Chrome Wire Tie Finds

I was happy when my uncle said I could have whatever I wanted out of his old workshop.

Since he was moving his equipment to a new facility, he needed to get rid of old metal fittings, piping, PVC, HVAC ducts, wood, wire, rebar, and other various building supplies.

I learned in college how to repurpose old building supplies into new things, especially now that I’m looking to do small home improvements whenever I have the time to set aside for the work. For instance, I took a pile of wood paneling and old sheets of steel sheet metal for HVAC ducts to make a new porch awning for my backyard. It was an exciting project because I wasn’t exactly sure how it would turn out until it was done. I was improvising throughout the project with a few scant ideas lifted from Youtube videos I had watched on the subject. This week I was over at my uncle’s old workshop for the last time to see what he had left, and I was surprised to simply see a few coils of galvanized steel rebar tie wire that he was using to make sidewalks and porches for his handyman side business. He thought they got accidentally thrown away and had already replaced them by the time he saw them hiding behind a large box in the corner. He said I could keep the coils of galvanized rebar tie wire as long as I took them with me that same day. Little did I know, but my uncle was getting rushed out of the old facility by his landlord and needed the space empty by the following morning. Now I can make a metal fence for my front yard like I have always wanted, especially since the galvanized steel rebar tie wire is resistant to rust and corrosion, while also being more flexible than stainless steel.

 

18 gauge double loop rebar ties

I was instantly worried because my brother never has brilliant ideas and I knew that the concrete wouldn’t hold with this sort of setup.

My brother has always been the type of person to cut corners in the situations in life where it’s the least conducive. When he was trying to impress one of his employers in his early 20s, he tried to lie about how much work he was completing whenever management was away from the office. Little did he know but he had his computer monitored at all times, meaning they already knew exactly how much time he was spending actually working at his computer and not distracted on his phone. I told him repeatedly that there were no cheat codes to success or money in life, and that he should be really suspicious if anyone ever suggests otherwise. It’s not just with his path of employment or career that he cuts corners, he also does it at home with improvement projects. This past summer he decided that he wanted a huge concrete block front porch like the one our parents’ house had when we were growing up. He said that he came up with a “brilliant idea” to stack cinder blocks and then coat them with a thin layer of concrete on the outside surfaces. I was instantly worried because my brother never has brilliant ideas and I knew that the concrete wouldn’t hold with this sort of setup. You need steel rebar tie wire running through thick concrete structures like porches where the concrete is thicker than six inches. I told him to buy a coil of 14-gauge black annealed steel rebar and a pack of double loop wire ties. He refused and learned the lesson the hard way after his porch failed within a few months of summer rain showers.

Bar wire

I work at my parent’s restaurant that has been passed down in our family for three generations now. Despite being a staple of our large coastal community, we struggled like everyone else in the food service industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. At first it started with the forced lockdowns and our unexpected switch to delivery and carry-out business at a time when we had just finished expanding our large indoor dining room. The last thing on my mind in the months leading up to the first lockdown was having to rely on deliveries and take-orders to literally survive, let alone stay in the black for the ensuing 24 months, which proved to be impossible anyway. I would say that we are incredibly lucky to be in the position we are in now to say that we survived the biggest crisis this business has faced since the early 1970s, but not all of the beloved family restaurants in our community shared our fate. Many of us struggled in part from basic supply chain shortages through 2020 and 2021. My brother is a building contractor supplier and struggled to maintain stock of steel rebar tie wire, let alone keeping multiple options available for his regular clients who rely on him to supply them many different kinds and sizes of rebar tie wire. He said it was really hard to find 14 gauge black annealed rebar tie wire for eight months before he had to look at a market on the other side of the country to fulfill orders he had backed up from the year prior. Now he said that the rebar supplies have gone back to levels similar to that of before the pandemic.

 

Forming wire certified domestic

I insisted that the type 304 stainless steel rebar tie wire will ensure the sidewalks last for the longest amount of time possible before cracking and needing to be replaced

I live in a condominium in a fairly small group of buildings. There are six units in each building and we all know each other really well. However, getting the money together for certain projects can be extremely difficult when we are already working with much fewer owners than most other condominium buildings in a five mile radius. If anyone falls behind on payments, that makes it hard to front the money for a new improvement or upgrade like the bike rack that we’ve been promised for the last three years straight. We have to pay for a new painting project and I still don’t understand why it’s supposed to cost all unit owners a thousand dollars each, but at least I don’t have to pay for the sidewalk improvements. I suppose that was covered by the previous owner who sold me this condo a few years ago. The new sidewalks will be concrete and I heard that the condo association was considering a DIY job with no steel rebar tie wire as structural support. I told them that I have a few coils of old stainless steel rebar tie wire that is type 304 and agreed to give it to them for free if they let me help them with the new concrete sidewalks. I insisted that the type 304 stainless steel rebar tie wire will ensure the sidewalks last for the longest amount of time possible before cracking and needing to be replaced. Stainless steel rebar tie wire is also extremely resistant to the corrosion from the salt that is in our oceanic air. I’m glad that they agreed to my suggestions regarding the new concrete sidewalks.

