Light-Framed Wood Construction Methods For Building Residential Homes

Introduction

Wood light-frame construction is a popular method of building homes in North America. The construction can be broken up into four sections, foundation, floors, walls, and roof. Some advantages of the building method include, utilizing smaller members to make large components and the redundancy of the entire system. Building with wood also has its advantages because it is easy to work with, displays signs over loading and is a renewable resource.

Foundation

The foundation of a lightwood frame home is used to dissipate the loads from the building into the soil. The foundation is made up of two parts a footing and a wall. The footing is the weight bearing portion of the foundation. The wall or in some cases a pier extends from the footing to the first floor of the building.

Footings are typically comprised of poured in place concrete. In colder climates where frost heave is an issue, footings must be set deeper in the ground then the frost reaches. The purpose of the footing is to take the above weight load of the building and displace it on the soil. In softer soils, or where large weight loads occur, pilings may be driven into the ground under the footings.

The foundation walls are used to transport the loading of the first floor onto the footings. They can also form the walls of basements, if soil is excavated on one side. Typicallymade of poured in place concrete, prefabricated concrete, or masonry blocks all of which have high compression strength. In some drier climates or in old construction, the walls may be made up of treated wood or large stones.

Floors

In lightwood frame construction floors are built to carry the weight loads of occupants and walls. They are made up of two components, joists and sheathing. The joists are evenly spaced and are responsible for bearing most of the load. The sheathing fills in the spaces and distributes any weight placed on the floor.

The foundation walls hold up the first floor. In most cases it becomes inefficient to span the entire distance between walls so beams will be used in addition to the walls. Beams typically rest on notches in the foundation walls and have additional posts that connect to additional footings in the center of the building. On any second and higher floors, the wood frame walls, both interior and exterior, are used to hold them up. In some cases beams are also used for upper level floors that span large openings or when there are heavy load requirements.

Joists are spaced twelve or sixteen inches apart. They can be made up of either solid sawn lumber or engineered joists. Dimensional sawn lumber comes in 2x8, 2x10, and 2x12 sizes. The load will determine the necessary size they are required to carry and the distance they span. Engineered floor joists create a higher strength to weight ratio, can span longer distances and often create a straighter finished floor. In cases where a higher strength is necessary, by possible additional loads or openings in the floor, joist can be doubled or tripled to meet the requirements.

The joists are then sheeted with plywood, oriented strand board, or solid wood planks. This allows for a continuous floor, where walls, occupants, and other items can be placed anywhere. The sheeting must be able to displace any point loads onto the joists, while minimizing bending. All joints must be offset and have a spleen or tongue and groove to ensure strength is not compromised. In some cases were the final occupants wish to have very little bending of the sheeting between joists, a subfloor of additional sheeting, or a thin concrete layer may be used.

Walls

The above ground walls of a lightwood framed home are what make up the living space of the finished home. Typically eight feet in height however can also be taller where desired. The wall's structural supports are the framing members or wall studs. Exterior walls are also sheeted for additional shear strength. The entire wall can be built laying flat on the floor, tilted up, and then fastened into place. Walls may need temporary supports until the entire building is complete.

Wall studs that carry the majority of the loads are made up of 2 by 4 or 2 by 6 sized members. The later is used on exterior walls to allow for added insulation. The studs are evenly spaced every sixteen inches. They are also oriented to allow the maximum rigidity in the wall. One or two members lay flat at both the bottom and top of the wall. This again allows any loads to be distributed onto the floor below.

Although only applicable to exterior walls, they are sheeted on their outside face. This gives the wall some shear strength and prevents it from deforming from its original rectangular shape. The sheeting can be a variety of materials including, plywood, oriented strand board, exterior gypsum, and rigid foam. The type of sheeting required may depend on the building's final cladding.

Roof Systems

There are two types of roofs, nominally flat and sloped. Nominally flat roofs are built in a similar manner to floors, however have a small slope towards drains. Flat roofs must also be able to withstand heavy snow and water loads, as it does not shed them easily.

Sloped roofs are more common on light wood framing, and are built using trusses. From as structural perspective these roofs are more interesting. The purpose of the truss is to direct loads from the roof portion down to the walls. Through careful calculations all the elements can work together to maximize the strength of the truss. The trusses are usually spaced twenty-four inches, and are sheeted with a plywood product. Waterproofing elements such as shingles are then placed on top of the sheeting to shed water.

