Building a stick frame house in the woods in 90 days

[srs]

Pete, will the stone in the garage get vibrated down prior to the concrete pour? Stanley

 

[ljnelson109]

I have been following this thread for a few weeks now. First let me say how much I enjoy the topic. I am enjoying the pictures and the suggestions. But, I do have some thoughts on insulation. We have been in our house about 18 months. As many have said, I was very concerned about energy costs. We used a structural insulated sheathing STYROFOAM SIS? (U.S. Residential Only) which contributes an R value of 3. Properly installed, SIS provides a great air intrusion barrier. But, as you know, all of the rough-ins compromise that barrier. So for the band boards, I had an inch of closed cell foam blown in.




We used 2X6s for the exterior walls. The walls are insulated using a tight pack (also called dense pack) cellulose.




Then, for the attic they sprayed another inch of closed cell foam (R-6) on the "floor". And then blew in R-49 in cellulose.




Note, the fiberglass batts were there from the sprinkler install. The county required the batts over the sprinkler runs. Then the insulation guys moved (and replaced) that fiberglass to spray the closed cell foam. And then ultimately blew the cellulose over the whole deal.

I am very pleased with how tight the house is. We are in central MD so we do not get super cold weather. On a day in the teens, I can go around to exterior outlets/light switches and feel no cool air. In my old house, I bet I could have blown out a candle!

As others have said, I would consider some of these options over doing standard fiberglass batts in the walls and just blown-in insulation in the attic.

Thanks for keeping up with this thread. I am definitely enjoying following your story.

Lee

 

[Obed]

Pete:

Two other roof design features I like on this house; 1, the roof pitch is not overly steep and is proportional to the house; 2, I like the distance you extended the gable ends and the soffits as it gives a better appearance instead of being cheap to save on some materials. There are a lot of houses in my area that have ridiculous roof pitches where the roof mass overwhelms the house.

I whole-heartedly agree. American roofs these days are obscenely impractical. Unless you are building a 1 1/2 story roof with knee walls in the upstairs living space, I see very little reason to have more than a 6/12 pitch roof.

Our house is a 1 1/2 story house. The house designer put heavy pressure on us to have a 12/12 pitch roof and we told him no. We went with an 8/12 roof and that pitch is the steepest I'm willing to walk on. I climb on my roof twice a year to clean the chimney. I climb on it two more times per year to clean the dormer gutters. I would be in a real pickle if we had gone with an 8/10 or 8/12 pitch roof.

We wanted wide eaves around our house for energy efficiency. We specified 3 foot eaves so that our south walls would be shaded from the summer sun but would not be shaded in the winter. The house designer told us our house would look wierd with 3 foot eaves and wanted our eaves to be 1 foot or less. We went with 2 foot eaves thinking that even though 2 foot eaves might look a little wierd, we wanted the energy efficiency. Then after our roof was built, I starting noticing houses in our area that were built in the 60's and before. They all had 2 foot eaves and didn't look odd at all. We could have had 3 foot eaves like we wanted if we had only realized it.

The 6" or 1 foot eaves max that new houses commonly have are not practical at all, especially in the south. The houses are built that way to save a buck - in the short term.

Obed

 

[gmason]

i just saw this thread and saw where your hole for your basement didn't look like any rocks came out. We've got 88ac up in Greyson Co VA and there's rocks everywhere.
I just had 8 Southern Yellow pine trees milled up by a local guy and he charged me about $65/hr and came out to my site.

 

[idaho2]

Pclausen,

Now would be the time to put wall backing in the walls for any item that needs extra weight bearing support. Ie;for hand rails in shower/tub area in bathroom. Another item, I built an in wall spice cabinet in our kithcen, cut it close to slicing into the bathroom water pvc pipes when I cut out the opening. When I build our next house it will be earmarked and framed before sheetrock is applied.

idaho2

 

[mjncad]

mjncad,

Dryer vent fires are one of the leading causes of house fires. How long has it been since you've run a pipe brush
down through yours from the roof and taken it apart at the bottom to vac out the lint?
Ron

Ron: Thanks for the reminder, and yes I'm guilty of being long overdue in that particular maintenance chore. Our laundry galley is between the house and garage, and nowhere near an exterior wall. So the builder ran the dryer vent the shortest distance he could without additional mechanical venting (e.g. cheapest), which means the vent is through the roof and still met code for duct length. Maybe this year I'll run a new duct under the floor to an exterior wall and have a dryer vent fan to meet code requirements as the duct will be longer than a naturally aspirated (so to speak) system is allowed. I may even put a cleanout near the dryer. A couple of summers ago I had a bird get into the roof mounted dryer vent and fall down into the duct. I could hear the critter, and so I turned the dryer on to "Air Fluff" and blew his butt out back out the way it came in.

