Managing mess is crucial to a successful renovation. Torn-out plaster and drywall are nasty stuff to handle and worse to breathe. The dust gets everywhere, and the volume of debris is prodigious. If you’re sloppy as you renovate, you’ll pay later: Finish floors are particularly vulnerable to grit that isn’t swept up and to nails […]
Рубрика: RENOVATION 3
GETTING READY FOR DEMOLITION
Living in a house that’s being torn apart and renovated isn’t fun, and it can be murder on marriages. But you can minimize the stress caused by disruption, noise, confusion, and dirt. If you don’t need to be around the house during the demolition, don’t be; that’s a good time to take a vacation. If […]
ALTERNATIVE FRAMING METHODS
In renovation, it’s not always possible to assemble a wall on the deck and tilt it up. There may not be enough room, shoring may be in the way, or sloping floors may frustrate attempts to cut studs accurately in advance. In those cases, it may be easier to build the wall in place, piece […]
. PLUMBING AND SECURING THE WALL
Once the wall is up, nail the bottom of the brace so the wall will stay upright as you fine-tune its position. Use a sledgehammer to tap the sole plate till it aligns with your chalkline on the floor. As you adjust, continuously check for plumb, using a 6-ft. level. If you unnail the brace […]
HEADERS
Every opening in a wall must have a header over it. Headers must be able to carry a cumulative load and transfer it downward without warping, flexing, or pulling away from the sides of the opening. Thus headers must be sized according to the loads they carry and the distances they span. Your local building […]
Exploring Your Options
To assess the framing hidden behind finish surfaces, go where it’s exposed: the basement and the attic. Joists often run in the same direction from floor to floor. Generally, a girder (also called a carrying timber or beam) runs the length of the house, with joists perpendicular to it. Some houses will have framed cripple […]
Carpentry
This chapter od, the king of building materials. Built amid virgin forests, the first wood houses were fashioned from massive ax-hewn timbers that took half a neighborhood to raise. Because iron was scarce, those great post-and-beam frames were joined without nails. Instead, they were fitted tightly and then fastened with whittled wooden pegs. The technology […]
SLOPING AND PLACING GUTTERS
Ideally, gutters should slope down toward downspouts 1 in. per 16 ft., but this is not always possible. For starters, this may not look good: Next to a level fascia board, the steeper the slope of the gutter, the more it looks out of whack. As long as there is a slight pitch—say, І2 in. […]
Gutter Hangers
Gutter sections need to be supported by hang ers at least every 32 in.; closer if there’s a heavy snow or ice load. The many variations can be grouped into two general types: roof mounted, which employ a strap nailed to roof sheathing, and fascia mounted, which screw or nail directly to fascia boards or […]
Rain Gutters
Gutters direct water away from the house, preventing water from collecting next to the foundation and thereby possibly undermining it. The two most common gutter profiles are half-round and K-style, in which the gutter has a squared-off back and an ogee front. For appearance’s sake, try to match the profile of new gutters to old. […]