More floor framing

(This post was written yesterday, but Blogger/Picassa were having problems and prevented me from posting it last evening.)

Although the weather has been hot and humid, we keep working. And, we’re making progress.

On Wednesday, Jon had to leave early because he was needed at home. I had to run an errand into town which took longer than it was supposed to. After I returned, my dad offered to help me work on the house. We worked a little before lunch and then another couple of hours after lunch and accomplished a fair bit.

We continued framing the floor on the west side of the house, working out from the root cellar. I had to figure how to go about it since I only had enough 2x8s to use as floor joists for one section. There are three sections from framing for the floor above the root cellar toward the front of the house: the mudroom, porch, and the summer kitchen.

I decided to use the 2x8s for the floor joists of the summer kitchen (that’s what was left of the 2x dimensional lumber I bought at the beginning of the week). They were mostly 10’ long boards, and the span is approximately 9 feet. So, these worked well. They wouldn’t work in the mudroom section since the span there is 11 feet.

We started by putting beams from the mudroom foundation wall to the piers on this end of the house (two piers). Because of how the floor will be framed, I chose to use 6x8 beams between the piers. We ran a 6x8 beams from the first pier back to the foundation wall in order to ensure that the two longer beams I had would be long enough.

I designed the piers to be about 2 inches higher in elevation than the foundation wall. There is some variation to be handled with wood shims. However, when we laid the first beam from the corner of the mudroom foundation wall to the first pier, the level showed that it was level. The next beam between the two piers was low at the corner. Then, the 4x6 from the kitchen foundation to the pier showed the pier being high. This was confusing.

We checked things with a line level, but it just wasn’t accurate enough to determine how level the beams were. So, I used a straight cedar 2x4 I had with the four foot level on top. With this setup we were able to determine that the first pier was 1.75 inches higher than the foundation wall – more like it was supposed to be. So, I notched the bottoms of the beams, and amazingly, they came out level (the crown in the first beam accounts for most of the discrepancy that exists).

We worked the beams out to level before hanging floor joists for the summer kitchen. These went fairly quickly. They hung on the 2x10 box on the kitchen foundation wall on the inside and nailed into the 6x8 on the outside.

After framing this section, we hung two 6x8 beams from the house out to the outside edge. We’ll hang 2x6 floor joists out from these beams to the 2x10 on the edge of the floor above the root cellar, to the box on the mudroom foundation wall, and to the 6x8 at the edge of the summer kitchen floor framing (four sections of 2x6 floor joists all together). These 2x6 floor joists will only span 5.5 to 6 feet. So, they ought to be strong enough.

At this point, it was 5:00pm and we were at a good stopping point. Jon will probably be here to work tomorrow. We’ll continue with more floor framing then.

 

  

Root cellar: starting to block the walls

Another post on the root cellar? Well, that’s the part I’m working on until I get it far enough to work on the next thing.

The floor turned out nice. I took the plastic and tarp off of it Monday. The plastic kept moisture on the surface while it was curing. This was good since I don’t have a hose near the site I could’ve used to mist it. I’m pleased with how the floor turned out. It’s smooth enough to be easily swept.

Last week I ordered and paid for enough concrete blocks, mortar mix, surface bonding cement, and concrete mix to complete the root cellar and crawlspace perimeter (if I figured correctly). Yesterday afternoon the first load was delivered which included six cubes of blocks (90 blocks per cube) and most of the bags of mixes. The rest of my order is scheduled to be delivered next Monday.

Dad helped me stack five cubes on the root cellar floor after they were unloaded from the truck. That was 450 blocks – approximately 16,200 pounds worth that we moved. We were able to set up a ramp down which we slid the blocks one at a time into the root cellar.

Today, I began the root cellar walls. I’m dry-stacking the blocks. This methods involves setting the first course of blocks in mortar on the foundation, no mortar between blocks. Then, the blocks are stacked without mortar in succeeding courses. Once they are stacked, some of the cores are filled with concrete and rebar for additional strength, after which both surfaces of the walls are coated with surface bonding cement. This makes a strong, durable wall. It’s also a little easier for the novice builder who isn’t a mason.

By the time I finished this evening, I had the first course set. It is important for this course to be level – that’s the main reason for the mortar, actually. After I double-checked my measurements, I laid out the blocks for the first course. I checked for square and that everything lined up. Then, I began to move the blocks again, mix mortar, and set them, checking and double-checking for level in every direction. Tomorrow, if the weather is nice enough, I’ll begin dry stacking blocks on top of the first course. In all there will be ten courses. I may mortar after the fifth course just to ensure things are level, but I’ll hold off on that if it’s not necessary.

 

Squaring and leveling

After raising the frame on Labor Day weekend, the first thing to do was to make sure the frame was square and level. In order to square it, I had to move one bent forward a few inches, another bent toward the back an inch or two, and move the center line of the house toward the west a couple of inches. If the frame had been set on a sill with mortises to accept tenons on the bottom of the posts, there wouldn't be a need to square up the frame. Having the bottoms of the posts sitting on concrete piers allowed for some things to be out of square depending on how close to the center they each stood on the piers.

The first thing to do was to insert pieces of aluminum under each post to act as a moisture barrier. I don't want moisture to wick up the piers and into the posts. Rot wouldn't be a good thing. I had plenty of aluminum from the siding off of an old mobile home that I deconstructed this spring. I used a hydraulic jack to lift each post just enough to slide the pieces of aluminum underneath.

The aluminum moisture barrier helped to provide a smoother surface under the posts for moving them into square. Mark the intern and I attached a come-along from the bottom of a post to the next concrete pier. Applying some pressure with it allowed a few judicious knocks with the 'commander' (aka a beetle -- a large mallet) to adjust the intended posts toward square.

After squaring the frame, we checked the level. I rigged a water level using a hose and some clear rubber tubing at the ends. However, it didn't want to work for some reason. The water in the level wouldn't stabilize. Something was going on. So, we used a line level on a taught string. This revealed two posts that were about 1/2" higher than the other 10 (it was level between these 10 posts). Rather than block up 10 posts with hardwood wedges, we jacked the two high posts about and inch off of their piers, and I then used a chainsaw to shave off enough from the bottom of the posts to bring them into level. This worked great.

Once the frame was square and level, we were ready to move on to the next project: purlins and first-floor floor joists.