One could be forgiven for thinking that the frame & truss industry does today what it has done for a good 10+ years. In its infancy many of the initial practices were simply moving the traditional onsite assembly into a shed, out of the sun and away from the impact of wind and rain.

Things however are changing and Pryda is leading the industry to a higher level of automation, providing sophisticated design software and advice on automated sawing and assembly equipment to transition its customers from a traditional frame and truss business to a successful automated supplier of prefabricated building components.

These changes create greater efficiency and accuracy and enable Pryda fabricators to work much more collaboratively on projects to provide a more cost effective outcome without reduction in quality, particularly as the industry moves towards multi-storey and multi-residential structures not traditionally associated with timber.

The launch of Pryda Trussed Floor cassettes is a perfect example. This innovative flooring system can be fully installed in an average of two to four hours and be immediately ready for walls and roof trusses – benefiting both clients and builders.

“Our expert team developed these timber floor cassettes in response to the construction industry’s appetite for faster, more cost-effective ways to build,” says Pryda’s Divisional Marketing Manager, Ella Bennett.

“The floor cassettes certainly meet that need by significantly reducing the time taken to install a flooring system – taking hours instead of the days it takes to install a concrete slab. The floor cassettes also equal the cost and quality of traditional methods and can be used on both the sub and first storey floors”.

The prefabricated floor cassettes combine all the elements of a flooring system – including floor trusses, strong backs and particle board flooring – into a number of large but manageable floor panels. They are lifted into place using a mobile crane or crane truck, to create an entire floor in a matter of hours.

For subflooring applications, Pryda has joined forces with a concrete free foundation system called Surefoot Footings. It grounds posts of any size without the need for digging, excavation or cement, so there’s no need to wait for concrete posts or strip footings to cure before Pryda’s floor cassettes can be installed.

Surefoot’s engineering principles are based on piling technology using a combination of skin friction and point bearing. A patented steel plate secures pins in place, resulting in a foundation spreading over a great surface area and achieving larger load capacities.

“All in all, the concrete free foundation and our Pryda Floor Cassettes means a complete foundation and subfloor can be supplied and installed in under two days by a single supplier,” says Ms. Bennett.

About Pryda

2014 saw Pryda celebrate its 50th anniversary. It was established by builder, Ray Turner, in New Zealand in 1964 (then known as AR Turner & Company), who pioneered the design and manufacture of timber joining connectors to simplify timber construction. Over the past 52 years Pryda has continued to revolutionise the building industry by inventing the steel angle brace, Claw® Nail nailplates, and world-leading truss design software.

After a series of mergers and takeovers that began in 1986, Pryda is today part of the international corporation Illinois Tool Works (ITW), a Fortune 200 diversified manufacturing company operating across the globe for more than 100 years. Other successful brands in the ITW stable operating across the Asia Pacific region include Paslode, ITW Buildex, ITW Proline, Ramset and Reid Construction Systems.

Pryda undertook trials using its trussed floor cassettes last year, which demonstrated significant time savings:

  • A 133m2 subfloor platform consisting of 10 cassettes was fully installed in four hours – compared to the four days it would have taken to install the traditional timber subfloor originally specified in the plans.
  • An 82m2 first floor platform consisting of six cassettes was installed in just two hours – compared to the eight to 10 hours it would have taken to install the floor trusses and flooring separately.

According to Ms. Bennett, shaving days from a construction schedule adds up over projects and means builders can take on extra work and realise additional profits – without increasing overheads or compromising quality. They can also benefit from faster processing of progress payments for completing the foundation to framing stages. Clients benefit from a faster hand over and settlement.

“Pryda has really opened the door to a new market in floor cassette systems for both sub floors and first storey applications and this innovation is what our company is about. Our goal is to provide builders with a one-stop-shop for prefabricated solutions and this new offering supports that,” says Ms. Bennett.

 

For further information or case studies on projects using the new Pryda Trussed Floor Cassettes, go to www.pryda.com.au or call Frank Davern on 0407 043 935.