2009

Building Eric's House

Part 2

by Dorothy Ainsworth

It's hard to believe that more than a year has whizzed by since my first article in the series on ‘Building Eric’s House’ appeared in BWH (issue #112). Construction projects are notorious for taking twice as long as estimated, and this one is no exception.

During the dreaming and planning stage, ideal conditions are imagined, enthusiasm and energy are boundless, money flows freely, and optimism prevails, but when it comes right down to it, reality means hard work and a tight budget! Not that it isn’t fulfilling, but WHEW!!!

Eric is 46 and strong as an ox, the same age I was 20 years ago when I built my log house---and hard physical labor was no problem at all back then. Now his father and I are in our mid-sixties and it’s a little different story. Together we are the equivalent of ONE and a HALF good helpers (me being the half). It never occurred to me that someday I would be at a lesser capacity in strength and energy than I was in my 40's and 50's. Imagine that! But I feel fortunate we are still able to accomplish as much as we do, with the help of an occasional Motrin that is. I'm in denial and I want to stay there.

By June of 2009 we managed to put up all the inner and outer walls, door and window openings and their respective headers, the ridge beam, the bedroom roof, and get the rough plumbing done.

Lumber was still recession-cheap in June so Eric stocked up on all the 2" X 12" BCI rafters (Boise-Cascade I-Joists), and the 5/8" OSB sheathing (Oriented Strand Board) for the entire house (2 units of 57 sheets each).

He will be at a stand-still to buy any more materials until he saves up some money over the winter months tuning pianos by day and playing classical piano music at dinner houses at night. This past year his cash outlay has been about $6,000---not too bad for the amount of progress he's made.

The first article ended in August 2008 with the house floor completed, covering the basement. In the fall and winter 2008 we raised a few outside walls in the cold and fog (see photo) but had to wait until spring 2009 for any more progress. We have freezing cold and windy winters so a friend and I spray-painted the frame with 30 gallons of mis-mixed paint (free from a contractor) to protect it during the harsh weather.

We resumed work in April 2009, raising more outside walls. Then in May we built and raised a few inner walls, and installed door and window headers. Next, we built the pony walls on top of the living room walls, to support the shed roofs. In early June, Eric’s Dad and I put the roof on the bedroom wing by ourselves because Eric had the flu during the only week Ron was able to come up. In the middle of June Eric had the plumbing done by a professional to hasten progress because he had a late June inspection deadline.

Building a new house is very exciting, but unfortunately we have to work fulltime for a living and Ron lives in California so we try to choreograph our building sprees when we can work together. Eric and I are doing the electrical wiring ourselves----a relatively easy and straightforward job within our capability because all his major appliances will run on propane (water heater, range, and dryer). The plumber already provided the stub-outs for those and the propane company will hook them up.

SOME CONSTRUCTION TIPS IN THE FRAMING PROCESS:

Wall framing:

When laying out the wall framing on the floor, clamp the top and bottom plates together, perfectly lined up (inc. the ends) and mark where the studs will go at 16” centers, with a line AND an big X so you won’t forget which side of the line to put the stud on. (The line should be marked at 15 1/4" and the X is where the stud will be with its center at 16”.) Then separate the plates on the floor and fasten the studs in place with the nail gun, making sure they are squared up as you go along. It helps to work as a team, with one person holding the square at each junction AND making sure the stud and top plate surfaces are flush with each other, while the other person shoots in the framing nails.

Headers:

Headers span window and door openings to help support the roof load where the studs are omitted. Measure the span carefully so the header fits tightly, and fill in above it with short studs (cripples) spaced so the sheathing seams will meet over them. (Check code for correct header sizing.)

