Stack Framing

We are employing a technique of framing in building our house called stack framing, which is a little different than how your average home is built in terms of how everything is aligned. The reasons for doing this are: reduced material use, simpler and quicker construction, and improved insulation performance.

In a typical house wall, the studs are spaced 16" on center with a top and bottom plate (plates are the horizontal pieces of wood that connect studs at the top and bottom of a wall). Once the walls are built, a second plate goes on top of the wall to tie things altogether and then the next floor goes on top of that.

What we are doing differently is that our wall studs are spaced at 24" on center, and as we build each successive layer of the house going up, we make sure the framing is lined up with the framing below; we carefully align all the studs so that they are effectively stacked on top of each other going up through the building. The illustration above shows how the studs, the floor joists, and the roof rafters are all lined up in a vertical stack.

There are a number of benefits to doing this. The first is the reduction in lumber. Have framing members every 24" simply reduces the total quantity of lumber to build the house, saving some money. In addition to cost savings, this allows more room for insulation. It also lessens the number of thermal bridges from the outside to the inside of the wall envelope, i.e. less pathways for cold to reach into the wall via the wooden studs.

Think of this:
-In a 28' wall with studs every 16" on center, you'd have 22 studs. The studs are 1 1/2" wide, so if you pushed them all together they'd take up 2'-11" of space in your wall.
-In a 28' wall with studs every 24" on center you'd have 15 studs. Pushed together, they take up 1'-11 1/2".

By spacing our framing this way, we eliminate about a foot of lumber in our 28' wall that would otherwise be taking up valuable insulation space. These quantities really begin to add up when you think of all the walls and roof framing throughout the house. As I mentioned before, stack framing also allows us to eliminate a second top plate, again allowing for less lumber and more insulation.

Related to all this is modular layout. Modular layout means you design your building in dimensions that conform to standard building material sizes. An example would be something like making a wall 8' long rather then, say, 9'-2" because you can then use the full length of a piece of 4'x8' plywood. I made a point of using full 2' dimensions throughout our house plan, and there have be many instances where I noticed how it made our work easier, created less waste, or there is less cutting. This isn't to say that non-standard dimensions are a problem or bad in any way, but they create more work and waste.

The last element related to this is noted in the diagram above, which is leaving out window and door headers on non-load bearing walls. Headers are short beams that cross over any openings in the wall to receive and transfer load down and around the opening. If you think about the downward force of gravity pushing down on the roof, the pressure is transferred from the roof to the kneewalls and then down through the house to the foundation. The gable ends do not carry any of this pressure, so there is no need to put substantial headers over openings when they are located on gable-end walls. The photo below shows various window and door openings as we were building the first floor. The window opening at left is on a gable end wall, so there is no header above it, just a piece of lumber that frames out the top of the window. Moving to the right the two windows in the middle both are located in load bearing walls, so have headers over them. The door on the right is again in a gable end wall, so there is no header here either. This, like the other techniques mentioned above, saves on time in construction and materials located in the wall that would otherwise be insulation.

"Da me los clavos!"

Yesterday morning:

Today:

Joe and I managed to get the framing for the second floor complete by this afternoon. As always, things go a little slower than I might guess, and we worked a slightly shorter day than usual today.

The LVL beams were complete yesterday and we managed to get a few I-Joists in place before calling it quits. Today we completed the I-Joists, and then added squash blocks around the perimeter to transfer load down through the framing. More on this in an upcoming post.

So, the news is that the weather continues to be our friend and we keep plugging away.

I've become accustomed to listening to "the point", a pop radio station in the area. Typically, without others to consider, I'll have NPR on all day, but Joe's not such a fan of talk radio so we go with music. Sometimes I put on the I-Pod which breaks it up a little. Its good for me to break out of my habits a little. To my surprise this music station seems to have delved into my brain and delivers music that I really dig a large proportion of the time. Hats off to any commercial radio station that I feel even marginally complimentary of.

The Week in Review

Its a little amazing to see what changes in just a few days. I look at the last post and think "Wow, we've made some progress". A few key steps:

-Toward the latter part of last week the Presby septic system was completed and then covered with sand and a layer of topsoil. The septic system then connects back to the house via a distribution box (actually a cylinder) and a large septic tank --visible in the first photo being placed in the ground-- just off the east end of the house. Once these pieces were in place the site crew were able to shape and grade the entire area around the house. It now feels like a barren but gentle landscape.

-Joe and I completed the sheathing of the first floor and then built two walls. We are waiting on the exterior siding material which will apply while the walls are still on the floor. We will then stand them up and move on to the next ones. An important aspect of this project is working to minimize the lumber used in the framing of the house. The less unnecessary lumber, the more room for insulation. In practice this means the wall are framed at 24" on center, rather then the more common 16". In hand with this is building so as to stack framing members one over another. This means that a stud in the wall on the first floor will have a joist directly above it and then the stud on the second floor directly above that.

-We had a big rainfall throughout Saturday that continued all day. Besides making things a little mucky around the house, it settled some of the newly shaped earth, which in turn allows us to see where the grading needs to be tweaked so that water is moving where it should be away from the house.

-We met with the Thermotec window representative and nailed down our order. Finally. Phew. A couple of minor adjustments go out tomorrow morning, but other then that, we've made our decisions.

I'm finding it a little harder to take photographs that encompass the whole house from above as I've been doing up til now because the house is quickly rising up towards the sky, while my vantage point from the peak of the nearby garage is stationary and able to encompass less and less in the view. The last two photos above show the first floor deck in two parts. Maybe I'll figure out the photo stitch feature on our camera soon so I can do some wide angle views.