This issue’s Tricks of the Trade is shared by a CFA board member in the spirit of continuing to share great ideas and to challenge you, the reader, to consider the ways you overcome annoying details and situations to be more effective and economical in your work. If you are from an active CFA member company and your trick is selected for publication, your company will have 50 points placed into your account for Member Rewards, redeemable for your CFA transactions. If you are from a company that is not a member, we will offer you a $100 discount on your first year’s membership fees — a great way to get to know the CFA.

While we continue to weigh the options we have for providing fall protection to our workers, we also contemplate the impact on the quality of our walls and the efficiency of our labor in achieving the results our customers deserve. One of the biggest differences we have seen is in the straightness and levelness in approaches to bracing walls. We have braced to the inside but the over-pin brackets available in the marketplace have given us nothing but fits. They don’t consistently fit, and they are unstable both in securing the brace and providing a walking surface for our crews.

This winter we set out to change that and came up with a quick design that incorporates the pin.  Once we had the design down, we produced a whole series of them. Painting them yellow makes it easy for us to keep track of them. We added baskets into which they could be easily loaded, shipped to job sites, unloaded and maneuvered with our handling equipment without excessive labor.

The brackets hold 2-by-10 planks, and on a recent 80-

yard basement project, we needed only 7 braces to secure the walls with brackets on every interior form seam. The guys really like the ease of installation and the walls are perfectly straight. Our corners are still wrapped with 2-by-4 walers on the outside, but these brackets secure the inside and give us a consistent walking surface that does not shift or move under load. Our boards are 6-feet and 10-feet in length, and we use a full overlap at one bracket.

We are happy to discuss these brackets and how you too can use them to improve your fall protection and wall quality. Integrating the pin was our key to success in both.