Girder: Wednesday’s Word Of The Week

Particularly large beams, or a beam that supports other beams, are often referred to as “girders.” Structurally, a girder performs and serves the same function as a beam, but it can be convenient when talking about a framing system to use the term beam for typical framing members, and girder for members supporting the beams.

Because girders often need to be larger than beams, the term is sometimes used to describe large beams in general.


*Each Wednesday our structural engineer, Rik Vandermeulen, discusses a new term associated with glulam manufacturing. He will do this until we run out of words. If there is a timber or glulam term that you have heard of and want to know more about, let us know in the comments.