Trimjoist: The Future of Floor Systems That Won’t Leave You Hanging

Foreign.

It's the nation's number one home improvement radio show and podcast with certified kitchen designer Eric G. And co host John Dudley, a former contractor and online technology expert.

Delivering real fixes, smart tech and trusted advice.

Remodels, repairs, energy savings, smart homes, diy.

We've got your answers.

It's around the House.

Dive in and get inspired.

Welcome to the around the House show, your trusted source for everything about your home.

Thanks for joining us today.

I'm Eric G. And we got John Dudley here in the studio.

Johnny, good to see you, brother.

What's happening, brother?

All right, this is going to be a fun one today because I love construction stuff, especially when we're getting into kind of like family stories and cool stuff like that.

Skyler Thomas from Trim Joist, welcome to the around the House show.

Hey, thanks so much.

You know, always excited to talk about all things construction.

Thanks for having me.

Excited to be here.

Yeah, this is super cool because, you know, Johnny and I have been talking about your product, you know, before the interview here.

And it's like, people don't, a lot of people go, oh, it's just construction stuff.

But this makes life a lot easier.

And at first, when I first saw your company, I went, oh, Trim Joist.

Well, that sounds vaguely familiar to another product that I used.

And you guys have this whole crazy family legacy.

So let's talk about how this all got started because this is going to change construction, I think.

Wow.

I mean, that's.

Yeah, we think so.

I mean, we've been been in the industry for a long time.

I mean, Trim Joist itself is second generation, but our just being in the trust manufacturing business is third generation for us.

So this all started with my grandfather who started in the trust business.

And, you know, my dad stepped into the business as he graduated college and he's actually a computer engineer by degree.

And so he kind of married that knowledge of and passion that he had for technology with how he grew up and what he grew up around.

And he kind of put those two things together and invented Trim Joist, which was in the early 90s.

So we've been at this for a hot minute.

And now as third generation, as I'm stepping into this business, we're, you know, growing our footprint.

Expanding.

Yeah, just expanding out west, opening, opening up another operation.

So it's exciting stuff.

This explains the software I was looking at last night.

Yeah, Dad's definitely, he's the big brains behind the Trim Joist product.

And yeah, it's just been, it's been really Cool to see just what each generation, you know, has, has kind of brought to the table and how things just kind of keep rolling.

And we're really proud to be here and really proud to be, you know, still blowing and going as a third generation business.

Because not everybody, especially in USA manufacturing, gets that opportunity.

So.

So yeah, no kidding.

One of the things I like is that, you know, the traditional framing that we see here in the United States, and this is for our international people even listening on the podcast out there, versus our radio show listeners, you know, that you see a typical framing.

Maybe they have a basement, maybe there's a crawl space and they go in there and they throw in the 2x12s across there.

They got beams, they got all this stuff.

And when you've got a basement, for instance, you know, people want the biggest clear spans they can get down there because we still love our great rooms, we still love those big open spaces.

And of course, course, traditional lumber has its limitations there.

And then of course, when you've got either that crawl space or the basement below, you've got to hide all this stuff that's in there.

Whether it's the H vac ducting, whether it's the communication stuff, there's all this stuff has to be going through.

And traditional lumber is darn expensive.

And you guys kind of created the perfect suite system for the job site to one get you the strength and consistency you need because man, big lumber, if it sits on the job site wrong, that stuff is a twisted mess.

And now you're fighting with the floors all the way up.

There's so many cool pluses and minuses, but you guys really created a product that I think one makes it easy to frame.

But the trades coming after the framing crew have to just go, oh my gosh, this is easy.

Yeah, it is.

It really, you know, when we talk to the field guys, I mean it really is a breath, breath of fresh air for them.

Trim joist as a whole, I mean the, if you look at the product, it's the marriage of a custom open web, right?

And your traditional wood eye.

So you're able to not only run ductwork exactly like you said, all your MEPs through the open web, you're able to, when the joist hits the job site, trim up to 12 inches on each side so that you get the pros and the benefits of both the open web joist and the trimmable wood eye in one product.

And the coolest thing is, is that you don't compromise structural integrity in any way.