Advantages of Light- Frame Wood Construction

Light-frame wood construction is popular method of building homes across Canada. Sawn lumber, plywood and engineered products are readily available coast to coast. This makes this building method efficient and cost effective, when compared to other housing construction. Also due to the repetitiveness and simplicity of the method, architects and carpenters can use charts and guidelines to determine member sizes and requirements. This again is cost effective as engineers are not required on every home.

The actual elements that make up large homes are relatively small. Dimensional lumber and plywood products can all be stacked and transported by regular trucks. Materials can be moved around sites with all terrain forklifts, and if necessary by manual labour. This is favorable as large walls, and floors can be assembled on site, from smaller easy to handle elements.

Light-framed wood houses are very redundant systems. If an element is removed or compromised it is unlikely that a catastrophic failure will occur. For example walls are made up of several vertical studs. If a window opening was cut in without proper support overtop, it is unlikely that the entire wall will fail.

Advantages of Using Wood as a Building Material

Building with wood is quite simple. Handsaws or electric saws can efficiently cut members to length. Also fastening can be accomplished quickly with nails or screws. This allows the actual construction of lightwood frame houses to be completed without any expensive specialized equipment. This helps keep costs down, and allows the methods to be widely used.

Wood is a good material for buildings as it displays many signs well before failure. Deformation, excessive bending, cracking, and cracking noises will usually tell the occupants that there is a structural issue with the building. Although the building may originally be designed to carry the required loads, over time rot, decomposition, and termites may undermine the structure. Again the warning devices that come with wood are useful in the long term.

Of the many common construction methods, lightwood framing is the only one that utilizes renewable resources. When wood from properly managed forests is used, carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere. At the end of a buildings life, wood fibers can be recycled into new products or if placed in a landfill will decompose quickly as they are an organic product.

Conclusion

Wood light-framing is a method that has a long history of success. As products and technologies continue to advance, the building method will also adapt. In the future light-frame construction, with dynamic changes will continue to succeed.

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The Myths About Vapour Barriers

A vapour barrier (VB) is a material that offers a high resistance to the diffusion of water vapour. It is used to separate an environment which is at a high vapour pressure from an adjacent one at a lower vapour pressure.

For best results, it is important that the vapour barrier be continuous, but it

How do we prevent water vapour from migrating outside?

The main way is through vapour barriers. For many years, designers were taught that the VB was a major requirement for insulated walls in order to control the diffusion of water vapour into the colder reaches of these walls, where it could condense and stain the finished surfaces or, worse, initiate the deterioration of the affected materials. Eventually, the designers would use that in a continuous and airtight manner. It was always possible to achieve that. Current practices still use this.

When it became obvious to researchers in the 1960s that air leakage into the walls and roofs was a more important source of water migration, authorities began calling for a "continuous vapour barrier."

It was found to be close to impossible, considering the materials that were being used mostly polyethylene and other not-so-durable products. Still, vapour barriers need to be sealed so that there is no accumulation of water vapour near the walls.

What is the definition of a vapour barrier? Does not have to be perfectly continuous. The key factor is that it must be located on the warm side.

Unsealed laps or minor cuts do not affect the overall resistance to diffusion significantly. The vapour barrier must also be located on the warm side of the insulation or at least in a location in the wall near enough to the warm side to remain above the dew point temperature of the indoor air during cold weather.

The building code defines it as:

A material that has a water vapour permeance less than 60 ng/ (Pa/s/m2) when measured in accordance with ASTM E96, "Water Vapour Transmission of Materials", using the desiccant method (dry cup).

That plays an important role when selecting materials in the design of a wall assembly.

In a typical wall assembly the VB must be located on the warm side of the insulation. It can be located somewhere else depending on where you are in the country and what are your degree days. There are figures that you can look up for different cities and what building code is applicable. When you study these numbers they will be expressed in a ratio (0.3, 0.35, 0.4 etc) A ratio of say.3 means that the ratio of the outboard to the inboard of insulation of the vapour barrier can't exceed that. This means that you can't have more than 30% in the inboard side. This is usually not a problem as people usually just keep it on the inside. However there are several other materials that can act as vapour barriers.

For example, plywood is water permeance less than 60 ng/ (Pa/s/m2) and technically it acts as a VB. As such when introduced on the exterior of the building it will act as a vapour barrier a will trap moisture within the wall assembly which in turn will cause moisture problems. Because of this most building codes now require that plywood and OSD be installed with gaps at their joints to allow the moisture to escape to the exterior.

Continuity and durability is not as important with vapour barriers as it is with air barriers. Partly because a VB is usually is on the inside and protected from the elements and covered by another material such as gypsum board.