I've also decided not to put valves on each of my runs. Part of it is being cheap. At $12 each for good ones, they add up to hundreds of dollars that I just don't think need to be spent. Especially since the house main supply water cutoff is two feet out the door, right behind the manifold. The other reason is that most of the water lines will have valves at the other end of the line anyway. The only reason that I can see for valves on each line is to work on a line that is broke between the manifold and where it's going, or the valve at the end is leaking. Both are just as easy to fix with the entire house turned off anyway.

Eddie

I would like a manifold system with valves to each zone. My luck always has it that any repair/modification takes me longer than it should and why shut off the whole house because of one recalcitrant room's plumbing. Another advantage to shutting off plumbing zones individually is that the amount of air to be purged out of the system is minimized. I hate exploding faucets during the air purge process. In our house's case, I'd have a zone for the Master Bathroom; a zone for the Kitchen, laundry galley, and 1/2 bath; and a zone for the Jack-n-Jill bathroom.

I whole-heartedly agree. American roofs these days are obscenely impractical. Unless you are building a 1 1/2 story roof with knee walls in the upstairs living space, I see very little reason to have more than a 6/12 pitch roof.

Our house is a 1 1/2 story house. The house designer put heavy pressure on us to have a 12/12 pitch roof and we told him no. We went with an 8/12 roof and that pitch is the steepest I'm willing to walk on. I climb on my roof twice a year to clean the chimney. I climb on it two more times per year to clean the dormer gutters. I would be in a real pickle if we had gone with an 8/10 or 8/12 pitch roof.

We wanted wide eaves around our house for energy efficiency. We specified 3 foot eaves so that our south walls would be shaded from the summer sun but would not be shaded in the winter. The house designer told us our house would look wierd with 3 foot eaves and wanted our eaves to be 1 foot or less. We went with 2 foot eaves thinking that even though 2 foot eaves might look a little wierd, we wanted the energy efficiency. Then after our roof was built, I starting noticing houses in our area that were built in the 60's and before. They all had 2 foot eaves and didn't look odd at all. We could have had 3 foot eaves like we wanted if we had only realized it.

The 6" or 1 foot eaves max that new houses commonly have are not practical at all, especially in the south. The houses are built that way to save a buck - in the short term.

Obed

Thanks Obed! I think our house has the HOASS required minimum of a 5/12 pitch roof, and that is plenty steep in my opinion. My big gripe with 0" - 12" eaves/gables like our house has is that it looks cheap, and that's because it is. It looks like a mobile home or an outbuilding. I was in the preliminary design phase of our final house before we put our 35-acres of dirt on the market, and I was planning on 4' eaves; partially for the energy efficiency and lighting control you mention, and partially from an aesthetics reason since the house was going to be a ~2,600 square foot ranch with large attached garage. If one wants to see large eaves, look at Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie style homes.

 

[EddieWalker]

I whole-heartedly agree. American roofs these days are obscenely impractical. Unless you are building a 1 1/2 story roof with knee walls in the upstairs living space, I see very little reason to have more than a 6/12 pitch roof.

Our house is a 1 1/2 story house. The house designer put heavy pressure on us to have a 12/12 pitch roof and we told him no. We went with an 8/12 roof and that pitch is the steepest I'm willing to walk on. I climb on my roof twice a year to clean the chimney. I climb on it two more times per year to clean the dormer gutters. I would be in a real pickle if we had gone with an 8/10 or 8/12 pitch roof.

We wanted wide eaves around our house for energy efficiency. We specified 3 foot eaves so that our south walls would be shaded from the summer sun but would not be shaded in the winter. The house designer told us our house would look wierd with 3 foot eaves and wanted our eaves to be 1 foot or less. We went with 2 foot eaves thinking that even though 2 foot eaves might look a little wierd, we wanted the energy efficiency. Then after our roof was built, I starting noticing houses in our area that were built in the 60's and before. They all had 2 foot eaves and didn't look odd at all. We could have had 3 foot eaves like we wanted if we had only realized it.

The 6" or 1 foot eaves max that new houses commonly have are not practical at all, especially in the south. The houses are built that way to save a buck - in the short term.

Obed

I'm not sure what it's like where you are at, but here, where I'm at, 16 inches is what I would consider the normal, average width for the eaves. There are reasons for this. It is the standard size with you can get Hardie or Smart fascia boards. Or cedar. In low end homes they still cut plywood, but pre cut fascias are a lot nicer in both the finish and the amount of air you can get to flow though them.

A smaller eave makes it very hard to get a vent to function properly.