So you're exact right when you talk about our basements and you know, floor to floor heights.

So soffit drop down all of those things that frankly are in my house, we have a basement here in Boise and you see those soffit drop downs that are covering up big trunk, big ductwork.

And that's what trim joy solves.

You know, it gives you just this amazing center opening to run big ductwork through obviously open webs to run, you know, flex duct or to run electrical items, plumbing, whatever it is.

And then yep, when you, when it hits the job, you don't have to have, you're not dependent on exact dimensions for a custom web joist.

You can just trim it right on the job site based on your current, you know, as built conditions with foundations and things like that.

That is the one thing that, you know, Johnny, you've dealt with this too as a contractor and I see is that that's kind of the weakness of the, of the trust roofing system is that if you didn't order that correctly and it shows up, you're now either making it work or you're placing a secondary order.

So I love what you guys are doing with that foot on each end because you can go, I'm going to give you a little extra and then everything fits as tight as a glove going in there.

And it's so it's a super tight system and I think that saves a bunch of time.

Johnny, you've done a bunch of framing.

What's your take on that?

No, I think it's great.

I mean like you said, Eric, it's.

Well, if you've ever had to modify or rebuild more than one truss, you know, it's not something you want to do and it's not something you should do.

It'll never be the same.

So yeah, somebody that actually thought ahead in their product and said, you know what happens every time and compensated for that, that's huge.

And talk about happy tradesmen.

I mean I've spent my time in the crawl spaces with whatever they are.

14 pound whole hog, 4 inch hole saw going yeah, I hate my life.

And busting your knuckles and hitting your chin and yeah, take that away.

Yeah, you just made my.

Totally.

There's.

Yeah, there's like these two things, right.

With the custom plated joist you're always concerned about dimensions.

Something didn't arrive, right.

You have to go back to the manufacturer and there's just like massive lead times on that stuff.

Right.

And that's always the fear with that, with your Traditional wood eye or I joist.

You're exactly like you say.

You're just boring those holes through there time after time after time in the field.

And you have to think about how.

How costly that can become.

Just in labor alone.

Right?

Just in labor.

Just in labor alone.

And so the product addresses both of those concern concerns, which is really cool.

And that's what that is.

The story that we try to tell around the product.

Right.

Is that it is.

While it is the marriage of both of these things, the efficiencies and the time that are saved through using this, through using the trim Joyce product.

It's just exponential, really.

Yeah.

And Skyler, the other thing too, is, is that I.

And I'm gonna give my tradesmen out there a little.

Little hard time.

All you people out there, that men and women that are out there doing the electrical and the plumbing, the H Vac.

But it seems to me the.

The person with the least experience in the crew gets handed the whole hog.

And you hope that they understand the engineering of what they're using that tool for.

Because I can't tell you how many times I come in when they put the toilet in.

You're like, lord, we got a day of structural here to fix.

Because they got a little happy with the whole hog and the sawzall.

And now we got a major structural problem in the place that's going to have tile that we've got to keep solid.

And there are sins that are done right there that it's.

It's.

If you can eliminate that, that can save days and weeks of time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, it is a huge.

You're right.

It's a huge structural concern.

Right.

When you have this wood eye and you hand somebody, you know, the tool to go drill holes through it at that point, what are you doing to that joist?

Right.

How much structural integrity are you compromising?

Nobody knows.

Right.

Because.

Because they're engineered before the holes are.

Are drilled.

So that is the beauty of the trim joist product is that what you get and what you install is exactly, you know, structurally very strong and what is expected and what meets code and all those great things.

So I was going to say the one sad part, Eric, is exactly that, like, with.

With trim joists, you don't need a dog boy.

And I would miss having a dog boy.

That's who always ends up with the hole saw.

Like the cheapest, cheapest guy on the crew.

You're like, sorry, dude, but your day to get under that.

Yeah.

This is what you're gonna go do all day long, right?

80 year old true dimensional timber.

You're like ah, no.

We will be right back with more from Skyler Thomas from Trim Joist.

If this is the first time listening to the show, make sure and follow us on social media and our website.

