Some interior walls framed

Last week I sketched out a wiring plan for our house on a copy of the floor plan I printed out. We aren’t concerned about inspections since our electricity will be completely off-grid, powered by our solar electric system. Not that inspections are a horrible thing, mind you, it’s just that I don’t feel the need to conform to unnecessary regulation and interference. I’ll be doing the wiring myself and will assure that it’s safe, of course.

With the wiring plan laid out, I calculated the number of electrical boxes, outlets, and switches we’ll need and purchased those late in the week. Early this week, I bought some 2x4s for framing interior walls. I also bought some 2x12s for building stairs.

I refigured my stair design and began laying it out on the floor in the house. In order to optimally use the space in the house, we’ve planned the closet in the master bedroom to be underneath the stairs. The stairs will rise 12 steps to a landing where they will turn to the left and continue up four more steps to the second floor. The main part of the closet is to be under the landing. It’s high enough that I won’t bump my head.

With my plans refigured and physically sketched out on the floor, I started framing some interior walls. The first wall I tackled is the one between the master bedroom and the living room. With a couple of hours before chore time yesterday afternoon, I designed the wall, drew it out on paper, figured the lengths of 2x4 I needed, cut the 2x4s to the specified lengths, and nailed it all together.

Having gotten the 2x4s from the local salvage guy, they were in various lengths. I had three 20 footers, several 16 footers, 14 footers, 12 footers, 10 footers, and some 8 footers. With a list of the specific lengths I needed for the wall, I was able to figure out the best way to use the material for the least amount of waste. I don’t like wasting material.

Once the wall was assembled on the floor, I stood it up into place. The top of this particular wall had to fit between two of the 4x6 floor joists which necessitated putting the top of the wall in place first. Once I had the top close to where it needed to be, I was able to drive the bottom into place. After getting it plumb, I nailed the wall into place.

This morning, I started on the other interior wall of the master bedroom. Anne and I discussed the location of the doors for the closet and the bathroom which are to be on this wall. Once we had these finalized, I could layout the wall and put it together. Perhaps the most challenging thing about this wall was the two angle braces of the timber frame that it had to fit against, although it really wasn’t a problem.

This afternoon I framed a couple of short walls for the closet. These walls are necessary to support the landing for the stairs. I also framed the stair landing and put it in place.  This will make it possible to begin framing the stairs soon. There are a few other walls in the stair area that also need to be framed. They’ll create the other bathroom, enclose the space under the stairs, and support some additional floor upstairs at the top of the stairs.

I mentioned in a previous post that I intended to cut a door in the pantry floor to allow access to the crawl space from inside the house. Since I wanted to put a brace under a couple of floor joists in the area under the bathrooms (the floor wasn’t quite level in this area because of variation in the 4x6 floor joists in the timber frame), I decided it was a good time to cut the access. The alternative would’ve involved getting muddy to go through the other access door in the block wall.

I’m quite pleased with the door I cut in the floor. I think it will work quite well. There is enough space between the floor joists for accessing the crawl space easily. I’ll make a couple of steps down into the crawl space later on.

First floor subfloor

Last week I ordered 48 sheets of Advantech sheeting for the first floor subfloor. I’ve tried to get a good deal on material for the subfloor, but the guy I’ve been buying lumber from hasn’t had any Advantech for a while. He offered to get what I needed from his supplier at his cost which ended up being about $2.50 per sheet less than what I would pay elsewhere.

I picked up the material on Sunday so that Jon, Dad, and I would be able to start putting down the subfloor on the main level of the house yesterday. I spent a couple of hours getting things ready Sunday afternoon, moving things out of the house and smoothing out the ground under the house – I needed to put plastic in the crawl space.

So, on Monday morning, we began by caulking gaps along the sill plate and boxing on the foundation walls, a job that was partially done last week. When we ran out of caulk (we were most of the way around, and I bought more caulk at lunch time so we could finish the job), we started putting plastic on the ground in the crawl space. I bought some 6 mil black plastic on Sunday for this purpose.

The plastic comes in a 20 foot width. So, we rolled out enough to go from the front to the back of the crawlspace with a little to curve up onto the wall. We had to cut it to get it around the piers the timber frame sits on. We securely taped it around each pier. It took two widths to cover the main part under the house. We taped the seam together in the middle where the two pieces met.

After putting plastic down under the kitchen and under the mudroom, we began hanging radiant barrier insulation along the crawl space walls. This is a reflective material with bubble wrap in the middle. The idea is to hang it from the top of the crawl space wall so that it hangs down and curves out onto the plastic. This material’s insulation value is not diminished if it gets wet (I don’t want it to get wet, of course) unlike fiberglass insulation. It should help to keep the crawl space temperature moderated and allow us to capitalize on the thermal mass of the earth below the house. If we insulated under the floor, this wouldn’t be possible.

I learned of this method of insulating a crawl space from an insulation contractor in the St. Louis area on a forum a few years ago when researching what to do for our house. He claimed that his experience is that the temperature in the crawl space is maintained within 10 degrees of the temperature inside the house.

Once we insulated the areas that were already caulked, we began putting down Advantech sheets for the subfloor. We had to cut around timber frame posts and modify lengths because I hadn’t laid out the floor joists in the frame as I should have. However, the process when quite well. By the end of the day, we had finished the floor in the timber frame and also the kitchen area.

We’ll put the floor down over the root cellar and in the mudroom area on Wednesday. We also have to put floor down on the straw bale wall toe-up all the way around. There’s also one section of porch floor in what will be the summer kitchen that needs to be put down. We should be able to finish all that on Wednesday and start putting in window and door bucks, too.