system was assembled on the decking, followed by a four-inch layer of concrete.
Since the Composite TotalJoist system uses stay-in-place formwork, other trades could get to work immediately after the concrete was poured. They took advantage of the floor joists’ large pre-punched service holes, allowing mechanical, electrical and plumbing components to run right through them. Finished with a single layer 5/8” drywall ceiling, the Composite TotalJoist system provides the Creamers with a two-hour UL/ULC fire rating.
Overall, Zinck says that the owner is very happy and the engineer was impressed with the entire process too. Creamer expects to get a reduction on his home insurance of approximately 40% and he’s relieved that going the alternative route resulted in fewer combustible materials.
Cold-Formed Steel: Better Safe Than Sorry
The benefits of rethinking home construction are limitless, although not everyone is aware of the benefits of cold-formed steel nor the help that comes alongside products purchased through TotalJoist by Bailey Metal Products and its Pinnacle Agencies dealer.
“Some people in the industry won’t consider the benefits of newer products,” says Zinck. “There are still a lot of wood structures and concrete structures being built out here, but things are changing.”
The benefits of using cold-formed steel to build today’s safe and structurally sound homes can’t be understated. It’s the responsibility of everyone in the industry, from architects and engineers to developers and owners to build structures that last, that provide generations of benefits and do what they can to mitigate risk.
Reach out to our authorized dealer Pinnacle Agencies at pinnag@pinnacleagencies.ca to learn more about how builders are thinking differently in Atlantic Canada. (That’s New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland & Labrador.)
To better understand the benefits of cold-formed steel systems for your next home, condo, hotel, institutional or residential project, contact the knowledgeable team at TotalJoist.
