Floor Trusses vs. Joists vs. Engineered Joists: Options + Cost

the build show today we're talking floor trousers we just got finished framing this house and you can see how open these floor trusses are in fact the plumber started his top out and look at that that's a thing of beauty all that open space meant that the plumber didn't cut anything on that floor trous now in my 30 years of building I've done solid sawn you know two by eight two by ten two by twelve floors I've done tjis in fact I use some of those at my personal build but the vast majority of the houses I've built over the last 15 years or so I've used these four trousers so in the build show today we're going to go into all the pros and cons of these floor systems including the costs and we're going to really dig deep on why I think floor trusses are the way to go for Builders today's build show about floor trusses let's get going [Music] all right guys let me introduce you to Ray the trust guy from Builders First Source now I know you do more than just trousers right but uh I appreciate you joining me I want to talk to these guys about reasons why we like floor trusses over other floor systems and I do want to point out that we're in Texas we're slab on grade on almost all our projects so when we think about floor trusses and the space that they're being used there's a lot of services in there because I don't have a basement to put those talk to me about openness right what's what's the big benefit of openness on floor trusses yes sir most of the time we're going to have floor trusses that are 24 inch on Center very easy for the the trades to come in and deck the floors we're going to try to make sure we miss all our plumbing flanges Etc all our drop downs and it's a it's a whole lot easier for all of our trades to run all their products and electricians the plumbers any of the other the other gentlemen that are going to be working you know I want to point out too that you know for instance right here I've got this big open blocks space a big open Square on these trusses and usually that's designed to end by the Builder and the truss manufacturer Builders First Source as a trunk line or a line for ducting so you know in this case 24 inch on Center trusses I think these are 18 inch deep at this house yes sir so we've got a lot of open space that we can run a pretty serious duct through there but in general when the trades come when we think about this openness there's no drilling needed they're going to drill in walls for uh you know Plumbing runs or or maybe electrical wires electricians plumbers no saw needed and that's one of the things I really like about these open web trusses is just giant space for all kinds of things now you mentioned 24 inch on Center array talk to me about that big 2x4 flange on the top and the bottom is there a benefit to that yes sir way more way more horizontal space for you to be able to glue screw nail however you're going to apply that that decking to the deal for a better attachment to that to top core that floor truss and of course that squeaks moans groans all those accompanying balance sounds kind of stuff bounce that we're really trying to avoid yeah so let's let's break that down there's two things I want to mention on that you know I've been using floor trusses a long time I've never had a call back for squeaks or for bounce whereas on houses that have solids on Lumber that I've been in that have been built in the last even 10 years I've been in upstairs places where the floor has some shake and you walk by that China cabinet and as you walk by you can kind of see the dishes rattle a little bit I've never had that problem with floor trusses talk to me about the engineering behind that is the Builder specifically saying to the truss engineer here's the stiffness rating I'm looking for or is that kind of baked in that that is baked in and a lot of the times the structural plans that we received from the Builder will be will have that called out so we will follow that L over D 360 over 240 for our floor trash is and that's just our stiffness that we're looking forward to try to achieve so the engineering that we run through design the floor trusses we'll follow that along and place the right material grades and the right size plates so that we get the stiffness that we're looking for yeah I like that and then along with that stiffness you mentioned we've got a 2x4 top cord which gives me as the Builder and my framing crew a lot of glue surface uh you know back in the old days when I was a production Builder Solid Sun Lumber commodity kind of OSB decking products we had a lot of squeaks even though we tried to glue them when we even tried to screw them whereas houses these days when I'm using floor trusses two by four floor trusses 24 inch on Center three quarter or inch and an eighth Huber advantec decking we're putting a nice fat bead of advantec glue on there which is an all-poly urethane glue and man that bonds the advantac tenaciously such that I don't actually don't screw any of my floors I only nail and I think of those Nails as clamps more than anything because it's that glue that really makes those floors squeak free and in fact Huber actually has a squeak-free guarantee if you follow their system and and their guidelines and I would say that's been my experience let's switch gears let's talk about cost a little bit is this a cost savings to go to floor trusses compared to tjis or compared to Solid Sun or is it the opposite it is the floor truss package will cost a little bit more than say your your tjs or a solids on uh dimensional package the biggest thing that we're going to save here is time as far as installation and ease of use then we will also save on waste because we're not going to have a lot of cuts and fall off Etc to dump to fall into the door right none shouldn't be anything and they are they are all designed to fit so you're going to have in the exact span from wall to wall to cover that yeah so this trust bag is have specifically designed for this house yes sir keeping an account for where I've got Plumbing you know where I've got a toilet let's say in a flange needs to come down like we've got right over here keeping an account for interior load bearing walls that sort of thing let's talk actual numbers in this house this is a 4 000 square foot framed house a little over 3000 or right at 3 000 living space what's this house cost for the floor truss package roughly I believe this was around 7 500 yeah TJ the TJ uh I joist pack would be I'd say it's 65 6700 okay yeah so we're talking about 15 maybe 20 more for a floor trust package uh than tji's let's say or then solids on Lumber one of the big benefits for me though is that openness means that I don't make any mistakes over the years of using tjis I used a lot of them in the 90s we had issues where someone would drill in the wrong spot and you've got to