Check it out@aroundthehouseonline.com.

around the House will continue after these important messages.

Welcome back to around the House.

We're talking smart floor systems today with Skyler Thomas from Trim Joist.

The pioneers of the patented trimmable open web floor joist.

These American made beauties give you strength, flexibility and that game changing ability to trim up to 12 inches on each end right on site, no waste, Perfect fit every time.

Great for running plumbing, H VAC and wiring without headaches.

Now let's get back to the nation's number one syndicated talk radio show and podcast.

I was going to say the one sad part, Eric, is exactly that like with, with trend Joyce, you don't need a dog boy.

And I would miss having a dog boy.

And that's who always ends up with the hole saw.

Like cheapest, cheapest guy on the crew.

You're like, sorry dude, but you're your day to get under that.

Yeah, this is what you're gonna go do all day long, right?

80 year old true dimensional timber.

You're like, ah, no.

Good luck kid.

And yeah, they're down there, they're frustrated.

They quit caring about structural issues.

They're like, I don't care where the hole is.

Yeah, they're just trying, they're just trying to brute through it.

Right?

Yeah.

And that's the thing, you know, and you think about how many days of that and cleanup and everything else and, and man, with, with H VAC systems getting so much more complex because it's not just putting in the, the gas fired, you know, heat in there.

That's a central air system and an AC unit maybe.

You know, we're now seeing ERVs.

We're seeing all these different things within the house to keep it breathing and things.

And so that matched with the building science.

There's a lot more thought that goes into the planning on this.

And it looks like you guys, depending on the floor system have a lot of room to put stuff throughout the.

And there's no soffits needed, which I think is huge.

Yeah, totally.

You know, you look at the family of our joists and just dependent on from a structural perspective, you know, what depth joist and what spans you need.

We make the product in actually five different depths.

So we're at a 12 inch, 14 inch, 16 inch, 18 inch and 20 inch.

And so just depending on what you need, you do get some really good space in there to run all of your systems.

So yeah.

That you have these taller floor to floor heights, you don't have these soffit dropdowns.

You know, you have clear lines, long spans.

It's really what you know, architects and engineers love that kind of stuff.

Right.

And then your builders and your contractors love the, the easability of the install and the versatility of the product.

So we really do know that we are solving big problems both on the architect and engineer side and on the builder and contractor side that really result in just bottom line savings.

So yeah, it's a no brainer.

Right.

And I don't know the price comps.

Right.

Versus using traditional lumbers or glue lambs or whatever, but just the time save.

Right.

For the other trades is huge.

Yeah.

Whatever the cost comparison is, you have to figure that in.

And yeah.

The fact of the matter is you guys are solving multiple numbers of problems.

This is no brainer.

Like what?

Why wouldn't you use anything else?

Yeah, totally.

Yeah.

So for super smart comparison though, we are very competitive, just linear foot to linear foot pric where we're very competitive.

And not only that, you then pack on the cost savings like we've been talking about.

And that's what we're trying, we try to shift the story around.

Look how you look at the floor system as a whole.

Right.

How do you build a smarter floor system in general instead of comparing that linear foot to linear foot price.

Hey, how about you take a look at everything that goes into that flooring system package.

Not only just like an I joist or a custom custom open web joist versus a trim joist.

Right.

Even if you do that and you just go apples to apples, we're still very competitive.

But then as you zoom out a little bit and you look at just the whole flooring package as a whole, like you say, you know, to us it's a no brainer.

And that's what we're, that's, that is what the advantage that we feel like we bring to the industry.

Yeah, it's impressive when you can pull all that off, solve all those problems and stay competitive on top of it.

Like.

Right.

I mean it, it's.

You're in the sweet spot, man.

That's awesome.

Well, and it really lets you put in a smooth flooring system on top of that.

Because you know, we've come a long way with that on top of that, as far as the sheeting and stuff.

But really, you know, anybody that's dealt with dimensional lumber, when you get into that big stuff, depending on how it was stored at the lumber yard, how it was stored at the job site, sometimes you've got guys showing up with, you know, it shows up beautiful.

