Rich Buitenhuis is president of Buitenhuis Building & Design out of Grand Haven, Mich., a company that builds high quality custom homes, decks, additions and remodels. A few years ago, Buitenhuis was building a 1,000-square-foot deck when one of his employees called in sick on a day they were framing.
“That was really a pain because I just needed him out there to hold up the other end of the board,” Buitenhuis recalls.
When Buitenhuis went to his local construction supply stores to look for a clamp that would hold up the other end of the board, he found nothing that could help him. He spent the rest of the day using temporary blocks and shims that required a lot of set up just to simply hold up the other end of the board. After the day’s frustration, he searched online for something that would help him the next time he was a man down. Finding nothing, Buitenhuis developed a prototype that eventually turned into the Joist Jaw, a jobsite helper that lends an extra hand to contractors on exterior and interior framing jobs by holding up floor, rafter and deck systems. “Really it’s just a cheap laborer — someone to hold up the other end. It doesn’t take a break, it doesn’t get tired and it doesn’t call in sick,” Buitenhuis says. The Joist Jaw is distributed through Grabber Construction Products.
Joist Jaw’s design automatically levels the crossmember with the rimjoist or ledger, for an even, professional job. Buitenhuis explains that some deck builders who don’t have high quality in mind will mount the joist hangers to the deck ledger first, and then set the joists in the deck ledger hoping it flushes out at the top. But because of variance in lumber sizes, when they place their joist hangers on a ledger first their top line — the deck surface — will be uneven because they didn’t flush the top of the board.
“With the Joist Jaw, you mount it to the top of the board and leave the tongue sticking out, which automatically flushes your framing with the ledger board that’s mounted to the house. Then you slide the hanger up, nail it off, and at that point you have a perfectly smooth top surface of the deck — the surface that counts,” he says.
Buitenhuis adds another advantage to the product is safety. “A lot of framers will tell you they pound a 16 penny nail into the end of the joist and bend it over and that kind of holds it up close,” he says. “For one thing, that’s not safe. If the nail slips off and the joist falls down and falls on someone below that’s not good.” The reusable Joist Jaw is made of solid steel for strength.
A pair of Joist Jaws retails for about $40. Buitenhuis recommends two professional contractors have two pair on hand for a framing project. He also says construction supply houses and lumberyards that have homeowner clientele have found success in renting a pair of Joist Jaws to homeowners for weekend deck projects.
