Trussed rafters keep optimism high

Summary
• Most trussed rafter fabricators were reasonably busy in 2011.
• Metal-web joists are a growth area.
• Fabricators have continued to invest during the downturn.
• The Home Builders Federation’s view is that housebuilding is recovering.

The housebuilding market is showing the first signs of recovery, giving trussed rafter fabricators reason to look ahead with some optimism.

Last year housing starts in England may have been 4% down on 2010 but, as John Slaughter, the Home Builders Federation’s (HBF) director of external affairs, told the Trussed Rafter Association’s AGM recently, there are reasons to be cheerful about the housebuilding market.

“The good news is that the only way is up from where we’ve been for the past few years. Housebuilders are opening up sites and there is gradual optimism,” he said.

The government recognised that stimulating building was “one of the surest routes to ensuring economic growth and jobs”, demonstrated through initiatives such as the Mortgage Indemnity Scheme for first-time buyers and releasing public land for housing.

“Don’t underestimate that the government does want to do something on housing; it’s committed to reducing the regulatory burden on the housebuilding industry through the spending review period. The HBF is just disappointed this isn’t going faster,” said Mr Slaughter. “However, we’re cautiously optimistic and I hope that in the next one or two years the housebuilding sector will come back in a way that supports your sector.”

Industry optimism

But despite the depressed market, many trussed rafter fabricators have been satisfied with the level of business.

“I would say that the industry is doing well,” Phillip Bell, managing director of Crendon Timber Engineering told TTJ. “We succeeded in doing what other industries haven’t done: we reacted in 2008 and 2009 and took a fair amount of capacity out of the industry through plant closures and redundancies. Now we have a supply chain that’s reasonably in balance with market demand.

“Most fabricators have had a reasonably busy year and if 2012 gives similar volumes to 2011, they’ll be happy.”

Others agree. “I’m more than quietly confident. I think it’s going to be a good year, from the levels that we have,” said Alan Howard, outgoing chairman of the Trussed Rafter Association.

For Scotts of Thrapston, 2011 was its “best trading year ever” across all products and, within that, trussed rafter sales did so well that the company has raised this year’s internal volume budgets. Business improved so much towards the end of last year that Scotts had to introduce evening shifts to cope with the work, said chairman David Scott.

“We’re having our share of most private housing. We’ve done a lot of executive housing which seems to be pretty recession proof. The small to medium builders are building more quality houses rather than low cost,” he said.

James Donaldson & Sons also reports growth in trussed rafter sales – up 15% in 2011 on the previous year.

“Sales were up quite considerably,” said Jonathan Fellingham, managing director of Donaldson Timber Engineering Ltd. “Raw material supply was more stable and consequently net profitability improved.”

North/south divide

Like other fabricators, Mr Fellingham identified a north/south divide in the market. “The M62 corridor and north is still fairly much in the doldrums and south of that it definitely picks up,” he said.

Pasquill also “made some progress” in a difficult market, said managing director Stuart McKill. The company had continued to work with national housebuilders and also concentrated on merchants supplying the RMI and self-build markets.

Minera Roof Trusses in Wrexham focuses on self-builders and in 2011 turnover was up 9.4% on 2010.

“We are recovering but I do feel that we’re still in recession,” said managing director Mike Whear. “There’s still a lot of concern about job security and mortgage availability.”

Karl Foster, sales and marketing director at Wolf Systems, identified the self-build market as the main outlet for the company’s fabricator customers. “It’s still quite strong compared to volume housebuilding,” he said.

Wolf’s business is also a good barometer of the trussed rafter sector’s stability last year.

“We had a very good year,” said Mr Foster. “We weren’t setting any records but our nailplate sales held up very well. There wasn’t a huge development but the volumes were still good and kept us busy.”

Metal-web growth

For Wolf the real growth product was the metal-web easi-joist. Sales rose by 20% in 2011 and in the past few months Wolf has signed up two new manufacturers.

“Traditionally the easi-joist was used in flooring but we’ve made some software developments to enable it to be used in roof applications,” said Mr Foster. “Manufacturers who would only have supplied floors are starting to supply easi-joist rafters.”

To support this growth, Wolf is developing a wall panel based on the easi-joist, and managing director David Leaney led third-party testing to attain two details to ensure easi-joist meets the new Scottish regulations for sound transfer in metal-web floors.

Wolf has also developed its Enterprise management software to encompass the whole process, from initial enquiry through to production and invoicing. It removes the need for manual inputting and reduces fabricators’ admin costs.

“It also helps fabricators target potential customers and to know the state of an account before they take the order,” said Mr Leaney. “It also scales up well to big businesses.”

Many trussed rafter fabricators have adapted to the building downturn by honing their sales and service focus.

“We’re noticing that you have to give 110% effort to your customers; you really have to go for it and look after them,” said David Scott, adding that flexibility is also important.

“We run our own transport fleet so it allows us to be very flexible,” he said. “If a builder rings up and says he can’t accommodate the trusses for any reason, we’re very flexible, we lean with him without imposing any penalties.”

For Pasquill the focus has been on converting quotations into sales. “In some areas we’ve put a bit more resource into the external sales area to make sure we’re facing up to our customers,” said Stuart McKill.

Minera has also been concentrating on winning business in a difficult market that Mr Whear said has been made more competitive by email. “Over the past four years email enquiries have increased 15-20% per year. People receive their approved drawings from architects by email and it’s easy to forward them to suppliers for quotations. It’s not uncommon for clients to send drawings to four or more truss fabricators. That means there are more enquiries but it’s more competitive,” he said.

However, one thing that does set Minera apart from its competitors, he said, is its five-day delivery service. “We cover the whole country and we’ve been doing it for 20 years. That’s our main niche,” said Mr Whear.

Minera meets this tight turnaround by having its own transport fleet and ensuring it always has spare production capacity. “It’s in the summer, when other truss fabricators are very busy that our five-day delivery service is most effective,” said Mr Whear.

Investments

The downturn has also not deterred some companies from investing.

Last year Minera bought an AV Birch Uni-Roll 750 press to produce Gang-Nail’s metal-web Ecojoist.

“We were buying in I-beams for engineered floors but it didn’t really work with our five-day delivery because we couldn’t get the supply quickly enough so we decided to make our own engineered floor joists as metal-web joists,” said Mr Whear.

Reflecting Wolf Systems’ findings, he believes that in future more truss fabricators will produce metal-web joists.

“It’s not a difficult product to sell; it goes well with trussed rafters,” he said. “You’re pressing metal plates into timber, which is what, as truss fabricators, we do, and you’re using almost the same design software.”

Scotts of Thrapston has increased its delivery fleet to eight with the addition of three units which meet London’s stricter Low Emission Zone requirements, and also invested in two new sideloaders.

And Wolf Systems has spent more than £320,000 installing photovoltaic panels on the roofs of its three buildings in Coventry. Each year the panels will generate around 135kW, or 40% of the company’s electricity needs, and save 50 tonnes in CO₂ emissions.

“Even when times are difficult we’ve looked at opportunities,” said Mr Foster. “This investment makes us more efficient; it helps us control our costs and that’s of benefit to our customers.”