Wall bracing:

Wall bracing is important as it will keep your erected walls square and plumb, until they are sheathed. Work around the perimeter of the house raising the walls one at a time and bracing them from 2 directions if necessary as you fasten them to each other in sequence. Do the same with the inner walls, squaring and plumbing as you go. If you run into a problem with a wall that is bowed in or out (from a birds eye view), even though the bottom plate is secured in a straight line on the floor, you can force the top of the wall into line by fastening a cleat (short 2X4) to the floor about 6-feet out from the middle of the wall, then wedge a long 2X4 under the top plate at a stud junction, push on the bow in the wall until it's straight, and fasten the 2X4 to the cleat with a nail gun. It helps to work as a team, with one partner pushing on the “spring brace” while reading the level for plumb, while the other nails the 2X4 brace to the cleat. (see illustration)

It's also good to nail a 2X4 brace diagonally from top to bottom corners across the studs on each wall to keep the wall from “racking” (turning into a slight parallelogram).

Double top plates:

When all the walls are up, squared and plumbed, nail on the second top plates, overlapping the ends alternately where the walls meet at a corner, to tie the structure together. A long top plate can be a little curved and warped, so nail it on a few feet at a time, aligning it perfectly with the first top plate, using the free end as leverage to push or pull it into place as you move along.

Note: Ron is a big advocate of framing with GREEN lumber. It's a little cheaper, AND it's more pliable to work with if you need to force it into submission, such as correcting a twist or crown or bow, and it doesn’t split as easily as kiln-dried lumber when you shoot the big nails in.

Pony walls:

Build pony walls on the floor, then raise them into place, and attach them into position with the nail gun, working as a team again, with one person at each end on a ladder or scaffolding.

Ridge beam and cross beam:

Eric wanted a vaulted ceiling so he decided to use a massive ridge beam to span the living room. A 5.5” wide by 18” deep by 28-ft. long “versabeam” was sized to meet code requirements (“engineered is the buzz word) to freely span the 24-foot length of the living room, and also provide 2-feet of roof overhang at each gabled end. A versabeam is made from dozens of thin, glued, and compressed plys of wood, and thus is extremely strong and straight.

Eric's living room is 18-feet wide so he also needed a beam to freely span that 18-foot distance to tie the two sides of the room together---the walls that also support the two lower roofs.

It was to be an exposed beam so Eric chose a “versalam” beam (laminated 2X6's) for aesthetic appeal. A versaLAM is more attractive and decorative than a versaBEAM, but comparatively not as strong if the two are equally sized. The lumber company’s engineering charts required a 5.5" wide by 16" deep versalam to span 18 feet (to meet code).

Setting the beams:

Ashland Lumber delivered the beams on their boom truck instead of their regular delivery truck so they could set the ridge beam with a crane—--kindly at no extra charge. The operator set it into the heavy brackets we had pre-attached on top of the upright 4X6 posts at each end of the living room span. It fit perfectly and Ron and Eric proceeded to bolt it in place.

We had the operator set the versalam cross-beam on blocks on the floor and we hoisted it up later with a come-along, and set each end on top of its respective wall, and sandwiched it in between the pony wall framing. We left the protective cover on to deflect the brutal summer sun.

Next came the rest of the inner wall framing which we completed in a day. The walls for the entrance way, bathrooms, closet, den, and kitchen area had to be up so the plumber would know where to put all the pipes, drains, toilet flanges, and vents.

Water source:

For Eric's water supply to the house, we had to hire a backhoe man to dig a 2-foot deep trench 150 feet long to the main water line. He used a narrow bucket and made short work of the job (2 hours). He left his backhoe overnight to give us time to glue together seven 20-foot sections and one 10-foot of schedule 40 PVC pipe, and pressure test it for leaks. We pumped the gauge up with a bicycle tire pump. There were no leaks so we slid that pipe inside of 150 feet of 2” PVC pipe to protect it from rocks, and finally rolled it into the trench. I shut the water off and nervously cut into the main PVC water line and successfully (whew) attached Eric’s line to it with a PVC telescoping slip joint and a tee. Don came back the next day and covered the trench up. As a friend he gave us a deal and asked for only $150 but we paid him $200 and it was worth every penny!