It's wrapped, it's beautiful, it's expanded.

There's a nice forklift dropping it off at the job site.

Then there's the other one that shows up at the dump, and it comes off and it's drug halfway down the old driveway that was there.

And that stuff is all twisted.

And like Johnny said, it's probably better to make hockey sticks with it than anything else.

It saves you so much time because you're not sitting out there going, okay, let's check the crown on this.

How do we save this?

How do we make it work?

It's already fastened and moved on at that point.

And that runs all the way to the ridge of the roof, man.

I mean, you're chasing that twist or that bulge or that bend or that whatever piece of.

Whatever caused that quarter inch at the bottom is now an inch and a half at the top.

Yeah.

As you.

As you were just like, oh, man.

Right.

Don't work, because that's out of line.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah.

I mean, a prop, you know, predict.

We all love predictability, right?

That is, I mean, in our personal lives, in our working lives.

And so having a product that shows up the same way every time is, you know, just another efficiency that's going to be gained.

The other big piece of this is stockability.

You know, we sell through a very large distribution channel.

So we have, you know, there is in your backyard a lumberyard that can get their hands on trim joist very quickly, usually within a week or so.

That kind of goes back to, you know, you're not getting customers plated joists in a few days.

Right.

I mean, so even if there are issues, which we really, you know, we have very high standards on quality and safety and all of those things in our manufacturing plant.

But if there is issues, you do have the ability to approach your lumberyard, who can run that through their distribution network and, you know, get their hands on trim joists very quickly, too, so.

Well, it sounds like when you guys have two plants, right?

One in Boise, one in, what, Mississippi?

Something like that.

Yeah, we do.

When my dad invented the product, he opened the plant in Mississippi in the early 90s.

So we've been manufacturing the product there since then.

Because if you look at just kind of a map of the US we since the 90s have really effectively served.

If you kind of look at Dallas, Texas and you draw a line up, we've really been able to effectively serve that kind of eastern side of the US and while we were always shipping product out here, we never, it's just we end up cubing out like a truck Trim Joist has.

We ship a lot of air, right.

So it just a lot of times didn't make a lot of sense just from a, from shipping perspective.

And we were like, yeah, let's do it.

And so things were a slow go, right.

And there were, there's definitely been, I mean Brian and I say it's been a, a long, humbling, exciting, frustrating.

I mean kind of every emotion you can feel process getting this plant online.

So it's been full, full blowing go since then.

That's cool because every good story has those pieces to it.

Otherwise it's not a good story.

So.

Totally.

Yeah.

Yeah, totally.

I mean you gotta go right?

You gotta climb.

You gotta be.

Have the mountain in front of you, climb it.

Have another mountain in front of you, climb it.

I mean that's just kind of what we've been doing.

So wrestle a couple of goats, Totally.

Get attacked by a lion.

Yeah, I mean all the things.

Well that's the funny thing and happy you guys picked Boise because at least to you got to kind of keep moving.

Otherwise you'd still be.

If you had picked Washington, Oregon and I love both those states, I've lived in them both.

But you'd still be trying to get that plan open.

So you did a good job of being in Boise cuz they, they are pretty business friendly over there for that.

We will be right back with more from Skyler Thomas from Trim Joist.

Around the House will continue after these important messages.

Welcome back to around the House.

We're talking smart floor systems today with Skyler Thomas from Trim Joist.

The pioneers of the patented trimmable open web floor joist.

These American made beauties give you strength, flexibility and that game changing ability to trim up to 12 inches on each end right on site, no waste.

Perfect fit every time.

Great for running plumbing, H VAC and wiring without headaches.

Now let's get back to the nation's number one syndicated talk radio show and podcast.

Is it Utah that makes the most sense?

Is it Idaho that makes the most sense.

My husband and I actually were in Colorado prior to here and so we were just kind of trying to.

Yeah.

Get our feel and that is what that was.

One of the things that was really appealing about the state of Idaho is that it was very business friendly.

And also the people here are just awesome.

I mean when we, when we kind of stepped in and we were talking to the bigger entities here about bringing a business here, everybody was so supportive, so excited and just really happy that we would consider bringing a business to the state of Idaho.

And that felt very comforting.

Right.

Kind of starting a new business venture.

So we've been really happy that we've landed here and Brian and I have our family here and we love Boise as a city and it's just been.

And it's been great and we're excited to continue to plant roots here.

And yeah.

Yeah.

What's cool is so that gives you great for trucking.

I mean you can pop into California and Nevada and all the way up and down the west coast super quickly.

It's not, it's just, it's hours away versus days away.

And and I love down in the South, I used to get cabinets out here to the west coast from, from Alabama and it was tough for them to get stuff out here.

And they own their own trucks.

They did.

We're trying to do everything right.

And so it makes a lot of sense to do that.

And a.

What a smart business decision for growth to do that because you've got a product that you can make in a warehouse that doesn't take, you know, it takes a lot of engineering and a lot of good employees.

But it's not, you're not trying to build a, a rocket to, to.

To Mars with it.

So you can build that secondary plant and really be, you know, make it easier for all the builders and remodelers out here on the west coast because it's quick.

They can get it.

And you know, if somebody messes up on the job site and, and cuts something wrong or has a job site condition change that they got to reorder something, then that Makes it quick and easy to get something back to the site.

Yeah, yeah, it does.

I mean, you know, us choosing this, the state of Idaho really was multifaceted like you say.

I mean, business friendly state.

You hit the second one nail on the head was just location to distribution.

Right.

Being able to hop on the interstate and head all the way down to Salt Lake, down to Phoenix, pop up to Washington.

I mean, and especially in the winters, I mean that's a very important thing that we have to consider out here.

You know, us southern folk just, that's a whole nother element that like we don't have to really.

I guess except for this last week in the south with how crazy it's been with snow and ice and stuff like that, but just traditionally don't have to worry about that in the South.

So that's been, you know, that was something that we considered and also for us it was also location to the, to our raw lumber.

So we build the trim joist out of the western plant out of Douglas fir.

We build trim joist out of the eastern plant out of southern pine.

And so just.

Yeah, yeah.

Access to raw lumber, access to our distribution network and then business friendly state.

I mean those were kind of the three big heavy hitters.

Yeah, it makes total sense.

Yeah, I love that.

And it really gives people just something nice to work with.

And you know, I think with as we keep building more and more homes and it doesn't matter if you're building something small or something big, I think this is the right product for it.

Because, you know, there's so many things that we're seeing out there now.

As far as the.

We're seeing architects now pushing with contemporary design.

They're really pushing some of the design limits out there.

And I think this is a great way to get into big open spaces without having to get into steel and things like that.

And it just gives you a lot of, a lot of extra design capability from the design side of things.

So if you're building all these different homes and you know our rooms are getting bigger, you know, not smaller.

And I think it really helps on the design side of things for people.

And it's pre engineered so you don't have to really worry about that.

You can go, oh, here's my span calculator and work stuff up pretty easy without having to sit there and do a lot of debate on, hey, what is that greatest deal?

What are we doing here?

And we got to put a beam and that's going to hang down.

And all those design Elements really make a difference.

Yeah, I mean, that is something that's really important to us is making sure that people who use our product have access to our engineering group.

You know, we have an in house engineering support group that when they are, you know, when architects, engineers are moving to use this product, we do have a single member sizing software that of course they can download and they can kind of test some things out.

But hey, if they're like, I want to send our plans in and we just want to see what this looks like.

We want to see, you know, kind of how this compares to another system potentially.

That's something that we're really proud of, is that we keep a full engineering staff in house so that we can help with those types of decisions early on.

Right.

So that there's cost savings from the beginning and they're not having, they're not trying to switch out.

I joist to trim joists way down the line that they can kind of make this big decision up front and they can run with it and that they can know what they get and they know what's actually installed on the job site.

Right.

The other cool thing that's really neat.

About it, by the way, coming from a guy that's had to contact.

Well, we got to get an engineer to see what we can actually pull off there.

What we got, there's 300 bucks, 400 bucks, whatever for a guy to tell you use 12, not 10.

Exactly.

I'm just saying, like, that's like luxury.

