#Glulam Perspectives: It's Important To Use An AITC Inspected Manufacturer

Note: Glulam Perspectives is a quarterly series on Unalam's Wood Times blog. In each article we will take an in-depth look at a project or issue facing the timber industry from our unique standpoint as a glulam manufacturer. These are our opinions and we invite constructive discussion. Next time, we will focus on a completely different topic, so stay tuned.
If you are embarking on a glulam building project, you might be asking yourself, "Is it really important to buy our glulam from a manufacturer that is certified? What does it even mean to be certified?" 

At Unalam, we are an American Institute of Timber Construction (AITC) qualified licensee, meaning that we are certified by AITC to manufacture glulam. We are proud to have had this license since November 1, 1961, before we even built our Sidney, NY manufacturing plant. 

AITC doesn't simply rubber stamp manufacturers; we are subject to regular, surprise inspections to verify that we are manufacturing to the ANSI standard (A190.1.) The inspector also checks all of our quality control data that we collect and analyze between inspections to confirm that we are meeting the standard, and calibrates our testing equipment. We like to say that we have a high quality standard, and this is one way we can prove it.

Passing this inspection, and maintaining our certification is important to us because it means we can continue to use the AITC quality stamp on jobs. Not all jobs require an AITC stamp, but an AITC stamp tells our customers that the material was manufactured to the ANSI standard and meets building codes as accepted materials (per IBC section 2303.1.3.) To designers, this also means that the material supplied on the job matches the design values they looked up in the code (and used when designing the building.) If you need to meet the code or the design values on your project, then it is important to go with a certified manufacturer, like Unalam.