The Southern African Light Steel Frame Building Association has successfully presented its 6-day training course for light steel frame building contractors – for the 21st time! The course was presented at The Building Centre in Cape Town during the week 26 September to 1 October 2016.

According to SASFA director, John Barnard, the course is growing in popularity, as an increasing number of building contractors, developers, architects and engineers wish to get on to the LSFB band-wagon and become more knowledgeable about the popular building method from both a theoretical and practical perspective.

The course is split into two sections:
Steel frame materials, components, and erection (4 days). This includes: steel making process and properties of coated steel sheet, foundations, manufacturing of light steel frames and trusses, construction tools, wallframe set-out, handling, loads, floor and wall framing, roof structures, planning and the installation of services.

Internal lining, external cladding and insulation (1½ days). This covers the properties, manufacturing and benefits of glasswool insulation, acoustics, energy efficiency, environmental issues, storage and handling of glasswool and tools and installation methodology. This is followed by a section on gypsum plasterboard, covering properties, storage and handling, cutting, tools and application for walls, ceilings and finishing.

Finally fibre cement board for external cladding is addressed, including the installation of the vapour permeable membrane, sizes and availability of fibre cement - boards and planks, fixing accessories, installation guidelines, and door and window frame installation detail is presented.

To ensure that the theoretical concepts are well understood, the course includes a practical component, consisting of setting out of wall frames, squaring, levelling, and erection of wall panels, erection of roof trusses, installation of plumbing, external cladding (FC boards, OSB and FC planks), insulation and internal lining (gypsum board), and internal joint finishing.

Barnard says that the students who enrolled for the course came from the Western and Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KZN, the Free State, Zimbabwe and Namibia.  “Some had prior building industry experience, but we had a quantity surveyor, a mechanical engineer and even a dentist amongst the students!”

The course requires that the participants write two tests to assess their understanding of the subject matter. All of the students on this course passed, and received SASFA certificates of successful completion. This brings the total number of students who have successfully completed this course since its inception in 2009, to 342.

Barnard says that all the participants rated the course highly, especially mentioning the value of the practical work. 

The SASFA members who supplied support for the course and made it possible were Saint-Gobain, Pholaco, UFCC, Marshall Hinds, Kare and Simpson Strong-tie. Bosch Tools illustrated their wide range of equipment suitable for use in the LSFB industry.

The course will be presented again in February 2017 in Gauteng.