It's beautiful.

Great plan.

Yeah.

Be proud of that.

Oh, yeah, no thanks.

That is something that super proud of is our analysis software that we've been able to build in house and maintain in house.

And you know, that's what my job is really focused on.

How we can continue to push in those ways too.

Right.

Is how can we continue to leverage technology, how can we continue to leverage strategy and all these other things through sales, through software development, through marketing, through manufacturing.

How can we kind of of connect all those things and just keep pushing the envelope a little bit so that we are growing and our business is staying relevant and we're, you know, really, I guess just being a leader in this space.

Yeah.

I think the other thing that's cool too is the way you designed your ends.

It's a very traditional kind of what I joist for framers and contractors out there.

So all the clips and materials have been out on the, on the job site forever.

It's not something that's not familiar for a lot of these People when they get in there, they're like, oh, I know how to connect this.

This is easy.

So it's not a, it's not a new foreign language for them to learn either.

No special clips to buy, special screws you gotta use.

Yeah, it's like real framing.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Yeah, it feels just, it feels exactly what that, like what they've always done.

But it's a product that's gonna help them gain efficiency in big ways.

I mean, the other thing is, is that if they do have a question again back to kind of our engineer, you know, in house engineering group, it's like, hey, if you have a question about how this specific detail needs to be attached, if this is a really interesting one off situation, if you're confused about something, just give us a call and let's talk about it.

You guys are nailing it.

Like I'm sitting here going, well, you're not missing a beat on anything.

It's really impressive.

I have to say as, as a business owner and as a contractor for so many years, like, like you're solving so many problems and saving me so much money as a contractor, whether it's labor, whether it's time, whether it's design, whether it's having an architect on hand saving me time at the permit office because I know I have the right things and it's, you know, legit.

I'm not walking in with hand drawn.

Johnny's best guess, I think I need a 6 by 12 here.

I don't need.

Yeah, no, you guys.

Yeah.

I hope you're killing it.

If you're not not, you surely will be.

I mean like.

Well, and the other thing is too, let's get into, you know, I love interior finishes, but I tell you what, with these large format tiles that we're seeing now, and they can be four by eight sheets of material, you have got to have something underneath that that is stable, that is not going to move around, that is not going to be like we talked about earlier where we talked about real wood lumber down there, that's just a big 2 by.

12 or whatever dry and tweaking twist and every grout joint you have.

Yeah, totally.

There is no forgiveness to, you know, of course you're going to build it, right.

But having something that is dimensionally stable, that isn't going to sound like when you walk out in the middle of that clear floor span, that, that engineering did the job right, that it's not going to be like walking out on a wood trampoline.

You know, that blows tile joints and things like that.

And with the crazy stuff we're seeing today, I mean from the, oh, we're going to put the grand piano in the middle of the great room.

Awesome.

But this all has to be engineered because we want to make sure everything's going to work right.

It's nice to have somebody to call that you can go, oh, tech support, they understand.

And yeah, let's add a little bit of load on that load calculation.

What does that change?

And then you can take a look at it, come up with a simplified fix for that.

We will be right back with more from Skyler Thomas from Trim Joist.

If this is the first time listening to the show, make sure and follow us on social media.

Social media and our website.

Check it out@aroundthehouse online.com around the house will continue after these important messages.

Welcome back to around the House.

We're talking smart floor systems today with Skyler Thomas from Trim Joist.

The pioneers of the patented trimmable open web floor joist.

These American made beauties give you strength, flexibility and that game changing ability to trim up to 12 inches on each end right on site.

No waste, Perfect fit every time.

Great for running plumbing, H vac and wiring without headaches.

You're seeing people now going in there and they'll build out the floor system and then they're going, oh, we're going to do hydronic because we're doing this Net zero house.

And so now we got to pour the gyp crete inch of, you know, two inches of chip crete on top of it.

I'm sure you got your engineering team just gets.

You're going to do what over what?

All right, let's figure this out.

Yeah, we do, we do.

We see a lot of different stuff.

We also start seeing things that are just becoming more normal.

Right.

