×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Glued Laminated Appearance Grades
2

Glued Laminated Appearance Grades

Glued Laminated Appearance Grades

(OP)
The project is a church.  Ninety percent of the Glulam members are exposed.  Ten percent of the glulam members are concealed above a dropped ceiling, soffit or elsewhere.  

I am aware of (4) appearance grades:  Industrial, Industrial S, Architectural and Premium.  (What is "Industrial S"?)

I am specifying the Appearance Grade to be "Architectural".  Is there a cost benefit in specifying the concealed ten percent as Industrial, or is the cost savings little to nothing?

Thank you!

RE: Glued Laminated Appearance Grades

See link for Standard Appearance Grades for Structural Glued Laminated Timber, AITC-110 at:
https://www.aitc-glulam.org/shopcart/webitems.asp?category=design

Some of the savings for the 10% members not exposed is balanced by the risk of mixing locations.  Cost out the two options and decide.

RE: Glued Laminated Appearance Grades

To the best of my knowledge Industrial S, is not a standard AITC grade.  When speaking of Industrial grade glulams, some times the terms "as is" and "clean" are used with Industrial.

Industrial "as is", is the condition it comes out of the glue form.  It will have glue squeeze out, may have dirt on the beams.  With Industrial "clean" generally the beams will be cleaned up generally by rough sanding or by running them through a planer.  As a general rule voids will not be filled.

There is an official Industrial Appearance grade, which has specific requirements regarding; the filling of knot holes on the wide face of laminations exposed to view and specific finishing requirements.  This information is given in      AITC 110.

At one time Industrial Appearance was used as exposed members in some structures to reduce costs.  For example in the past it was fairly common for churches to use Industrial Appearance grade.

Now it would be rare to see Industrial Appearance specified for exposed applications.  These days, I think industrial is used as a description for beams which are not exposed or are used in applications where appearance is not a concern.

What I would do is specify that all exposed glulams be Architectural grade.  There would be quiet a bit of a savings for using Indstrial grade on the non exposed beams.  I have probably done shop drawings where out of forty or fifty beams, only two were not exposed.  I still called out the two beams as Industrial.  

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources