A contractor recently told me about a case involving a building with a leaky roof. In the attempt to figure out why the roof was leaking, it was discovered that the "plans" called for eight nails at a certain connection, but that the contractor had installed only six. The contractor had to fix the problem, at great expense. The lack of two nails per connection became a big issue. By the time the builder paid his legal expenses, he figured the extra five pounds of nails cost him over $1,000 per pound!

While something like that may never have happened to you, improper or inadequate nailing can be a serious matter in wood construction. Perhaps one of the most common problems I see is the substitution of box nails for common nails, with no allowance for their difference in strength.

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