At this point in the construction you can see that the walls are up and house wrap is installed. Do not under estimate its use. Wrapping your house with a weather resistance barrier like Tyvek house wrap is a great building practice. It will serve as a barrier to weather, moisture, and air infiltration. If allowed moisture can and will penetrate behind siding and saturate walls and its components producing mold and rot.

Air infiltration will rob you of comfort and cause hot and cold spots in your house as well as increase you heating or cooling costs. Particular attention must be made to ensure that the house wrap is well installed and sealed with the proper tape (Red Tuck Tape). If the house wrap seams around windows or doors are not properly done you might as well have not installed it in the first place.

One particular area are gable ends. I guess that since the gable is part of the attic contractors just don’t see the need if they are looking at the system as a type of vapor barrier and since the attic is not a living space why use it. Well house wrap is also a  weather barrier and wind and rain will hit the area. Take a look at this Gable above the entrance.

No house wrap. We just installed a plastic simulated cedar tile over the plywood.They did not install the house wrap there. I did not catch it in time. The good thing is that there is a huge overhang and the wind and rain com from the North West of the house or to the right of this picture. Most of the contractors do this. Guess we could always pull off the shingles install the wrap. I’ll just have keep an eye on it.

But back to the stage we really are at. The pick above was taken a month later then our present construction stage. The rough carpenters have put up the walls with wrap. Now, it’s time to start installing the trusses. Make certain you order your dumpster early, we used two 40 foot ones during the process. About, $ 280 dollar a dumpster. The trusses were ordered over a month ago and were just delivered. Things are starting to take shape. 

 

 

So from the start we were clear to our designer what we wanted to achieve so he created support for the upper engineered I joist by using room wall separations that were supporting and the joist span was taken into consideration as well. The downside….once the wall separations were made they were there to support the upper floor, you just could not move them a few years later without a lot of consideration and the addition of beams.

The house was big enough that this would not be a concern. Upon the completion of the plans, the floor plan copy went to our local lumber yard that in turn came up with a price for the engineered I joists and a span diagram that was to be followed to the letter by the rough crew on site. Here is a copy of the plan that you can take a look at. This part is not a DIY project. You can contact other firms that specialise in beams and trusses, they all have specialise software that calculates the spans and therefore the specifications for every joist.

 

Engineered I joists offer several advantages vs. traditional joists. These engineered floor joists can be purchased in varying depths with different sized flanges at the top and bottom. These engineered I joists install as a traditional wood floor joist would be installed and make for a stiffer, squeak less floor if properly installed with glue and nails. As well these engineered joists have cut-out or knock-out sections in the OSB material that can be removed to run electrical wires and/or heat ducts.

 

Engineered Wood I-beams have many advantages. They are straighter then conventional lumber, stronger than conventional lumber and if that is not enough stiffer. The technical information on these engineered forms indicates that they are 50% stiffer than conventional lumber. Ultimately you get a better floor construction.

 

Do to their strength, these I joists can span over longer openings, and be installed over wider on centre spacing. A reduction in building cost is achieved despite the increased cost per beam due to less beams being required, faster installation, and the elimination of several support beams.

 

Added to these benefits are the fact that these engineered I joist are 60% lighter than conventional wood as they are constructed with OSB material and finger jointed sawn lumber. This type of construction produce I joist that do not warp, shrink, twist or cup, therefore providing stiffer floors that have less a tenancy to squeak or settle.

 

Once the sub floor is complete, and laid down in the proper sequence as seen in this photo (not one seem directly over another) the rough carpentry guys start the main exterior walls of the home out of 2X6’s.

In our cold eastern climate and low sea level (Montreal), it makes a lot of sense to increase to 2X6 studs very common in today’s construction industry. There is 57% more insulation in a 2X6 stud then a 2X4 inch stud. A great reason to go for 2X6 in this day and age of being green and trying to reduce the household carbon foot print.

Normal 0 false false false EN-CA X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

The sections are complete with the exterior vapour barrier and important key to a properly insulated home. Now our home was designed with 10 foot ceilings.So I made certain that this information was common knowledge with the head supervisor Paul. Always double check key issues on a job.

