I happen to have some construction folks at the office right now, so I went and asked them. In addition to Pergo wood flooring, they now frame houses on 19.2" centers -- i.e., 500 mm. Their tape measures, although in inches, have little diamond markings every 500 mm for framing.

They also said  that sheet materials (plywood, sheet rock, etc.) are mostly still in 4x8' sizes, but some linoleums and carpets come in 2 m widths.

Apparently the change to framing is being induced by the savings: putting studs and joists every 19.2" versus every 16" saves a bit on every house, both in material and labor.

Jim


At 03 08 2006, 05:07 PM, Mike Millet wrote:
So there are actually building materials in the US available in SI sizes? I've never seen any in a hardware store. I know that some carpenters around here are mad because the new sanders they bought are in millimeters but I've never seen boards/sheetrock/flooring etc in SI. And my dad's a carpenter so I've been around a lot of that sort of stuff :).

Maybe I'm just missing it.

On 8/3/06, Jim Elwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
At 03 08 2006, 03:46 PM, Nat Hager wrote:
>...Secondly I don't think SI mandates everything be in multiples of
>1 meter.  I
>seem to remember 1200 x 2400 mm being a popular plywood size.

You are right of course, and some types of flooring are available in
the US in metric sizes (1200x200 mm, if I recall correctly).

I guess I should have said "interesting retro-attitude in this
article," rather than "interesting article."

Jim


Jim Elwell, CAMS
Electrical Engineer
Industrial manufacturing manager
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
www.qsicorp.com




--
"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it why can't you?"

Jim Elwell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
801-466-8770
www.qsicorp.com

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