The plumbing:

Eric found a good plumber by word of mouth recommendations from satisfied contractors, and got an estimate. It SEEMED shockingly high because we aren’t used to paying for outside labor, but after checking around a bit, we came to the conclusion it was actually considered reasonable by people in the biz so Eric scheduled the work. It ended up costing $2400 for plumbing supplies and labor, which included the PEX water lines AND iron pipe gas lines. Todd finished the job in 4 days and the inspection passed with flying colors, so that expenditure was also worth every penny. “Buy quality and cry only once” is an old saying I try not to forget.

Ron and I installed the adjustable-pitch brackets @16" centers on the 18-foot long 2X12 ledger board that would be fastened to the pony wall on the high end of the shed roof over the bedroom. The brackets would hold 2X12 BCI rafters. We chose BCI’s because they are strong, straight, and have a wider “rail” than dimensional 2X12's, so if you are off a little where 2 sheets of OSB sheathing come together, there's 2.25" leeway rather than only 1.5". They are lighter weight and easier to handle than dimensional lumber, and don’t twist, shrink, or split. They can also span greater spans without deflection than regular 2X12's.

The drawback to BCI's are that they are engineered like a capital “I” with 2 rails and a skinny web in between. The web requires a “web stiffener” wherever you have to attach the ends to anything. To fill out the web and make it flush with the rail, we had to nail on a piece of 7/8" OSB on each side of the web. It was a little time-consuming but I still prefer BCI's to dimensional 2X12's because they are consistent and eliminate other problems like crowns and dips and twists and splits.

Ron made a simple jig so we could cut the correct roof angle on the web stiffeners en masse, and also use it to cut the roof angle on the ends of the rafters (plumb cuts AND tail cuts)----and do it all quickly and accurately.

We installed the roof rafters (BCI's) by fastening them into their adjustable-pitch brackets with 1 1/2" Teco nails. Teco nails (pronounced teeco) are a thick diameter and FILL the bracket holes securely to prevent flex or sag, and are driven in with a hammer. After we secured all the rafters at their heads AND tails, we nailed in blocking between the rafters where they sat on the top plate. Then we notched out two 2X12's rafters to hold the look-outs (extensions to support roof overhang at the eves ) and fastened one on each side of the roof, then installed the look-outs.

Consistency is the key when cutting. Ron advises taking the time to make simple jigs to insure accuracy and speed. He also recommends “gang-cutting” whenever possible, as in notching several pieces of lumber at once. He clamped several short 2X6's together for use as look-outs and cut the notches in them all at once with a Skill Saw set at a shallow depth. The small notches had to be cut out to bypass the rail so the look-out would fit tightly against the web where it meets it at a 90 degree angle.

Ron then cut off the rafter tails at the roof angle, using the jig again, this time clamped in place on each of the 13 rafter ends as he went along. I was amazed that at 67 he could still use a heavy worm-drive Skill Saw repeatedly overhead with one arm, while balanced precariously on a 2X12 bridge. I have to admit he’s a better man than I am!

After I caught MY breath just from watching, together we sheathed the entire roof with 5/8" OSB, staggering the joints and using 8-D deformed-shank nails at 6" apart around the edges, and 12” apart in the field---with the nail gun. (Code requirement was confirmed by checking the Unified Building Code book under “nailing schedules”.)

We’ll eventually close in under the rafters with “soffits” to prevent birds’ nests, wasps’ nests, woodpeckers, spiders, and debris from collecting. Soffits create an attractive substantial-looking roof overhang on a house, and that’s what Eric finds aesthetically pleasing.

Closing comments:

The county here in southern Oregon used to be more lenient but now frowns upon repeated extension requests on the regular inspections that are required every six months. (I think the reason is obvious—they want the house completed ASAP so it can be added to the property tax rolls!) We had no problem with timely foundation and basement and floor inspections but the framing inspection is the most extensive of all. It has to include the rough plumbing AND rough electrical. AND before the electrical can be inspected, the roof has to be on! That’s a lot of work and expense to crowd into a one-year period, especially since the weather here isn’t very tolerable to work outside during mid-summer and mid-winter. Ideal working conditions aren’t an option though; we HAVE to do it by the county’s deadline (December, 2009) or pay to renew the permit. So we WILL.

See you in the spring!