At Home In The Woods

[dave1949]

In one of the pics, it shows a 2x4 interior wall meeting a 2x6 exterior wall - if I am seeing it right.

It seems counter-intuitive to me that cutting a notch in the 2x6 top plate to overlap the 2x4 top plate will result in a stronger structure. My backyard engineering sense is saying you are giving up more than you are gaining because it creates a single plate 'hinge' point in the top plate of the 2x6 exterior wall. Whatever stiffness is given up by cutting the 2x6 plate has to made up for by the lateral strength of the interior wall. Depending on what/where the interior wall goes to, that could be good or bad.

Maybe tying them together with a piece of 2x8 would add strength, piece of mind and provide corner nailing in the ceilings.

Of course, my backyard engineering sense has been wrong before.
Dave.

 

[EddieWalker]

Dave,

Imagine wall that is just standing there on it's own without any support. Then add corners to that wall and see how much stronger it becomes. now add another wall in the middle and see how much stronger it becomes. This is all very obvious.

Not take those walls and nail them together through their verticle studs. The wall becomes evern stronger to allot of movement, but with movement, that wall will also work itself loose. The further you go up that wall, the more movement that you have. The foundation isn't moving, it's solid. The wall is attached to the foundation with bolts, and the bottom of that wall is just as solid as the foundations.

Now the trick is to make the wall as strong as possible as high as possible. The simple act of overlapping your top plates will lock the walls together in such a way that they cannot work themselves loose when the house moves. All houses move, it's something that never stops happening.

In CA, where earthquakes are common and homes move more then homes in most other places, metal straps are run from inside the foundation to the tops of the top plates. That has since chaged to the tops of the rafters to hold it all down and tight.

With the overlapping top plates, you are locking the walls together like you do when playing with legos or building with cinder blocks.

The strength increase is significant. Anybody who does not build this way doesn't know what he's doing, or is in such a hurry that he doesn't care. If you look at 1,000 houses, you will never see this done any other way. It's the most basic part of framing. Not doing it doesn't make any sense, except for speed of doing the walls on the ground, lifting them into position and moving on to the next wall. It's faster to do it wrong, but not stronger.

Adding the top plates to the walls after they are up isn't very hard to do and in most cases, something you have the rookie to do keep him busy and to have something that's just about impossible to screw up. I remember getting that job before I was in High School, so that should give you an idea of how basic it is.

Eddie

 

[2manyrocks]

At this stage of framing, it shouldn't be a big deal to do what Eddie is suggesting, and there's bound to be a pile of cut lumber available on site to do it with unless someone has been very busy getting rid of it.

 

[mikefromnh]

At this point some sort of metal plate or strap might be on option. I think simpson makes a code - compliant connector.

 

[dave1949]

Dave,

Imagine wall that is just standing there on it's own without any support. Then add corners to that wall and see how much stronger it becomes. now add another wall in the middle and see how much stronger it becomes. This is all very obvious.

Not take those walls and nail them together through their verticle studs. The wall becomes evern stronger to allot of movement, but with movement, that wall will also work itself loose. The further you go up that wall, the more movement that you have. The foundation isn't moving, it's solid. The wall is attached to the foundation with bolts, and the bottom of that wall is just as solid as the foundations.

Now the trick is to make the wall as strong as possible as high as possible. The simple act of overlapping your top plates will lock the walls together in such a way that they cannot work themselves loose when the house moves. All houses move, it's something that never stops happening.

In CA, where earthquakes are common and homes move more then homes in most other places, metal straps are run from inside the foundation to the tops of the top plates. That has since chaged to the tops of the rafters to hold it all down and tight.

With the overlapping top plates, you are locking the walls together like you do when playing with legos or building with cinder blocks.

The strength increase is significant. Anybody who does not build this way doesn't know what he's doing, or is in such a hurry that he doesn't care. If you look at 1,000 houses, you will never see this done any other way. It's the most basic part of framing. Not doing it doesn't make any sense, except for speed of doing the walls on the ground, lifting them into position and moving on to the next wall. It's faster to do it wrong, but not stronger.

Adding the top plates to the walls after they are up isn't very hard to do and in most cases, something you have the rookie to do keep him busy and to have something that's just about impossible to screw up. I remember getting that job before I was in High School, so that should give you an idea of how basic it is.

Eddie

Thank you Eddie. I can see if the interior walls are all locked together, and with the corners in them too, it will stiffen up the entire framing.
Dave.