Normal 0 false false false EN-CA X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

You will also notice headers above important openings, here the back french door and the two rear windows. In no time at all I think one day and a half our first floor rough was complete, this being a bungalow or one floor ranch style home. At this point great care was given on measurements and I went over the various features ensuring that the plan was followed to the letter.

The next step is the roof line which once again is part of the responsibility of these rough carpenters.

Normal 0 false false false EN-CA X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

In this picture a lot is going on that I can talk about. When we designed our home We had the designer take into consideration that we had several uses for the basement and had him well plan the layout. The rough layout built in such a way that we had supporting walls instead of those dreadful steel supporting posts that are always in the way design wise when you purchase a newly built home that usually come without a finished basement.

If you peer into the basement you can seen the supporting wood structures. Plenty of open space for a gaming room downstairs. Notice the stairwell that we design for access to the basement from the garage. A feature we always enjoyed in a previous home that we had to have here in this one.

As well this view is from the garage. Notice the bed of sand. In order to lay a good concrete floor that will withstand the length of time you have to compact it while pouring a continual stream of water for a couple of days. We used the adjacent sand, and topped it off with fine compressible sand as well. The compaction was done with the excavator and a heavy plate for several hours

Normal 0 false false false EN-CA X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

The engineered I beams were delivered and installed. I went with the stronger engineered systems. Now some individuals state that it’s easier to run wire with the previous standard beams but these are lighter, stronger, and have knock outs to run wire. You can always drill a whole as well. I wanted my floor to be sturdy, not flimsy. You will also notice that the sill has been increased with the use of several 2X6 laid flat. The rough carpenters we hired had noticed that the height of the finished basement ceiling was a little low to we increased it so that we would have 8`2”of cleared ceiling height once the basement was finished with gyp rock.

We also put down Pinnacle OSB subfloor. It had a 30 year warranty but we had some issues were the seams started buckling. Now in all honesty I felt that the guys could have taken a bit more care when putting it down, i.e. respecting the clearance and today I speculate on the type of glue used, was it really compatible. Anyway we compensated once the rough was up and had to sand (I did) with an orbital high speed sander all of the seams prior to putting down any tile or wood flooring. Quite a chore.

The walls should be up soon ….

 

BACK FILL YOUR FOUNDATION CAREFULLY

So the waterproofing of the foundation is complete. The French drains and 3/4 clean rock is covered in plastic poly film to impede any sediment, it’s now time to back fill your foundation. The excavator has strategically placed the fill around the house to that it’s easily accessible once the foundation is complete and ready to back fill your foundation.

Now if you are in an area that has heavy thick back fill with a lot of rocks you should wait at least a week or more for the foundation to cure before you back fill your foundation. During this curing process of the foundation there should be a lot of humidity i.e. water is the preferred method to help the curing process. Cement cures stronger in a more humid environment and can take up to a month to finally cure to its maximum tensile strength.

After 1 week we started to back fill the foundation carefully, our back fill is generally sand so therefore we were not concerned about the weight of the back fill putting to much pressure on the walls of the foundation.

Here is the excavator in process on our lot.

You will also notice the white clean out pipes. These were installed just in case we had too much iron in the water causing Red Ochre in the French drains, these clean outs provide easy access to clean out this Red Ochre sludge instead of having to replace a whole french drain if it becomes clogged, which would be expensive. This is just a bit of preventive maintenance for the extra $ 1400. The height of the white clean outs will be cut back once the excavation process is complete.

Next is the sub floor and the rough work were it gets interesting, and things start rolling along quickly. See ya soon ! If you had a similar experience or can add to this post I encourage you to comment below and let us in on your experience. Welcome !

1. Guidance – Seek out someone else who has already completed this task and get their support, advice, and guidance. Often this can be the most important thing you need.

 

1. Plan – You absolutely need to develop a realistic plan of action. This goes beyond just getting some blueprints in place but rather encompasses time, cost, and even significant challenges that you foresee.

 

1. Get Started – There is no time like the present to get started on your dreams. Take the first step soon so you can start to bring your dream out of your head and into real life.

 

The ability to truthfully say, “I built a house” is rare indeed these days. However, that does not mean it is impossible to do. You absolutely can make this claim if you have the property guidance and support, develop a thorough plan, and have the confidence and motivation to get started. It won’t be easy, but it is definitely not impossible, either. You just need to take those first few steps, and you will be on your way to building and living in your dream home!