Galvanized Double loop ties

I’ll never forget how crazy things became at the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020. My friend’s father died in April 2020 and then his sister nearly passed away one month later when she contracted the virus at work. When I tried to get things like toilet paper and hand sanitizer from local stores, I couldn’t find any and had to resort to buying whatever I could on the internet and traveling for anything else. I remember this one car trip I took in May 2020 where I had to drive a full 100 miles in just one direction before I could actually find toilet paper. I went from city to city and every single small town in between, but I just couldn’t find my beloved triple-ply. When I finally secured some toilet paper hours into my trip, I was happy just to find the single-ply that feels like old sandpaper. In my mind, it was surely better than anything as I had nearly caused a serious plumbing clog when I had tried cheap napkins in place of toilet paper. My best friend Cindy works as a building contractor and she had similar problems with building supplies during the pandemic. Wood prices shot up and in some places you couldn’t find two-by-fours or half-inch plywood sheets for months at a time. Cindy told me she made a similar car trip for coils of steel rebar tie wire because her normal supplier was out of stock for multiple weeks straight. Cindy uses galvanized rebar tie wire for constructing large condominium buildings as it’s resistant to both moisture and salt corrosion. Since it costs significantly less than stainless steel rebar tie wire, it cuts the cost of building construction down.

 

Bar wire

It was terrifying hearing about the Surfside condo building collapse last year when those buildings crumbled in the middle of the night killing nearly everyone inside. Right after it happened, there was a lot of confusion about the events that had transpired. Using what little video footage that was taken by onlookers ahead of and during the event, investigators tried to piece together a timeline of everything that occurred. One of the videos that was shown on international news showed chunks of concrete slab breaking apart in the parking garage underneath the condominium buildings in the moments leading up to the collapse. Water can be seen bursting on the ground below from broken plumbing in the quickly crumbling building above. Then the news learned of the inspection that deemed the building unsafe until serious concrete and rebar wire repairs could be made. Apparently a lot of exposed rebar tie wire showed that it was heavily corroded underneath the concrete that it was intended to hold together. A combination of high salinity and chlorine water from an adjacent pool seeped into the concrete over decades of time since the building was constructed until it reached a point of criticality and suddenly collapsed like a controlled building demolition. Corrosion-resistant rebar tie wire like galvanized and stainless steel options are favored in applications where salt or chlorine water is likely to seep into the concrete over long periods of time. It’s possible that the building wasn’t made with the best quality steel rebar tie wire, nor was the highest quality concrete utilized either. A number of critical factors played into the tragedy of the Surfside condominium building collapse.

 

16 gauge stainless steel tie wire

I’m proud to be from a family of business owners.

• My parents for instance own an outdoor recreation company that specializes in renting canoes and kayaks to people wanting to traverse our coastal waterways.

They make the majority of their money for the year during the peak of tourist season, which for us is during the late autumn, winter, and early spring. People flock to the beaches here from up north because of their frigid winters that are getting increasingly colder with time. On top of that, the population is swelling in this city because the council members have worked hard the past decade to persuade building developers like my grandfather’s company to move into the area and agree to huge commercial and residential projects. For instance, my grandfather’s company is working on a set of new condominiums that are intended to use certified domestic materials that will last the longest amount of time compared to the sorts of building materials in other condominiums in the exact same neighborhood. A lot of people are understandably worried about moving into high-rise condominiums after what happened in Surfside, Florida last year, but that’s why you simply work with American-made supplies like galvanized zinc-coated steel rebar tie wire and certified domestic concrete. That way you have a building that is rated for 100 years instead of 50. I can’t imagine feeling safe in an old high-rise with exposed, rusted steel rebar tie wire and crumbling concrete. Unfortunately, you can’t always be sure of the quality of a building’s construction materials if you don’t have the paper records or watched it go up with your own eyes.

Tie wire coils certified domestic

I like to chat with the guys at the hardware store whenever I’m picking up building supplies.

I’ve been trying to finish a mother-in-law suite for the past year but I had no choice but to finish it incrementally when supply chain backups prevented me from accessing the wood and supplies I needed.

Things haven’t really improved that much at this stage in the pandemic. I can finally get the wood and supplies that I need, but the prices have gone up considerably. I talked to the lumber guy at the hardware store the other day about these various building and contractor supply chain issues since early 2020, and he told me that it’s just as bad with concrete and rebar supplies. Coils of stainless steel rebar tie wire were virtually nonexistent at his store for several months in late 2020, and it didn’t matter if you were buying 16-gauge or 18-gauge. He had regular customers who weren’t satisfied with just galvanized steel rebar because of the coastal nature of their construction projects. It’s easier to find 304 and 316 stainless steel rebar tie wire these days, especially from Selkirk Metals. Their products are used for a wide variety of different applications, from free-standing buildings to bridges and cause-ways. The metals are corrosion resistant and flexible, and there are options like PVC coated steel rebar tie wire that has an extra layer of protection from weathering and degradation. Some of the oldest buildings in my coastal city are built with stainless steel rebar tie wire that has stood the test of time, despite the salinity of our ambient air being so close to the ocean.

Zinc coated Bar ties