The way metal roof battens are connected has recently been a point of discussion in Western Australia. The Building Commission has picked up on incorrectly installed battens and released residential and commerical Industry Bulletin 49 to keep builders informed on the issue. The aim of the this article is to help you minimize delay and disruption on site in regard to the fixing of metal roof battens. Structerre have been provided with new testing results and have updated our details to ensure no delays on site.
Following on from the Building Commission’s Industry Bulletin 49, TimberEd Services in combination with the University of Western Australia are in the process of testing and reporting on the capacity of various batten connections. The results of this testing will soon be made available to the Building Commission.
The Structerre team have been given a preview of the results of this testing. As we saw advantages to our clients in comparison to the Building Commission report we made the call to specify our connections in accordance with this new information and ensure minimal future delay on site.
Our new details will nominate that nailed connections are only suitable for the general areas on N1 metal roofs. Structerre will undertake additional testing of other options to determine whether nails can be used to fix metal battens in a wider range of situations.
Further to the above it is important to note that metal battens are not suitable to be used as cavity (tie down) battens. It is essential that an additional timber batten is supplied for tie down or that the tie down straps are fixed to the rafter or wall plate where metal battens are used.
For more information on the fixing of metal roof battens please contact our team.
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