4230 Raleigh Street Construction Update – Framing is underway
Tuesday, 20 January 2009 by Dave
We are finally coming out of the ground with 4230 Raleigh Street. Framing has come along quickly and should be finished up later this week.
Lumber is on site and the crew are getting started.
The steel beam is in place and the basement slab is cured.
Below is a close up showing the brick ledge as well as the sill plate connection to the foundation wall. Theinsulating foam between the wood and concrete provides a thermal break as well as a means to keep moisture from wicking from the concrete walls to the wood framing above.
Out back the garage walls have been framed and will be sheathed and erected after the main structure is closed in.
The framing process goes quickly. The framers first hang the joists for the floor. Then the OSB decking goes on. From there the crew will assemble the walls, sheath them, and tilt them up one at a time.
Below is a wall about to be sheathed.
Once the walls are erected, the crew adds temporary diagonal bracing to shore the walls until the joists for the floor above can be installed.
Our basement seems huge now that it is closed in. I’m standing in the back half looking towards the front of the house. We will be finishing the front half and leaving the back half unfinished for storage.
In the photo below you can see the finger jointed studs and their make up of various smaller sections of lumber. We have used 2×6 finger jointed studs for our exterior framing as well as 2×4 finger jointed studs for our interior framing. The process of finger jointing and gluing the smaller sections provides straighter lumber and allows for much less waste in the manufacturing of the studs. The exterior walls are 2×6 construction to allow for more insulation within the wall assembly.
Here’s a photo of the kitchen area.
And looking from the kitchen into the living area. The whole first floor seemed a bit off without the second floor joists in place.
Jenn is happy to be seeing some progress after what seems like months of waiting. Not bad for one day’s worth of work by a crew of four people.
The next day we came back and the crew was cranking out the second floor. Everything seemed to feel larger on the first floor now that the joists were in place above.
Up on the second floor the crew does their thing. You can see Mt. Evans from here. The weather has been as good as we could have hoped for at this stage. It should hold out long enough to get the trusses on later this week and keep any moisture out of the home during construction.
Repeating the process of framing for the second floor exterior walls.
Jenn surveying things and enjoying the 65 degree weather.
We’re starting to take shape from the street.
A view from the garage looking back to the rear of the home. We’re really happy with the size of the yard we’ll have to work with on this project. It will be a welcome change from the cramped and unprivate spaces typically found in the duplexes being built in the surrounding blocks.
Trusses are on their way tommorrow. Things are moving along and we should be installing windows within the next week or so.
No. 1 — January 22nd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
I’ve never seen that tilt-up method in wood construction; is it used frequently?
It reminds me of a book I just read for a class: Refabricating Architecture. The authors argue for much more of this type of prefabricating in controlled environments. They envision a future where people “customize” houses in the company of an architect (like a Dell computer) then have the pieces shipped out for assembly by a contractor. It seems a little inhuman but has some potential, I’d say.
No. 2 — January 22nd, 2009 at 6:09 pm
For stick framed construction it is the standard route for framing. It’s actually amazing how fast 4 people can get things up. I’ll get another update on here in the next few days. They have the roof trusses on and are framing the front porch today.