Library builder

Now it’s time to cut some of the parts that make up the wall, beginning with the window and door headers and the rough sills. Recall from Chapter 3 that headers are needed at window and door openings to transfer the load of the building around these elements to the foundation. This wasn’t always done […]

Once the exterior wall lines are accu­rately in place, you can measure off them to get the location of interior walls. Just keep an eye on the plans to get the dimensions right. Laying out the long interior walls next makes it easier to locate and mark all the short, 2×4 walls that make up […]

The first house I helped build was in 1948, on the high plains of western Nebraska. It was a precut house, shipped by rail and brought to the job site on a large wagon pulled by a team of horses. Every piece of wood—wall plates, studs, headers, cripple studs, sills, braces, and joists—was wrapped and […]

A nail buggy is a good tool when you have to nail subfloor by hand. Better to nail sitting on your bot­tom than crawling on your knees. Cut a 20-in. circle or square from 3A-in. plywood. Buy three or four good wheels at least 2 in. in diameter and screw them to the bottom of […]

Extra joists are needed under parallel walls (walls that aren’t perpendicular to the floor joists) to carry the added weight that gets transferred down through these walls. Move the extra joists away from the center of eachparallel wall about 3 in. to allow room for pipes and conduit to be run up into the walls […]

support has been determined by tests and incorporated into building codes. All you need to do is check your plans to see what type and size of joists you’ll use. Joist size is usually determined by the distance they have to span. So the larger the span, the larger the joist. When you are joisting […]

Carpenters need to know how to drive a nail at an angle. This technique is called toenailing and is often used to join pieces of wood that meet at a right angle. When toenailing, you have to be careful not to split the wood, which is easy to do when you’re nailing so close to […]

It’s common in many regions to build houses directly on a concrete slab. When this is the case, wall building can begin once the sill plates are down. Other builders use a system of posts and girders to support joists so that a floor can be nailed to them. Still others use manufac­tured joists (called […]

Just as you must follow rules when play­ing sports, there are rules—or building codes—to follow when building a house. Most codes require that every sill plate have a bolt about 1 ft. from each end and every 4 ft to б ft. between to connect the house frame securely to the foundation. So the edges […]

When a carpenter first arrives at the job site, the foundation is often poured and ready for sill plates, joists, and floor sheathing. Just make sure you’re building on the right foundation. I once started building on the wrong lot in a tract of houses. My crew was well under way when the owner of […]