And just developing CAD details and developing things, things in our technical documentation for people and just staying privy to that, like, hey, what is coming through engineering consistently that we see and how can we develop assets and for our channel partners and for our end users so that they can understand how best to use and quote and provide our product.

So yeah, you're right, we see some crazy stuff and we try to stay attuned to it so that we can, we can just further equip our distribution channel to see those things coming down the pipeline and to be able to address them effectively.

Yeah, because some of that stuff gets wild.

I mean, I love it, don't get me wrong.

If you could build something where you've got a heated floor system in there and everything else.

But as a cabinet designer by trade myself, there were so many times I'd go in and start measuring in the contractor go, hey, slow down there, cowboy.

We got to pour 2 inches of gyp crete over the top of this.

Because we're doing a whole floating floor system in here with hydronic heating.

And it's like, all right, can't measure anything now.

Let me know when it's done.

Totally.

Yeah.

A whole new load.

When you're bringing in semi trucks of.

Of lightweight concrete to pour on top of a system.

And you guys have to be the ones to go, all right, Stamp, this is what's going to work.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And we feel excited that we have a product and a solution to things like that, that we're not worried about what's going to happen if that.

When that does get poured over all of our floor system, we know that we can address those needs, and we know that the product can support that.

The other thing, too, I think is cool is.

And I'm not the biggest.

You don't see me waving the green sustainability flag myself, but I get it.

You guys are using a lot less trees with this than a lot of other products out there.

Especially when you're getting into even the wood framing stuff.

This is really friendly because I tell you what, it takes a smaller tree to build a two by four than it does a two by 12.

That's right.

Yeah, that's right.

And I mean, that's something that we're very proud of.

We're also very proud that the product is 100% made in the USA.

I mean, every component that comes off of our product.

Product is sourced here, built here.

You know, we manufacture our own plates, we punch our own plates.

The product, end to end, is sourced and built here in the US and that's something that, yeah, we're proud of and that we feel like is pretty cool.

And we feel like people, we hope that they appreciate that about our product too.

That's awesome that you build your own plates.

Because I tell you what, after seeing some of what those brackets and plates cost, there's a lot of markup on those things that those guys are making money on.

There is.

There is, yes.

There is a big dog that's out there that.

That makes plates.

Right.

And we.

We've already seen, aside from the fact that we're able to control not only supply and price and things like that, because we manufacture our own plates, there's other things that we saw Even during the crazy times of plate allocations and so many things that people were really, it was just stopping production for a lot of just the custom plated joist guys.

And that was something that we were not affected by because we really do do all of this in house.

And so, you know, while of course there's so many more moving parts to doing that.

Right.

To manufacturing your product end to end and not, not depending on somebody else, it, it does prove, it has proven for us, I guess as a business to be the best choice for us.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And I love that you guys can source everything and it just gives you the ultimate control of that without get a hold of that big company and hope that those four pallets of plates show up for next week's orders.

Right?

Absolutely.

And yeah, and what are your, your margins look like and why is this.

12 cent mending plate a$27 and you.

Can'T do anything about that?

No, you can't.

Yeah.

You know, you are just at the mercy.

Right.

Any business that's able to keep everything in house like you guys are doing is winning, like and a lot of times you can't.

And I get that as owner.

But yeah, I mean down to the plates, that's brilliant.

I mean even Eric and I mentioned that last night talking about the mending plates and what are those costs and.

But yeah, the fact that you guys are pulling that off in house is super special.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

We're one of the few people that do it.

You know, we're one of the, one of the only independent flight manufacturers that are still kind of left out there that haven't been, haven't been sniped up.

That's something that, that's something that we're, we're proud of too.

Yeah.

Well, that helps with the engineering because now you've got your own data, you've got your own stuff and if you go, man, if we're going to do a product upgrade because we would like X to happen, you have that complete control of it versus if they would only build it this way.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

Just the flexibility that manufacturing every component under one roof kind of gives us to make those types of business decisions is cool.

It's also a business that a consumer knows they can trust because you put all accountability squarely on your shoulders.

Right.

Yeah.

They know you care about quality.

