Ox Engineered Products, LLC Ox –Â a brand of Ox Industries, Inc. manufactures performance building products for the North American market providing several sheathing and building envelop functions including Thermo-ply RED Structural Sheathing and another structural bracing for light-frame construction. Like OSB, Ox building products have been used successfully in these and many other applications.
APA membership is comprised of Ox’s competition. APA President Ed Elias1 has publically stated that an unintended consequence of having an accurate building code may be that non-OSB products (e.g. T-Ply) gain an advantage and supplant traditional OSB market share, which obviously is not in APA’s members best interests as it is clearly a conflict.
Ox building products, as is industry standard, have been tested using ANSI accredited techniques that define product performance in a real building under ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB)2 ISO/IEC 17025 certification3. By law, Ox utilizes existing code-supported provisions such as established systems or risk factors related to product equivalency 4. Ox follows the national building codes (IBC 104.11) using standard and accredited equivalency testing in real buildings to define comparative and level-playing-field code compliant performance. The building code law and supporting science do not discriminate.
Ox has reviewed the recent APA Advisory SP-1127 and offers the following critique:
1. APA is not a code body nor an ANSI ISO/IES 17065 accredited product certification body7.
2. APA references errant code adopted design values.8,9
3. APA provides no comparative testing to OSB. OSB’s comparative real building test data provides better OSB information from which to make true engineering evaluation and comparison to T-Ply.
4. The report shows pictures (Figures 3 and 4) that are taken at very large deflections, which appear to be 9 inches or greater. This intentional distorts T-Ply performance.
5. Any wall testing using a steel beam to load the top plate distorts reliable test results and does not follow the provisions of ASTM E564. This is an APA distortion of test results.
APA’s biased representations are merely intended to confuse the market regarding Ox’s Thermo-ply RED Structural Sheathing and aid APA’s membership.
Sincerely,
Dean DeWildt, PE
VP/GM Ox Engineered Products
1 450=840 Creates an Artificial Competitive Advantage for OSB
2 ANAB
3 Structural Building Components Research Institute
4 Why is SBCA & SBCRI Publishing Investigative Reports?
7 Accredited Product Certification Bodies
8 Installation & Fastening of Wood Structural Panel Wall Bracing
9 How APA Built a Competitive Advantage for OSB Through the Building Code