Wall Sheathing Video

Posted on by Tim Carter

Hello, I'm Tim Carter from AsktheBuilder.com and today I want to talk a little bit about wall sheathing. Wall sheathing is a material that is nailed to the exterior studs on a home. On this particular home, there are large green sheets of this material.

This is a unique material. It is a plastic coated, oriented strand board. In this small sample, you can see the various layers. This one is about a half inch thick and on the interior side it just looks like regular OSB board. The advantage of using the plastic coated material is that it is pretty much weather resistant. If water should get behind the brick or siding of the home, this plastic coating will do a good job of making sure that the OSB doesn't rot.

Now another really important aspect of the wall sheathing is also strengthens the house so that the house doesn't fall over. As crazy as it sounds, if you just built a 2x4 or 2x6 wall, you could go to the top of it and just push it over. Collapsing it sideways. But when you nail this OSB sheathing every 6 or 9 inches on center along each of the wall studs, it makes the wall very rigid. It would almost be impossible to push it over.

Wall sheathing is engineered wood. It is a very good product. Make sure you use it on your home. For historical purposes, back in the late 1800's (not 1900's as I mistaken said in the video), they used tongue and groove 1x6s were used for exterior wall sheathing. That was following by plywood and now we are using oriented strand board.

Sill Plate Video

Posted on by Tim Carter

Hello, I'm Tim Carter from AsktheBuilder.com. Today I want to talk about foundation sill plates. This is the first piece of lumber that is typically put on a masonry foundation. Here you can see it resting on top of the foundation wall.

The sill plate goes all around the foundation. And more importantly, this particular foundation changes height. Where the foundation wall goes down from one height to the other, there is a vertical sill plate. This keeps regular lumber away from the masonry. The sill plates are treated lumber that have chemicals in it to resist termite attacks.

Between the foundation and the sill plate, there is a foam layer. That foam is very important. You want to put that foam between the wood sill plate and the masonry foundation, both vertically and horizontally, along the whole foundation. This foam layer helps seal any air from leaking in between the wood and concrete. No matter how hard they try, the foundation contractors can't always get that foundation concrete perfectly smooth. Or the wood might even have a little warp in it.

But the point is, you need to seal that air to help reduce your energy usage. Seal that area to reduce drafts into your home. Sill plates are very important and need to be treated lumber.

House Framing Techniques Part 1 Video

Posted on by Tim Carter

Hello, I'm Tim Carter from AsktheBuilder.com and I want to show you the way houses should be framed. It's called stacked framing. Look at this.

In this video, you can see that the roof rafters are placed, or stacked, right on top of the wall studs. They are sitting directly on top of them. If you follow the wall studs down, you will see nail heads that line up with the floor joists. These floor joists are directly below the wall studs.

But it gets even better. Go further down in the house and you come to the top plates. And stacked directly under the floor joists are the studs for the next wall down.

The point is this. You want to make the loads all the way from the roof, all the way down the structure stack on top of one another until they get down to the foundation. That is the proper way to do framing. You don't want the floor joists or roof rafters offset off the wall studs. If they aren't stacked, it makes the harder on the plumbers, heaters, electricians, etc. and structurally it isn't as solid.

Diagonal Bracing Video

Posted on by Tim Carter

Hello, I'm Tim Carter from AsktheBuilder.com and I want to show you a couple of diagonal braces. These are very important and help to keep a structure square, so it doesn't collapse as you are building the home. Because there is a lot of weight and some crazy things can happen on windy days. Look at this.

This is a flat 2x4 that is nailed on the underside of the common roof rafters. It goes up at an angle all the way to the ridge beam. When it is nailed into each individual roof rafter, it helps keep those roof rafters nice and square.

Now look at this wall. This big wall is carrying a lot of the weight from the roof rafters. It is important that this wall doesn't collapse. This wall uses a piece of metal bracing that runs all the way from the bottom plate to the top plate. It is also nailed at each wall stud. This bracing is shaped like a letter "T" which makes it very strong. The way is it installed is the contractor strikes a chalk line from the two attachment points. Then where the line crosses a stud, the contractor will cut out notch for the leg of the "T" to fit flush with the stud.

Bracing - very, very important. Don't forget it on your home construction and don't let your builder do it without bracing where needed.

Precast Concrete Deck Pier Video

Posted on by Tim Carter

Precast Concrete Deck Pier

Hello, I'm Tim Carter from AsktheBuilder.com. I want to show you a concrete deck or porch pier. See the little concrete pad sticking up from the ground? That is the concrete deck pier with a treated-lumber deck post resting on to of it in a special support bracket.

EB015 Cleaning & Sealing Deck eBook CoverBut look at this. You won't believe this. Most of that deck pier is hidden under ground. This is the actual deck pier! The only part that sticks above ground is the top 1 or 2 inches. This precast concrete deck pier is nearly 5 feet tall. The reason that it is 5 feet tall is because in New Hampshire the frost level is 4 feet down. So you have to make sure that the bottom of the pier is at least 4 feet down. This will keep the frost from pushing it up out of the ground.

Here is an interesting thing about these precast concrete piers, there are pros and cons. The actual pier in 2010 dollars only costs a little over $100 and there is a $30 delivery charge. If you try to price out what you would spend in concrete and labor to make your own, you would be shocked if you could do it for that amount of money.

Now the only problem is that this particular precast pier weights about 2,000 pounds. Therefore you would need a crane or a backhoe to install them. That is the offset to the precast concrete piers. But if you have these pieces of equipment already on the jobsite, consider using one of these precast concrete deck piers.

