DIY Barn Project - I-Joist, or TJI-Joist 

Here is the wrap-up on the I-Joist with some thought on the process. Enjoy and thanks for all the comments. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KY99Ot6jkac.html👍😎

Engineers, doctors, and electricians. They all say 'Don't install your own service panels.' I read all the directions and installed one in 2 houses. Passed the inspections from the town and the electric company. And I'm female with almost no electrical orientation prior. The key is, do your homework thoroughly. If you have a specific engineering, doctor or electrical problem, you can usually find specific answers that apply to your local situation. Thank you for this useful information.

I had to make 2 of these 35 years ago because I was 2 joist short except I used a 2x4 on each side top and bottom to sandwich the osb board instead of 1- 2x4 on the bottom and staggered the joints then glued with pl400 and nailed both sides. They were 28' long free spanned and still doing the job today .

I’ve been waiting for someone to do this….I will be making my own now. Thanks

I have got these up now and will be adding a new video soon. PS they didn't collapse...yet

TJI joists typically don’t use solid wood for the tops and bottoms. They use something more akin to “Parallam” type construction. Think of plywood with all the strands running lengthwise. Why? Cause it’s stronger than solid wood and doesn’t have knots or other surprise weak spots to ruin your day.

i built gambrel trusses out of i-joists and plywood gussets with no engineering about 20 years ago. that house is still standing! one can do this with a relatively good margin of safety if you were to test them. you just need to build a test unit or two, support the two ends above a gap, evenly load it and measure the deflection. depending on span, around L/500 will feel pretty good. it should either pass or give you an idea of what part needs to be beefed up. rinse and repeat.

Thanks for the instructions.

How tall did you cut those OSB pieces? Assume each OSB section is 8’x ? 12-18”?

How did you join the pieces of OSB where they butt together? Are the mfg joists made with continuous OSB vs sectioned on your joists? Curious. GregM 12:24

NOT the same quality!!! A single 16' 2x4 is not the same as (2) 8' 2x4's!! I see some major issues with you doing this. First, you do not have solid lengths of anything. That is why they are engineered! Tension is a BIG part of why they are engineered!!! Now if you were somehow able to finger joint the 2x4's together along with the OSB sheets, then I'd say go for it! Since you did not, you are waiting for a disaster to happen! I think you are asking for trouble just like Stockton Rush did! it worked for a little while, then it DIDN"T! That goes for anyone who has copied your design and you could be held liable. Another thing you could have done, is to make some gussets for each side of the OSB. That would help a lot! You have at least 6 joints that can fail at any time if the glue doesn't hold or the 2x4 cracks. Now if you had also offsets the joints on every other joist, that would help a little by spreading the load away from a single line. I know a little about what I'm talking about. Designed a paper bridge in college and I think the record still stands from 2002. A bridge made from 0.48 pounds of paper, held 279 lbs. Any engineers out there? This is just my opinion. Let me know if I'm wrong.

Wow very cool Mark! Thanks for sharing.

Stumbled upon your channel. Interesting videos. How did you determine your dimensions and spans? You are right, there aren’t any good videos of this subject. Want to learn something, go to the foreign channels, Americans don’t share knowledge

thanks for a good explanation on building these, nice work Godbless

0:09 that will be the point of failure. you should offset the 2xX ends by at least 3 times the height of the trusses (I dont know the exact math, but usually 3 something is a magic number to avoid load concentrations). or you could just offset them by half the length of the 2xX to be safe. those points have a lot less load resistance than the rest as there is like a pre broken I beam with only the middle part intact. aside from that, that does not mean that it will fails and you should repent for your actions. this only matters if the design load is really close to half the failure at those points (you still have some compression resistance in the upper 2xX butts). but offsetting them isn't hard at all, especially after how you dealt with the notching. another way to reduce the weakness of those points is bracing the lower flanges "butt joints". as said before, the upper flanges will usually work in compression and after the load squish them close, it will act mostly as a continuous piece, but the lower flange at those points are concentrating the load a those points as they have zero tension resistance (hence the usefulness of bracing them) (thanks for making the video tho, it is a lot easier to debug this things when someone has already done it xD)

It appears that you and one Australian guy are about the only ones on RU-vid or anywhere else to show how you would build a TJI (Truss Joint I-beam). Thank you for this, because you're helping people save money, which can be really tight, while building high quality essential shelter.

Nice work

Thanks for the video. Nope, talking would have been much more interesting for most occasions, but chipmunk tunes is not a reasonable. compromise

Love your ill do it myself attitude

I guess I qualify as an "engineer", and your assessment of "engineers" is 100% correct. Fyi, I'm planning a build abroad where you can't get engineered I-joists so I thought about this very method of making them...and I must have been reading your mind.

Thanks for making this video!

Best video ever. How long did u let them dry for before removing the clamps? And did u clamp it like every 16” or so?

They look good. I’d love to see a side by side stress test to failure with a factory made joist.

Good video. To the point

What kind of glue did you use

SERIOUSLY! WHAT"'S WITH THE HEADGEAR AND INSET?