Now if you're wondering why most builders, designers and building departments require that vapour barriers be continuous and be properly sealed and caulked at all joints is because in most cases the vapour barrier is also acting as an air barrier. Because it is located on the warm side of the insulation it does have to be air permeable and as such can act as both an air barrier and a vapour barrier. This does not elevate the fact that another air barrier would be required on the outside of the building to prevent air and water from penetrating the wall assembly.

As you can see selecting proper materials to install on your home is not as simple as looking at the R-value per inch or the price of the product, but also how it will perform within the assembly. Make sure you perform the proper research or speak to an experienced building and design professional.

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E-Sign Your Construction Contracts

I've been asked, "Can I get my contracts E-signed -- send my contract to a client as an email attachment, get an electronic signature and then have the E-signed contract emailed back to me?"

The short answer is "Yes." And it makes good sense. If you draft contracts with your computer, it's easy to get E-signatures from clients. No printed contract required. No program to install on your computer. It's quick, costs nothing extra and is perfectly legal. If you're E-filing tax returns, you're already E-signing documents. If you haven't tried E-signing yet, you'll be surprised at how convenient it can be.

To Get Started E-signing

Search on the Web for "Free E-sign." You'll find a dozen or more vendors offering free or low-cost ways to E-sign contracts. I'll use Silanis E-signLive™ to explain how it works. There's no charge if you E-sign ten contracts or less per month.

Start with a contract in either PDF or RTF (MS Word) format on your computer. If you use Construction Contract Writer, that's easy. Then go to E-signLive. Enter your email address and name to create a new account. Assign a secure password. (Security is an important issue when E-signing.) Then click to create an E-sign Room. You'll need one E-sign Room for each contract. Give the room a name, such as "Jones Contract."

Now you're ready to upload the contract to be signed. Click "Add document" and then "Browse" to find the contract on your computer. Click to upload. When the upload is complete, click on the contract file name. You'll see the full document.

Now identify who is going to sign the contract. Click "Add signer" and enter the email address and name for each person who will be signing. Scroll down the contract to where a signature is needed. Click "Add Signature." Then drag and drop the signature block on the signature line. Do the same for each signature in the contract. When done, click "Send."

Each signer will receive an email notice that the contract is ready to E-sign. Each signer clicks a link in the email message to see the contract. Then click the yellow sticky note in the contract to add a signature and the date. When you and your clients have signed, all get an email notice and can print the contract. Simple.

A few points to note:

E-signing won't work for anyone who doesn't use email and the Web. You can create a "signature" with your mouse. But a written signature isn't required. A new E-sign customer has to create an account before E-signing the first time. Be sure to drop a signature block everywhere a signature is needed in the contract. Don't send a contract out to be signed until it's exactly the way you want it. Any attempt to alter a signed contract will invalidate the digital signatures.

Another important point. Consumers have to receive a disclosure notice and E-sign a consent form before E-signing their first contract. Both the notice and form can be delivered automatically with the first contract.

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How to Find the Right Drywall Company for Your Next Home Improvement Project

When you need to hire a drywall or framing contractor to install or repair drywall, take the time to find a pro who is right for the job. Learn what elements to look for so that you can be sure that the drywall work you get is exactly what you need.

Unless you're a total DIY home improvement whiz, you will probably want to hire a professional the next time you need to install or repair drywall. But how do you know which drywall companies are right for you? Find out how to find the right drywall pro for your next home project so that you can get the help you need without the hassle.

When it comes to choosing a drywall pro, the first thing you need to do is to determine exactly what the parameters of the job in question are, and then find a contractor who can handle those specific elements. If you need to actually construct a wall, then you need to find a contractor who does framing work as well as drywall installation. Framing refers to the wood or metal framework that forms the actual structure of the wall. The drywall is then installed on top of these framing studs to create the flat wall surface.

If you're working with an existing wall and you just need drywall installation or repair, then you should make sure that you find someone who does drywall priming as well. Drywall on its own is porous, which means that it will absorb wall paint unevenly unless it's primed first. It's much easier to have drywall primed when it's being installed or repaired so that the whole job is done in one fell swoop. When you're hiring a drywall pro, check ahead of time to make sure they do priming as well so you don't get stuck having to do it yourself or having to hire a second team.

The same holds true for jobs that are related to drywall, such as textured ceiling installation. Many drywall pros install textured ceilings, often called popcorn ceilings, but there are some who don't. If you're looking for ceiling work, don't just assume that every drywall contractor will be able to take on that job. Find out ahead of time exactly what services a drywall pro offers so you can make sure that you hire the right person for the whole task at hand.