Concrete Footer Part 3 Video

Posted on by Tim Carter

Concrete Footer Part 3

Hello, I'm Tim Carter from AsktheBuilder.com and I'm down in the excavation the day after the foundation footer was poured. I want to show it to you. It's really pretty cool. Look at this.

Here is the concrete that has hardened up overnight. But notice the groove in the center of the footer? The groove is called a keyway. What the keyway does is forms a way to mechanically interlock the foundation walls, that sit on top of the footer, to the footer. This makes it harder for the foundation walls to shift sideways off the footer when the weight of the backfill soil is placed against the foundation.

If you recall, the footer had to go up over some solid bedrock. Here you can see the form for making the vertical step in the footer to get to the higher elevation. You can see how they made the forms to contain the concrete at the step. At the other end of the footer rise, there is another step form. You can see some concrete that oozed out the side where they didn't put in a form board. This would have saved some concrete, but it is not the end of the world.

This is what a concrete foundation footer looks like the day after pouring. The contractor will come back today or the next day and strip off the footer forms. They will then start setting the panels for the foundation walls. And I will be back to show you that step.

Starts in Concrete Footer Part 1.

Click here for Part 2.

Concrete Footer Part 2 Video

Posted on by Tim Carter

Concrete Footer Part 2

Hello, I'm Tim Carter from AsktheBuilder.com. I have some exciting things to show you today. We're here at the job site and the concrete truck is here and we are getting ready to pour the concrete foundation footer. Check this out.

The workman, down in the hole, had set up a bunch of wood forms and it is filled with wet concrete. He is smoothing it off. The forms are level and he is giving the footer a nice finish even with the tops of the forms.

The truck is getting ready to pour concrete in another section of the footer. Watch how this is done. You can see if you have good access with the truck, you can have the truck do most of the work. You can see the concrete flowing down the chute. Notice the consistency of the concrete. It flows right into the footer forms. The worker just guides the concrete around the rebars. You will recall that the rebars give the footer concrete a lot of tensile strength. The driver is helping by backing up and getting the concrete in the right spots. By directing the chute right to left and adjusting the concrete flow, he can provide just the right amount of concrete into the footer. Plus the worker isn't overwhelmed with too much concrete.

That is how you pour a concrete footer or a foundation footer for a home.

Continued in Concrete Footer Part 3. Click here for Part 1.

Concrete Footer Part 1 Video

Posted on by Tim Carter

Concrete Footer Part 1

Hello, I'm Tim Carter from AsktheBuilder.com. I'm here in New Hampshire on the western shore of Lake Winnisquam at a construction site. They are getting ready to build a garage for a residential home. And I am not in the hole and have something very interesting to show you that most people don't get to see because it happens so quickly.

What happened is yesterday they dug the hole in order to pour the footers. What we are seeing are the forms where the footer will be poured. First, what's a footer? The footer is the first thing that is generally constructed on a house build. It is the thing holds the foundation and spreads the weight of the entire structure over a larger area of the soil surface. This creates a wider footprint.

Image if you poured a foundation directly on the soil, if the soil got wet or the structure was very heavy, the foundation could cut through the soil like a knife blade goes through butter. But image if you turn the knife blade on its side and try to push it through the butter, you will find it will be very, very hard to get through the butter. That is what a foundation footer does.

Another thing a foundation footer does is provides a nice level surface so that the foundation forms can be placed with relative ease.

Let me show you two other things that are important with a footer. Down inside the footer forms are steel rods. These are 1/2" rebar. There are two rods that are suspended in the air. This allows the concrete to completely flow around the rebars. In addition, these rods go continuously around the footer. These steel rods give the concrete tremendous tensile strength so if the footer were to crack or try to separate, it would have to try and rip apart the steel bars. You can image how hard that is.

Look at this. The footer in the back corner has to go up to get over a section of solid rock. The footer had to jump up over the solid rock areas. Extra rods have been drilled into the rock so that the footer won't slide off the bedrock. Once the footer forms are past the bedrock, it drops back down to the original height.

So that is a concrete footer and what they look like before the concrete trucks show up. The footer is what supports the weight of your home. It is very important that these are installation correctly. The soil under the footer must be compacted completely and has past the soil inspection by the building officials. Make sure that happens on your job.

Continued in Concrete Footer Part 2.

This video series on Concrete Footers was introduced in the June 12, 2015 AsktheBuilder Newsletter.

Bull Float Video

Posted on by Tim Carter

Bull Float

Hello, I'm Tim Carter from AsktheBuilder.com. I want to show you how they use a bull float to float a concrete slab. Watch this. The operator lifts the float slightly on the return pull and moves it back and forth. What the bull float is doing is helping to push some of the bigger aggregate down that is close to the top of the concrete a little bit down inside the slab.

In addition, the bull float is giving a smoother surface to the slab. So when they go to trowel the concrete, it is a lot easier to get a nice smooth finish on it.

This bull float has a nice long handle on it to reach all the way across the slab. The operator lifts up on the handle and turns it slightly and pulls it back, creating that nice smooth surface without standing on the slab.

All that is needed is a nice gentle touch to float it across the concrete. The concrete is way too wet to stand on, so the bull float allows the surface to be worked without being on the concrete slab. The vibration from the operator helps drive those bigger rocks down into the concrete. You want just some sand and Portland cement to be in the upper 1/4" of the surface.

That's how a bull float works. You will need one when pouring your concrete slab.