show your inspector here's the plan from the TGI manufacturer that shows where they can and where they can't drill and oftentimes we'd make a mistake on the job you know the plumber drilled in the wrong spot or over drilled then enough to get an engineer involved I'd have to get the framer back to fix it and poof there goes your savings between tjis and floor trusses by making you know one mistake on over drilling or over spanning or whatever it happens to be actually that brings a good point we haven't talked about this yet talk to me about spam on floor trusses compared to TGI's or solid saw number yes sir so Fortress Is we're going to be able to span a little bit longer than say a TJ especially a dimensional Lumber clear span without picking up interior bearings which of course upstairs will save us some more money as far as picking up the the loads going down to the to the foundation um we do have a saving uh saying that deeper is cheaper a lot of the times when we have a smaller comparable uh depth of floor trusses to tjis 14s 12 16s that same floor truss can be extremely less expensive by going to an 18 inch so 14 versus an 18 you might actually save money by going deeper yes sir 100 the other benefit of going deeper then is I've got let's say a bigger space for a trunk line potentially and I know over the years we've seen some plans that we've built that come in with a 16 inch truss space and we've gone back to you as our trust manufacturer and said actually I want to make these taller and I'm going to adjust my sheathing and my height of the house but that gives me that extra depth which can be really really handy it's interesting to hear that that could actually cost less money for a deeper truss yes sir and anytime anytime we have any kind of additional loading say if a builder comes to us and says hey we've got a pool table uh water heater water heater and H you know any HVAC anything like that we're going to load that into the floor trusses and and make sure that we've got all that covered as far as so we stay away from the squeaks the deflection any any of those other issues that's a great point and I do want to mention too one of the benefits of floor trusses for me over the years is I do a lot of zero entrance uh curbless showers and when I do those I really want that shower floor to be dropped a couple inches and it's really easy for me to say to the BFS truss Engineers hey give me a four inch drop in this master shower upstairs let's say they build it in rights of the trusses super easy for the framers and then I've got a four inch drop right at that curb or curbless shower I should say that's a huge benefit on floor trusses yes sir Ray talk to me about some cons on floor trusses compared to tjis or uh or solids on yes sir uh the the first one would be the weight they are individually a little of year than say a TJ or a 2x12 obviously that's that's got to be taken into an account Ray I think another con that gets brought up sometimes the floor trusses is cost and I think we kind of addressed that they typically are going to be a little bit more expensive than some of the other options but I think that's a a worthwhile expense even on a house like this that we're building at a very tight budget uh for what I would consider a middle class house like this but talk to him about fire you know over the years when I've talked about any kind of trusses I've had a lot of comments from firefighters that trusses are less stable in a fire compared to let's say solids on Lumber yeah I I can understand that sentiment uh and a lot of the times that's as far as an individual individual trust will be concerned but these packages are designed to work as a as a set they are all a as a package so when they're when the rat runs are put in correctly the the lateral bracing Etc they function as a unit and I would argue that as that damages one particular piece one particular set of these one truss is damaged it still functions as a unit yeah so in other words we're not going to see a systematic wired failure where the floor caves in uh with a smallish fire uh just in this one spot now obviously if the whole house is a blaze these will fail at some point and potentially you could go longer with a solid song because there's more burn but in general new houses don't burn down as often as old houses do and are less fryer prone but to my firefighter friends out there I think that is a valid point and if you're building a house that fires your number one concern you might also consider not using Lumber you know Lumber is the number one way to build a house in America for a reason we have amazing Lumber resources we build 99 of our houses with Lumber but if you build a house in Mexico or the Dominican Republic or Haiti or somewhere else you're not building your house typically out of lumber you're building out a concrete or cinder block or you don't have fire issues so if fire is a number one concern for you you know you might consider not using wood at all any final cons that you can think of Ray on floor trusses well they are deeper compared to a TJ or a dimensional product a two by ten two by eight that you could span so for shorter spans they do uh they will have a a lower profile and a whole lot less space between the webs and the ductwork to make that shorter span work so when we have a shorter span the tens the 12s the the 15 feet sometimes those tjs or those dimensional products would be a cost saving yeah that makes sense and you also do need to think about height restrictions for houses a lot of places in Austin Texas where I build have a 32 foot Ridge height limitation and we have bumped up into half we want nine foot ceilings and 18 inch trusses and this type of roof we're going to be be pushing up against that ceiling of regulations so that could that certainly could be a concern and something you talk about with your architect Ray really appreciate it man my pleasure thank you very much for all your help today guys Builders First Source one of my major sponsors they've been uh my main source of lumber Windows interior trim for the last 20 years if you don't have a BFS person you're working with highly recommend these guys they've got like 500 locations around the US and almost every one of those has a trust department where Rey the ray of your location can get you set up with an engineer to design a truss a floor truss package or potentially a roof truss package but if you're not currently a subscriber guys hit that subscribe button below you know we've got new content here on the build show every Tuesday and every Friday follow me on Instagram or Tick Tock otherwise we'll see you next time build show [Music] [Music]

Channel: Matt Risinger

Views: 153,599

Keywords: Matt Risinger, Build Show Network, The Build Show, Build

Id: 3BSiP18YavE

Length: 13min 57sec (837 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 27 2022