They know you're not buying cheap stuff from China and tacking it onto your things.

They're.

Wait a minute, man.

They do all this.

I mean, that's a big sell point.

Yeah.

Yeah, I hope so.

Most consumers, they pay attention.

They're like, wait, a company that's going to be completely accountable because they know they're doing it right.

And perfect quality.

Yeah, I hope so.

I really hope that that's what people see.

I mean.

Well, it's not.

Tell them.

Yeah, yeah, tell them.

You know, I hope if you walked into our plant here in the Boise area, you that you would see how important not only our people are to us because that's how our business goes round.

Right.

But how important safety and quality are to us as well.

That is something that is just tip, tip top of our core values.

And you know, that we'd hope that people would see that just as you just walk into the shop floor and see how things are kind of coming off the line and coming off our machines and I mean, how people are dressed, how people move, how, you know, all that stuff.

So, yeah, that's very important to us.

That is awesome.

So, Skyler, if somebody's starting a project and they're like, all right, this sounds like this is the perfect for that new house I'm going to build or.

Or that developer that goes, man, I'm putting in 22 homes right now and I got to get these things knocked out.

This sounds perfect for what I want to do.

How do people start that process with you guys?

Yeah, there's a couple of ways.

It just kind of depends on if we have distribution set up in their area.

Right.

They can always go to their local lumberyard and ask about Trim Joist and, you know, their local sales rep or their local lumberyard, you know, can reach out to a series of distributors in that area and say, hey, do you guys carry Trim Joist?

Can you help me get my hands on this product?

The other way that a lot of people, specifically out west, as we've been expanding and building our distribution network, a lot of ways that people have done that is they just reach simply out to our infotrimjoice.com line and they say, hey, this is.

Here are my plans.

Can you help me kind of get this rolling?

Can you provide me a layout plan?

And then we're also able to connect them with our sales team.

I mean, we have sales guys out here in the west and all over the US but connect them with the right person and just say, hey, let us help you kind of like foster and build these relationships with whoever it is that carries our product so that you can put this on your next project.

Sounds easy.

And what's the website Skyler, for people to check this out.

Yeah, it's just www.trimjoice T R I M J-O-I-S T.com Skyler Thomas, thanks for coming on today.

This has been so educational.

I love products like this.

I love supporting Made in America stuff like that.

Because that is definitely one of the things that Johnny and I just absolutely love to highlight in the show for people out there to go, hey, have you thought about this?

Yeah.

And to help you guys out, just to give you guys a great platform out there to, you know, get the knowledge out that hey, there's a better way of doing it that's going to save you money in the long run.

I think that's just a win for everybody.

Yeah, no, we hope so.

And thank you so much for having me.

It's been awesome to just kind of also hear your guys feedback and what you think about the product and just hearing like real world people like you guys just saying, hey, this does solve a big problem.

You know, that's something that we feel like we know.

But it's awesome when other people see that too.

And to be clear, I'm very grumpy and picky.

You can ask Eric.

I don't even better.

If I thought it was ridiculous, I'd be picking you apart.

But yeah, I am thoroughly impressed and I love it that, that I would.

Almost all the businesses and contractors and product makers that we do get on the show are these types of businesses.

Right.

I think I like Summit Trailer, Eric and like that care shows through, you know, the genuine care and concern for whether it's the team, whether it's safety, whether it's quality and delivering something to that they're proud of and are accountable to.

And I just, just that's how I ran my contracting business.

That's how Eric ran his design business.

And to see people with the same ethos out there making it and killing it, it makes me happy.

I get goosebumps.

Okay, let's just.

That's awesome.

I really, I really appreciate that.

That means I love it.

No, it means a lot to me that people are still out there carrying that kind of a message.

So it's, I think it's so important in an industry that, that you, we all know, you know, has a few bad apples roaming around and totally to get the standup folks that are doing it right and doing it for the right reasons, man.

That's all me.

That's.

I love it.

So I appreciate that very much.

Thank you.

Skyler, thanks for coming on today.

Guys, check it out.

This could be the next answer for your next project out there for John Dudley.

I'm Eric G. And you've been listening to around the House.