About us

 

In 2004 two tradesmen, John and Bob were working on a house that had sagging drywall on a screen porch ceiling. The cause was obvious, first it was not properly sealed and painted and because of that the 24″ spacing of the trusses was too large a span for the drywall. The homeowner could not afford the expense of replacement so John and Bob had to come up with a solution.

 

A T brace was built to span 3 trusses and after it was shimmed off the floor the drywall was flat but they had nothing to screw the drywall to as it sagged between the framing. After thinking and discussing the possible solutions John came up with the idea of making a T. Knowing that the framing was constructed using 2×4’s so two 2×4’s were cut, one at about 20 inches and the other at 30. The plan was to place the 20 inch piece on the ground on its edge and then place the 30 incher centered on the flat and screwed together. This created a T that when placed across 2 trusses the 30 inch piece straddled both of them and the 20 inch piece being the same size as the ceiling joist sat on the now flattened drywall. A dozen or so of these T’s were built and staged inside the attic hatch on the other side of the building.

 

Bob went up into the attic to bring the braces to the porch while John prepared to secure the drywall and using a small screwdriver, poked a hole in the ceiling so Bob knew were to place the braces. As the height in the attic was less than 4 feet Bob decided it would be safer to carry just 2 braces at a time and besides John had to move the brace and flatten out the drywall before the next pair were needed. At first Bob carried the 2 braces in one hand and used the other to balance on the framing as he began his trek to were they were needed. This was going slowly as the attic was cramped and the obstacles were many.

 

The “Ah-ha”moment. Bob then decided to put a brace in each hand and use them to brace and balance as he traversed the attic. This worked extremely well and Bob was able to quickly get to were John was waiting for him. As each pair of braces were brought from the hatch to the porch Bob kept thinking of what they had inadvertently built which was a way to 1-safely navigate the framing, 2- a place to keep tools and supplies organized and secure and 3- a work platform as opposed to straddling the framing.

 

After securing the ceiling Bob made his way back down to the porch and asked John in an excited voice “Where’s the pad?” John replied “Over there. What’s up?”. After an hour or so the two tradesmen hashed out a rough design. Within a week all of the components were procured and a rough prototype was built. A patent application was then filed.