Larger eave widths have inherent problems with maintenance and rot. They are where al lot of my repairs are because the fascia has to be sealed really good. If not, moisture gets on top of the wood and then it begins to sag, allowing more moisture in. Here in TX, humidity, dew and condensation will add to this. Usually when I get the call to fix it, it's beyond just caulking and painting.

The other disadvantage to a larger eave is that it catches the wind. There are a lot of studies and tests being done on eave width in tornado and hurricane prone areas. The best house to withstand strong winds is a hip roof and no eaves.

Cost wise, it really doesn't cost any more or less to make an eave six inches or 24 inches. Most of the cost is in labor, and that's gonna be about the same regardless of size. Going over 2 feet would require additional bracing to support it out that far. I feel that 2 feet is pushing it.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

I whole-heartedly agree. American roofs these days are obscenely impractical. Unless you are building a 1 1/2 story roof with knee walls in the upstairs living space, I see very little reason to have more than a 6/12 pitch roof.

Our house is a 1 1/2 story house. The house designer put heavy pressure on us to have a 12/12 pitch roof and we told him no. We went with an 8/12 roof and that pitch is the steepest I'm willing to walk on. I climb on my roof twice a year to clean the chimney. I climb on it two more times per year to clean the dormer gutters. I would be in a real pickle if we had gone with an 8/10 or 8/12 pitch roof.

We wanted wide eaves around our house for energy efficiency. We specified 3 foot eaves so that our south walls would be shaded from the summer sun but would not be shaded in the winter. The house designer told us our house would look wierd with 3 foot eaves and wanted our eaves to be 1 foot or less. We went with 2 foot eaves thinking that even though 2 foot eaves might look a little wierd, we wanted the energy efficiency. Then after our roof was built, I starting noticing houses in our area that were built in the 60's and before. They all had 2 foot eaves and didn't look odd at all. We could have had 3 foot eaves like we wanted if we had only realized it.

The 6" or 1 foot eaves max that new houses commonly have are not practical at all, especially in the south. The houses are built that way to save a buck - in the short term.

Obed

I'm not sure what it's like where you are at, but here, where I'm at, 16 inches is what I would consider the normal, average width for the eaves. There are reasons for this. It is the standard size with you can get Hardie or Smart fascia boards. Or cedar. In low end homes they still cut plywood, but pre cut fascias are a lot nicer in both the finish and the amount of air you can get to flow though them.

A smaller eave makes it very hard to get a vent to function properly.

Larger eave widths have inherent problems with maintenance and rot. They are where al lot of my repairs are because the fascia has to be sealed really good. If not, moisture gets on top of the wood and then it begins to sag, allowing more moisture in. Here in TX, humidity, dew and condensation will add to this. Usually when I get the call to fix it, it's beyond just caulking and painting.

The other disadvantage to a larger eave is that it catches the wind. There are a lot of studies and tests being done on eave width in tornado and hurricane prone areas. The best house to withstand strong winds is a hip roof and no eaves.

Cost wise, it really doesn't cost any more or less to make an eave six inches or 24 inches. Most of the cost is in labor, and that's gonna be about the same regardless of size. Going over 2 feet would require additional bracing to support it out that far. I feel that 2 feet is pushing it.

Eddie

 

[nctacoma]

Lots of interesting opinions from folks here on building science and theory.

I will throw a suggestion in here about insulation. Your best bet would be to find a local reputable building scientist to come up with a thermal boundary/insulation plan. There are benefits and drawbacks to each type of insulation. Even fiberglass is a cost effective insulator as long as there is absolutely no air movement through it. I won't give any specific recommendations because I know my environment and professional building practices for cold/snowy northern climates. These practices would be completely different from the practices in your area.
So I would look up someone in your area that is BPI certified and have them help you out with insulation and air sealing for the house. In the long run this will save you money and energy. Also a properly detailed insulation plan will also make the rest of the house last a lot longer in terms of addressing roof temperature, air management, moisture management, etc etc.
all the systems in the house are connected and need to work well with each other.

 

[dave1949]

Interesting roof/eave comments Eddie.

I can believe that a hip roof minus eaves is the most wind resistant. There is bracing in all directions and nothing for the wind to get under. Those "Prairie" style homes with wide overhangs in tornado country probably need to be re-thought construction-wise.

My trusses integrate the eave overhang into the truss design on the south side of the house. There is a vertical king post in the truss that matches where the truss sits on the wall, then there is a triangle that extends beyond the wall that forms the overhang. The north end of the truss has an integrated 2' knee wall to allow plenty of insulation depth at the eave, but the overhang is just a tail on the truss. Of course, you don't end up with a "standard" looking roof and that bothers some people.

I firmly believe that thinking outside the box will cost on home re-sale values, but the standard gable roof is getting a bit long in the tooth technologically speaking.