Building a stick frame house in the woods in 90 days

   / Building a stick frame house in the woods in 90 days #241  
It's hard to believe this all started with somebody saying he should put in a floor drain in the garage. I agree with MossflowerWoods lets get back to the build.
 
   / Building a stick frame house in the woods in 90 days #242  
Pete,
Have you thought about how the gravel under the garage slab will be compacted to prevent significant settling? Of particular note is the depth of the gravel at the area where the garage meets the house? I had this same issue at my house. We did not do it correctly and I may pay for it eventually.

View attachment 304785

Obed

I used 3/4 clear stone 104_0484.jpgand my set up was similar to that. I had about 5-6' of it dumped along house walls in the garage and just compacted it with a walk behind plate compactor. The garage floor itself had about 2-3' or so of the same stuff.105_0548.jpg The floor has been fine for 8 years.

I worked with some excavators that dug holes for 2000 Ton punch presses and had holes 25' deep. They had to fill the perimeter of those big holes around the concrete foundation that full depth and they used that same crushed stone. It was about 2' thick around and all the way up to the concrete floor. Our company engineer made them compact it every couple feet, but he said hardly anyone compacts that because it doesn't compress. I compacted my garage just to be sure, but I don't think I would have had to because it hardly settled out at all.

The nice thing about clear stone, if you decide to put a drain in later, just drill a hole in the floor and let it drain through the gravel.:cool2:
 
   / Building a stick frame house in the woods in 90 days #243  
I used 3/4 clear stone View attachment 304806and my set up was similar to that. I had about 5-6' of it dumped along house walls in the garage and just compacted it with a walk behind plate compactor. The garage floor itself had about 2-3' or so of the same stuff.View attachment 304804 The floor has been fine for 8 years.

I worked with some excavators that dug holes for 2000 Ton punch presses and had holes 25' deep. They had to fill the perimeter of those big holes around the concrete foundation that full depth and they used that same crushed stone. It was about 2' thick around and all the way up to the concrete floor. Our company engineer made them compact it every couple feet, but he said hardly anyone compacts that because it doesn't compress. I compacted my garage just to be sure, but I don't think I would have had to because it hardly settled out at all.

The nice thing about clear stone, if you decide to put a drain in later, just drill a hole in the floor and let it drain through the gravel.:cool2:

There is a Builders Guidline here Superior Walls® Builder Guideline Booklet - Simply Superior™
I haven't read it all yet but it does cover the overdig in an attached garage situation.
The first few pages cover most of the questions that have been brought up here.

SW places all responsibility for any bad building practices and warranty on the franchisee.
If you Google "Problems with superior walls" you will see that most are related to the installation
rather than the design of the panels.
 
   / Building a stick frame house in the woods in 90 days #244  
FWIW, I had to put a good bit of gravel under my 2 car garage slab. No compaction, but I did use rebar in the concrete. I have a hairline crack from not putting in a control joint, don't know why the finisher didn't put one in, and I didn't think to ask.
I love the construction pics.
 
   / Building a stick frame house in the woods in 90 days
  • Thread Starter
#245  
Day 32

Will you sawcut the control joints, or were they tooled in after you took the pictures? I sure hope you went with sawcut control joints.
Indeed! They also put some sort of sealant on, which I thought was odd. I wasn't there all day, but this is what it looked like when I popped by after work. Yes, those are water drops from the rain/sleet/ice we had today.

It will be very interesting to see what it looks like once it all dries up.

day32-1.jpg


day32-2.jpg


The first bit of lumber for the framing kick off on Monday was dropped off today as well.

day32-3.jpg
 
   / Building a stick frame house in the woods in 90 days
  • Thread Starter
#246  
Pete, in traditional construction, there's a sill plate below the wall studs that's continuous so drywall and eventually moldings can be screwed/nailed anywhere along the bottom surface. With your walls, it seems there is nothing to fasten the drywall to between studs, and moldings will have to be screwed instead of nailed (or maybe glued). Am I correct? Maybe I've missed how that is done with this system.:confused3:
Good question Jim. Didn't really think about that yet. I'll ask the builder how that's done. Not that we'll be finishing the basement anytime soon, but you never know. I'm sure there's a good method for doing that with these walls. It seems they thought about everything else!
 
   / Building a stick frame house in the woods in 90 days
  • Thread Starter
#247  
   / Building a stick frame house in the woods in 90 days #248  
My experence with concrete floors over the years is that cracks of some will will appear no matter what efforts are made to control them. But minor cracks are no big deal. A friend in the concrete business told me there are two things certain about concrete---first, it will dry and second, it will crack.
Your job really looks beautiful but you'll likely still get some minor cracks in the floors. Maybe someone else more knowlegable could add something to this.
 
   / Building a stick frame house in the woods in 90 days #249  
My experence with concrete floors over the years is that cracks of some will will appear no matter what efforts are made to control them. But minor cracks are no big deal. A friend in the concrete business told me there are two things certain about concrete---first, it will dry and second, it will crack.
Your job really looks beautiful but you'll likely still get some minor cracks in the floors. Maybe someone else more knowlegable could add something to this.

He may ( probably will ) get more cracks, possibly starting where some of the pipe risers come through the floor.
Remember... he has fiber in the concrete, so that may help. It will probably all be covered with carpet or tile someday anyway if he finishes the area, and will have to be corrected at that time..

I know this house is for his mom but I sure could imagine a vehicle maintenance pit, complete with floor drain, in the over dig
area of the garage.
 
 
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