NTCA UNIVERSITY UPDATE ––––––––––––– By Becky Serbin, Training and Education Coordinator Utilizing tile industry standards There have been a few recent online discussions about the need to educate tile setters on industry standards, and in some cases, educate those who know about the standards but don’t know how to use them. In every train- ing session, NTCA spends time talking about and referencing ANSI standards and the TCNA Handbook, so it would only make sense that we also have courses in NTCA University on these subjects too. While most of the cours- es touch on this information, we have five courses devoted to our industry standards. Here they are: Introduction to Tile Industry Standards NTCA trainers Mark Heinlein and Robb Roderick presented an Introduction to Tile Standards at Coverings17. It was an in-depth look at all of the ANSI standards asso- ciated with the tile industry. They also discussed TCNA, including the handbook, NTCA, including the NTCA Reference Manual, and they reviewed other standards and building codes that affect a tile installation. ANSI Standards courses There are currently two courses cov- ering the ANSI book: Introduction to ANSI A108.01 and Introduction to ANSI A108.02. Neither course reviews word for word all of the information found in each standard, but both courses highlight the type of information that can be found there. The idea is that these courses will get learners to open the ANSI book to understand the type of information that these standards contain and to comprehend the basic requirements for tile installations. TCNA Handbook courses There are also two courses avail- able on the TCNA Handbook. The first course is TCNA Handbook Specifications Section. This course focuses on the information found in the section titled Using the TCNA Handbook for Specification Writing. This course uses actual methods in the Handbook to show where tile setters can find and use information from components of an installation method. While the course is mainly focused on this area, it does review all items found in this section of the actual book. The second course is How to Find/ Use TCNA Handbook Methods. Many Handbook users state that it is difficult to find the method they want to use. This course reviews information avail- able in a method number, why meth- ods don’t always appear numerically, and different ways that you can search for methods within the Handbook. Even though all of these courses are 120 TileLetter | October 2018