 

[hitekcountry]

The strength increase is significant. Anybody who does not build this way doesn't know what he's doing, or is in such a hurry that he doesn't care. If you look at 1,000 houses, you will never see this done any other way. It's the most basic part of framing. Not doing it doesn't make any sense, except for speed of doing the walls on the ground, lifting them into position and moving on to the next wall. It's faster to do it wrong, but not stronger.


Eddie

Excellent statement. I absolutely agree 100%.

Also if you were to calculate the small amount of time saved doing it the quick and dirty way and than total up the time for the retro fit repair to try to bring back some strength, there would be no savings in time at all.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Double top-plate interiror wall question
The framer has built several interior walls. I noticed some spots at the wall intersections that the double top-plates do not overlap but the dead wood is used to do the overlapping. Is this ok? If it is not ok, what issues will it cause?

Thanks, Obed

Are these interior walls in the basement or above ground floors? It looks like these interior walls are built after the trusses are placed on the load bearing walls, such as maybe a closet wall or something, the first picture doesn't look like you could cut the top plate out to overlap. At least with the deeper trusses there should be room to nail an overlap if the wall is in between, and the 2nd picture shows the drywall backer overlapping.

 

[Obed]

Oh Happy Day!
The Construction Manager's Contract Has Been Terminated!

Intersecting wall that is tied together by only 1" of dead wood

The earlier pictures of the non-overlapping top plates that I posted a few days ago were not the worse examples. This message shows how the master bath walls were tied to the intersecting wall using only the 1" overlap of the 2x6 dead wood. The sloppy construction of the top plates was the final straw for me. Yesterday the construction manager/framer's contract was terminated. We had to pay him a little more than I think he deserved to make him go away but it was worth it.

Eddie and some others were right that this guy should have been fired. There were multiple reasons why he wasn't let go earlier. However, in retrospect I wish we would have severed ties with him early in the project.

Here's how it played out. About 3 weeks ago, the CM asked to get his 2nd draw paid to him early. I was already unhappy about his lack of urgency to get the roof on and protect our house from the winter rains and snow so we told him no. He stormed and ranted and raved and acted like a 5 year old. He muttered that he wouldn't do anything more "extras" for us since we wouldn't do him this favor. From my perspective, I didn't see that he had done that many "extras". The guy just didn't get it. If he had done quality work and had shown a genuine concern about protecting the house and materials from the weather, we would have worked with him.

After we said no to the draw, he became even more difficult to work with. My wife had been the primary interface with him for several weeks because he couldn't deal with me because I wouldn't put up with his antics. It got to the point that my wife was afraid to talk to him about anything. I had about had it watching my wife go through that kind of stress. So on Friday a week ago I made an appointment for the following Monday with a contract lawyer to see what my options were regarding ending the contract.

Later that Friday evening the CM built a bathroom wall 3 1/2" in the wrong place, a place that disagreed with the floor plan drawings. I told my wife to make him fix it. When she told him to fix it, he blamed her for where he put the wall. He had marked a line on the floor and asked her if that's where she wanted the wall. Keep in mind, she never told him that she wanted to change the location of the bathroom walls so the assumption was to use the floor plan drawings. So she told him the location looked right. Well, he built the wall on the wrong side of the line he had marked on the floor.

The wife was out in the house for an extended period so I figured the CM was being difficult with her. So I left the camper and went into the house. I told the CM that he had the house plan drawings and that I expected him to build the walls according to the drawings. My wife should not have to use a tape measure to tell him where to put the walls. The CM then went into orbit worse than I had ever seen him. During this outburst, he told me "You have your head up your A**." I told him that I wasn't going to argue with him. I told him I had given him my expectations (the walls go where the plans say they go) and that I expected him to follow them. I turned around an walked off.

My wife came into the camper torn up. I decided that I couldn't subject my wife to this kind of unnessary stress and that this guy needed to go. My wife agreed with me. We needed to decide how to part ways with him. The next morning (Sat), we get a knock on the door. It was the CM. He came to apologize for his outbreak the day previous and appeared sincere in his apology. The guy was fighting back tears. I accepted his apology and let him go. I have to say I was moved and impressed. During these months, I had primarilly seen his proud, stubborn, defensive side. My wife kept telling me he was a "good guy" but I had not seen much of the "good" side of him.

Over the weekend, I had a look at the interior walls and saw that many of the top plates did not overlap at the intersecting walls. I was disgusted. Some of the top plates overlapped properly at the intersections but several did not. The CM was taking shortcuts to save time. He had obviously built the walls lying on the floor and nailed both top plates to the walls while the walls were still lying on the floor with the intention that he would use dead wood (drywall nailers) to tie the walls together. Even I knew this was a sorry practice. I've worked on Habitat for Humanity houses as a volunteer and knew that you nail the top most plate on the walls after the walls are standing in order to tie the walls together properly.