When you're looking for a drywall expert, make sure that the person you hire can handle the specific parameters of the job that you have in mind. Whether you need someone who can handle painting drywall primer or someone who offers framing contractor services, putting everything on the table ahead of time will ensure that you get the right drywall contractor for your project.

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Is It Better to Buy a New Home, Build a New Home, or Renovate?

Homeowners looking to upgrade their homes have a few options. They could sell their home and buy a new one, have a contractor build one, or renovate their current dwelling. This article will discuss the pros and cons of each option.

In this unstable economy, selling a home could take months or years. If a homeowner is choosing the option of selling their current home and buying a new home already built, they would need to include a contingency of selling their home before they could proceed with the purchase of the new home.

Many builders won't or just can't wait for a contingency that could drag on for months or a year. As they're waiting, their bank is charging them interest on the construction loan to the tune of $2,000 or more per month. They need to sell quickly!

A homeowner could list their current home and sell it before they start looking, but they may not find the domicile they want after waiting for many months.

The second option, having a custom home built, has many advantages over the first. The homeowner sells their home and moves into a rented condo while their builder constructs their new home. They are paying interest during the construction period, but they'd be paying for that anyway when buying a new home. The interest paid by the builder is included in the sale price.

The time needed to build a custom home would be about 6-8 months, which is one disadvantage, but the homeowners would have a home exactly the way they wanted it.

The third option, renovating the current home has advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, you wouldn't need to go through the headache of listing and selling your home. And you would avoid the time and stress of finding a perfect fit in a new home. The new home inventory is still quite low.

Another advantage of renovating your current home is you remain in your neighborhood. This is a plus assuming you like your current neighborhood. Maybe your kids have established friendships and adapted to their local schools in your current location. Renovating your home would keep you in that favored neighborhood.

On the negative side, renovating a home can be a stressful experience. Depending on the extent of the remodel, your entire home could be ransacked and a mess for several months. Subcontractors and workers would be coming and going from 8 to 5 every week day.

If the remodel is large, some homeowners opt to move out for the few months of construction. This does add to the cost, but sometimes it's money well spent and can save your sanity and your marriage!

To summarize, I believe having a custom home built is the best option for these reasons:

It's the least stressful. It costs about the same as buying a pre-built home but you get exactly what you want in a home. You don't have to deal with the mess and inconvenience of a renovation. 4 Tips For Hiring The Best Home Builders   Garage With Apartment: What Are Its Benefits   Home Improvement: Ideas for Using a Sunroom   What Is Antimicrobial Cladding and What Can It Be Used for?   Getting The Most Out Of Conservatories   

Home Improvement Tips for an Environmentally Friendly Pre-Fabricated Steel Building

The first thing we look at is roofing. The best way to make this environmentally friendly is to add solar panels. Basically solar panels are put on your roof in the sun and will collect power without adding any fuel or replacing work out parts. These panels are very popular, modern, green, and used almost everywhere. You might also want to change your roof colour of your steel building, research indicates that roof colour and the type of material used can help to lower attic temperatures. If you decide to re-roof, consider lighter tiles such as white over the standard shingle roofs and this will reduce heat gain to your attic.

Another great idea is to replace all light bulbs in your building with compact fluorescent ones. Energy-smart bulbs use 70-75% less energy than the incandescent kind and last up to ten times longer! This is just a simple tip but can save you $59 dollars on energy costs over the life of the bulb, which can be anywhere from five to seven years. Also, installing motion detectors outside your home rather than leaving outdoor lighting on all night which will only waste energy, money and disturb wildlife.

One of the most important tips here is do not waste water. Always check for leaky faucets and get them fixed if you notice a leak as soon as possible. When doing laundry, try to use cold water as much as you can. Also set a good example for your children by teaching them to turn off water while they brush their teeth. Installing low flow showerheads will cut down on water usage and save energy costs.

When heating and cooling prefabricated steel buildings or your home, invest in a high-efficiency HVAC system that is Energy Star certified and install it in your home. This will reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted and will shave your utility bill. Look for a product with a higher SEER rating (Seasonal Energy Efficient Ratio). This means that the product meets strict government criteria necessary to be deemed "energy efficient." The standard is 13 SEER, but many heating and air conditioning products have a rating as high as 18 SEER. Also, cleaning out your air conditioner filters and replacing them regularly will help to reduce costs. If you are not in your home, adjust the thermostat to accommodate the changing temperatures outside.

Finally, another good tip is to install more fans in your home. Ceiling fans can help reduce your family's dependence on air condition during the hot summer months. In winter, they push heat down from the ceiling.

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