The Week in Review

The last few days have been all about continuing building the first floor walls. We've honed the process down to a routine and they happen pretty quickly. The walls weigh a lot by the time they are ready to go up; thanks to Joe's wall jacks the two of us are able to winch the walls up with only a rhythmic work song and some even cranking. Because the plywood runs past the end of the framing to cover the end of the previous wall, we need to build each successive wall out about a foot laterally from its final placement. This means we have to move the wall along the edge of the floor deck to get it in place.

To achieve this we are using some 1" wooden dowels that we place periodically under the wall with the assistance of a hefty crow bar. The elevated wall gets the pressure off the rubber sill gasket and allows us to roll the wall into place.

Another day, another wall (or two)

We finished off the north facing wall of the mudroom this morning and then built the little jog that faces east. More of the same: cut list, cut, arrange, put together partially, check the dimensions, fix the anchor strap, square it up, attach the rubber sill gasket, chalk the lines, lay down adhesive at the perimeters, lay down the the ply and nail it, cut out the openings with a router, clean it all up, lay down the seam tape, roll the seams, cut and attach the battens, move the lifting masts into place, attach them, and then, finally, crank the wall up like lifting a sail.

At this point, the wall is up, but then there's moving it if needed, bracing, removing the lifting masts, adding adhesive where the walls meet, check for vertical and then, finally nail it.

It takes a while, but once its up its ready for siding, so we're doing lots of "prep" for the finish stage now, so the time invested is well worth it. The more we can do while the walls are laying down, the more effiecient we can be.

The mornings are chilly, but its hot during the day.

Here's some pictures:





More walls tomorrow.

One Wall to Rule Them All

This is the framing plan that shows what pieces go where, and what size.

Here's the wall being framed. If you look you can see the arrangement of studs that match the drawing in the photo above.

Here's the wall with the zip system sheathing installed and the seams taped (the black lines).

Joe is attaching furring strips every 1 foot on center. This gives the exterior a sort of pinstripe look.

This is the wall standing up. Its effortless with the wall jacks.

Today Joe and I spent a lot of the day working out our wall building system sequence and procedure. Typically, building a wall is pretty straightforward; you lay out the framing, square it up, sheath it in plywood and stand it up.

Our process is similar, but we are using a sheathing called Zip system and the primary thing about it that it has the vapor barrier built into it. Most folks have seen houses being built that at some point are wrapped in Tyvec or Typar or some other similar product. We don't need to do this because the wrap is already a part of the plywood. All we need to do is tape the joints between the plywood and its good to go.

After framing the wall, we attach the rubber sill gasket to the bottom of the wall, attach the wall it's self to the floor with some thin metal strap to keep it from sliding when we go to lift it, caulk our perimeter openings against air infiltration, and then sheath the wall with the Zip system plywood.

After the sheathing and taping happens, we strap the wall with 1/2" furring strips running vertically every 12" on center to create a rainscreen, which is an air space behind the clapboard siding that will be installed in a few weeks. The strips allow air circulation which keeps moisture from gathering behind the clapboards, which in turn lets the painted surface remain intact while the boards stay dry and last longer. Before attaching the strips, we need to layout where all the trim will go in order to know where attachement points are needed.

Once the furring strips are in place, we are ready to raise the wall into
place. Thanks to Joe's thoughtfulness, we are equiped with wall jacks which make raising the walls a matter of cranking a couple of wiches. The wall jacks are essentially masts that have a steel cable runing up and over them with a hook on one end and the winch on the other.

It took us a while to get ourselves to the standing wall, but that's okay because we were basically doing a test run for the rest of the walls, which we'll be continuing on throughout the week.