My wife then showed me an issue with the chimney chase that the CM told her about on Friday. Our fireplace and chimney sit in the middle of the house, not on an exterior wall. The chimney chase, main floor trusses, and attic floor trusses were all 6 inches in the wrong spot. To leave them there would squeeze the master bath by 6". It would also affect the basement bath because our plans also call for a fire place in the basement below the main floor fireplace. Both fireplaces would use the same chase for running the flue pipes. It was impossible to squeeze the basement bath by 6" due to tight tolerances and basement slab plumbing.

The fireplace wall and the chimney chase through the trusses are out of alignment by 6"

Of course the CM would not admit any responsibility for the mistake. It was the truss designer's fault because his layout showed trusses layed out evenly at 19.2" O.C. and then showed a wide 24" gap between two trusses where the chimney chase would go. So the CM just started at one end of the house laying the trusses at 19.2" O.C. and made a 24" gap for the chimney after he had lad the first x nunber of trusses. He never checked the floor plan to make sure he got the trusses in the right spot to allow correct placement of the fireplace.

Any willingness to give the CM a break was quickly diminishing.

 

[Obed]

Oh Happy Day!
The Construction Manager's Contract Has Been Terminated!
(Cont'd)

On Monday, we went to see the lawyer at $250/hr. I had e-mailed him our contract with the CM and related documentation. After explaining our circumstances, the attorney said the best thing to do was to stay out of court. While our legal obligation to pay the CM would likely be an amount less that what the CM would want, the CM could take us to court for payment even if we were in the right. Going to court would cost us $10,000. The attorney recommended that we sit down with the CM and work out an amount with the CM that would be acceptable and sign a contract termination.

On Friday we had a long talk with the CM. The meeting went well; everybody stayed professional. We asked the CM to work out what he thought we owed him. He worked up a settlement amount and we countered. We ended up with a settlement amound in the middle.

The wife is relieved the CM is out of the picture. We hope the next guy we get works out better than the first.

We have met with 4 contractors or framers this week and have one more to see. Today we looked at 3 houses under contruction that have been overseen by one of the guys we are considering. His work looked very good; I am more encouraged now about the house project than I have been since the excavation began.

 

[CurlyDave]

We hope the next guy we get works out better than the first.

I am glad he went so easily. Whether or not the next one works out better is up to you. Do multiple in-depth interviews before hiring anyone.

My experience both in CA and in OR is that it is not unusual for construction workers to be quite stubborn, set in their ways, and quick-tempered. The only real difference is that in OR they are considerably less foul-mouthed than in CA. In both places they do not like to admit mistakes and are quick to put the blame on anyone they think they can.

When we had our house built by a contractor in OR, he was an even-tempered guy, sort of on the medium-small side. During construction parking was limited and some times subcontractors would have to park as much as 200' feet from the site. The arguments that developed were so bad that the general contractor got a concealed handgun license "just in case". It was a smart move.

Not all construction workers are this way, but enough are that when I am interviewing, the willingness to put up with me overseeing the job is a top priority. I have told more than one guy not to bother coming out to the site to give me a bid because of his cocky attitude over the phone.

In your case, the willingness of a manager to work with your wife should be a strong selection criteria. Some guys will not accept a woman's authority, even if she is a paying customer. ONe of his primary functions is to act as a buffer between her and any of the "rough and ready" subcontractors you may have. Make it clear from the beginning that your wife has full authority, but that any plan changes need to be in writing and signed by her. There is a process called a "change order" which needs to be filled out to make a change. A good contractor has a form for this, although you can make one up on your own if you want.

Right now, I am acting as my own general contractor and hiring people to do the fire rebuild of my house in CA. With the economy being so weak, I have a lot of choice in workers and have a pretty good crew, who will accept my authority even though I am an "amateur" instead of a contractor.

One of the things that helps you maintain control is a larger number of small draws instead of a small number of large draws.

Up until recently, I have never given advances on draws. Lately, with the economy being in such bad shape, I will give small advances if someone has both a good reason for needing it, and it is only a week or two worth of work. Last week a guy needed to make up a late mortgage payment on his house, and I gave him an advance for that, but I went to the bank with him and watched him make the payment. It was embarrassing enough for him that he won't do it again, and I made sure the money went for the mortgage and not whiskey & women.

* * * *

Not all construction workers are the way I described, but enough are so that you will run into a few on any large job.