Category: Building Strong

Building Safety Month 2021: Prevent, Prepare, Protect

What comes to mind when you think of May? May flowers (from April showers)? Horse racing (the Kentucky Derby and Preakness)? Car racing (the Indianapolis 500)? How about some special days, like Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Teacher Appreciation Day or Armed Forces Day?

Mothers, teachers, and members of the military definitely deserve all the recognition they can get. But what about your safety? There are two month-long observances in May that also deserve some attention: Building Safety Month and Deck Safety Month.

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Builder Solutions Webinar Series: Anchors, Curved Framing, Coiled Straps, Fasteners and Prescriptive Framing

Do you want to learn how Simpson Strong-Tie is creating builder solutions to help get houses on the market faster?  

Since many of us are relying more on online solutions, we’ve developed a builder webinar series highlighting new innovative product solutions that reduce labor time and help decrease the opportunity for misinstallations, while meeting code requirements.  

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How Earthquake Brace + Bolt Provides Financial Support to Help California Homeowners Retrofit

When you live in earthquake country, you know it’s not “if” there will be a big quake, it’s “when.” You may have an earthquake emergency kit ready, but there are also steps you can take now to strengthen your home to make it more resistant to earthquake damage. And if you live in California, there’s a program called the Earthquake Brace + Bolt (EBB) that provides up to $3,000 for seismic retrofit grants to homeowners residing in more than 150 California zip codes. If you’ve checked it before and your zip code wasn’t listed, be sure to check it again because the list has been expanded and changes every year. Continue reading “How Earthquake Brace + Bolt Provides Financial Support to Help California Homeowners Retrofit”

Why Is Community Resilience Important?

Community resilience is the concept that we can design and build better to reduce susceptibility to disasters. The idea of building for resilience is in the DNA of Simpson Strong-Tie and is why we’re considered a leader in structural systems research, testing and innovation. That commitment to building for resilience is why we partner with other leaders in the field like the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society. 

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He Shoots, He Scores! See the Winning Projects from Our Outdoor Accents DIY Contest

This summer we asked you to participate in our second annual “Give Us Your Best Shot” contest. If you were building a project with our Outdoor Accents® line of decorative hardware, we wanted to see it. More than 40 customers sent in photos of pergolas, hammocks, arbors and other outdoor living projects. Of those projects we had the enjoyable challenge of selecting two winners, one for a large project and one for a smaller project.

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Great ShakeOut 2019: Reddit Asks Us Anything About Earthquakes

Each year, Simpson Strong-Tie teams up with the West Coast’s top earthquake scientists and preparedness experts to take questions from Redditors about earthquakes and tsunamis. The Reddit AMA is part of the Great ShakeOut, the world’s largest earthquake drill, where 55 million people drop, cover and hold on. The next Great ShakeOut is scheduled to take place at 10:17 a.m. on October 17, 2019, and your organization still has time to get involved. 

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DIY: Building a Covered Patio with The Awesome Orange

Did you spend the summer sitting in the backyard dreaming about adding a covered patio or a pergola? Assuming you’re handy, maybe you even spent time thinking about bypassing a local contractor and doing it yourself (well, yourself and your BFFs, who’ll work for burgers). Naturally, as the summer crept along and your dream turned into an itch, you probably found yourself looking at do-it-yourself websites to see if you could, in fact, do it yourself.

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Building Our Company’s Future

“Company culture” has become a catch-all term to express the essence of what makes an organization good (or, in some cases, not so good) to work for. As a human resources leader, it’s my honor to work with teams dedicated to acting as positive influencers in the culture of our company. When we set out to create new processes to protect and grow the unique culture of Simpson Strong-Tie, we had outstanding direction from our founder, whose values are as relevant today  as they were more than 60 years ago when he first opened the doors.

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10 Critical Deck Connections

Decks continue to be a popular addition to homes. In 2017, nearly 24 percent of the single-family homes started that year included a deck. The same year, 25 percent of National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) remodelers reported adding a deck as one of their most common projects. Those numbers have remained pretty constant for the last decade, steadily swelling the number of decks in the United States.

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Leadership in Giving Back

“Give Back” is one of our nine Company Values established by our founder, Barc Simpson. He said, “No matter what each of our personal situations is, we know that there are many others in this world who will never have the opportunities we’ve had. It is our responsibility to reach out, in whatever manner we can, to support others. We’re all connected in some way and are all part of a greater community. It’s important to make what impact you can. . . . Look for small ways to give back every day. Help out your neighbor, make time for others, do what you can.”

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