Not All Nails Created Equal
Oct. 6, 2009
Nails, simple commodity, right? Wrong. Not all nails are created equal. In fact, nail quality affects worker productivity, and thus the all-important Bottom Line.
That’s right, you get what you pay for and we see this on jobsites all the time. Cheap nails mean more nail jams and tools wearing out prematurely. Cheap nails also mean trouble with building inspectors who have been known to question the structural integrity of a house made with inferior nails. They often will “red-tag” such a building, making the workers re-nail everything with code-recognized nails.
The only sure way to know you’ve got high quality, code-recognized nails – and won’t have the inspectors asking a lot of questions – is with the ICC-ES stamp on your nail boxes. Some manufacturers say their nails are “made to ASTM standards” and that may suffice, but having the ICC-ES stamp is better.
To obtain the ICC-ES stamp, nail manufacturers not only have to meet ASTM standards, but they must also demonstrate that their manufacturing processes and materials meet the rigorous standards of ICC-Evaluation Services an independent third party evaluator and subsidiary of the International Code Council. Every box of nails with an ICC-ES stamp means that it has an ICC-ES evaluation report, which provides evidence that the nails comply with structural integrity code, and rest assured building inspectors like to see the ICC-ES stamp when they look at your nail boxes. Of course all Paslode nails have the ICC-ES Stamp. Got a nail story you’d like to share? We’d like to hear it.
Next week, we’ll talk about nail collation, plastic or paper, does it matter?
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