Once you’ve finished with the exterior
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16d nail between each stud. Be sure to drive a 16d nail close to each king stud. Drive plate nails into the rim joist or into a floor joist. Nails driven through the subfloor alone don’t have nearly as much holding power as those
through walls, its time to raise the exterior butt walls. Remember that vou want the butt walls’ double top plates to be about 3/ in. longer than the Lop plates (5’A in. for 2×6 walls) so that they will lap over the through walls’ top plates. This can make it difficult to
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raise the butt walls, though, because the doubletop plate sticks out at both ends.
There are a couple of tricks for making it easier to raise these and other butt walls.
One approach is to double-plate the entire butt wall except for a short section— say, 4 ft. or5 ft.—at each end. Cut these short pieces and tack them to the wall to keep them close at hand (sec the bottom photo on the facing page). Then nail them on after raising the wall. Alternatively, vou can leave off a section
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of the double top plate from one end of the walk then jockey the opposite end into position with a couple of helpers. With a little experience, you’ll learn these shortcuts.
Raise interior walls from the longest to the shortest
As you raise and position each wall, nail the jendstud of each intersecting butt wall flush with the comer or channel on the through kail. Use three Uxl nails: one 2 ft. up from the
bottom, one 2 ft. down from the top, and one in the center. After all the walls are raised, stop and admire your work. 1 ts like magic: As you stand in individual rooms, you can see the shape of the house.
In many areas of the country, a small room is often built to house the hot water heater and a furnace or forced-air heating unit (FAU). A platform must be built in this room so that the heating unit will have return air from below. The platform is often built 30 in. off the floor with a 20-in. by 20-in. opening in front, as shown in the illustration on p. 104. Check with your heating contractor for exact dimensions in your area.
Nailing the lapped double plate into the adjoining top plates ties the entire framed structure together. This important task, when done accurately, makes it easy to plumb and straighten the walls. II you are a gymnast, like
