Metal Web Joists

Floor Project

Location: Oxfordshire

Our metal web joists are attaining a growing market share. Posi-joists have advantages over their solid timber counterparts. The most obvious of these is the open metal web configuration that allows the easy installation of services.

A customer based in Oxfordshire appointed ETS as the posi-joist supplier to their site in Oxfordshire. The site comprised of ten large, luxurious three and four-bedroom properties. Due to the intention to sell these properties at the higher end of the market, the floor deflection or bounce was a critical requirement to the customer.

The customer wished to keep the ground floor area as open-plan as possible. This desire meant that there was no availability of interior load-bearing walls that could break the spans of the floor joists. Posi-joists were the obvious choice for this customer, for their capability to span longer distances while delivering the smallest amount of deflection.

Another specification the customer gave us was that they wished to conceal some steel beams within the floor zone. Our design teams experience and knowledge, along with the nature of posi-joist design, mean that this specification could be met for our customer.

The design of posi-joists is manipulable to accommodate a variety of scenarios, be it for top-chord supporting onto steel or timber beams, building into blockwork, or lapping joists to ease with decking installation. If you have a specification, our designers will be happy to tell you if it is achievable.

The project also utilised MVHR (Mechanical Vent Heat Recovery) units, to provide fresh, filtered air, retaining the majority of the energy used in heating. As a consequence of this, a large amount of ducting work needs installing throughout the properties. The open metal web joist excels in these scenarios. With no requirement for drilling and notching, the ducting and services were much simpler to install. This benefited our customer who was able to reap the rewards of cost savings for reduced on-site labour time for electricians, plumbers, and other trades as well.

The initial design confirmation for this project had to go through more than the usual rounds of approval. The company installing the MVHR needed to be involved in the approval stage to ensure that their product would be successful. Our design team are always open to discussions with our customer’s other suppliers. These collaborations are essential to ensuring that the project achieves for the customer and our metal web joists can perform where they are required.

The installation of the metal web joists was reported as a success and the customer was delighted how well the joists performed, not only providing the firm feel that they desired but also in collaboration with the MVHR.

The design solution provided to our customer had some specific requirements to achieve. Thanks to our industry knowledge and understanding, we were able to deliver a solution that met all of our customer’s requirements.