Tag: framing

Basement Stairwell Framing

March 28, 2014 / Matt / 0 Comments

The subfloor is nearly done. I just have to put down a thin, 4″ strip along the North wall. However, before I can finish that up I needed to fix the stair opening to the basement along the outside wall. When Matt B and I framed it last year, we cut back the joist ends along the outside wall. Now, as with all of the other joists, they need to be at the right level. I took a look at it and decided it would be easier to pull out the joist ends and redo them.

Stair opening (also pictured: giant rack of old floor boards in basement)

I first tried cutting the joist ends down to the right size, but they were not in great shape, and a couple of them broke in half. I tried cutting some new pieces but nominal 2x10s are too loose in the rough sawn notches and I couldn’t position them as accurately as I wanted. In addition, I decided I wanted some sort of bracing down the length. A full 2×10 would close up the cavity and prevent it from being spray-foamed. Notching a 2×4 into the ends would work, but would be a real pain.

Instead I decided to just put new 2x4s (planed a few times) on top of the rim on the other side of the wall studs, screw a 2×4 onto the face, and then for good measure, shore it up with some support blocking glued and screwed underneath.

New framing, start of subfloor

With the new structure built, I started working on covering it in subfloor. I wanted the OSB to span the opening, which required some fancy carpentry. The narrow section along the wall needed a groove because the rest of the subfloor is tongue and groove. I’ve been cutting my own grooves out of my leftovers on the table saw instead of wasting full panels. The problem here is that the piece is shaped like an ‘L’, so cutting the groove on the inside edge was complicated by the fact that I couldn’t slide it all the way across the table saw.

I started by cutting the groove as far as I could on the table saw, which left about a foot or so. Then I used my circular saw to get closer, leaving about 4″. Finally I used my oscillating tool to cut the sides of the groove and a wood chisel to finish it up. The piece slid in and fit like a glove, tying this section in with the rest of the subfloor. Once I finish this edge, I just need to plane and glue some seams and this project will finally be done!

On the Level

February 4, 2014 / Matt / 3 Comments

Before we bought our extreme fixer upper, we watched a lot of Holmes on Homes. In addition to an irrational fear of hiring contractors, the show also instilled the importance of building level, plumb, and true. When you’re renovating an old house that’s something of an uphill battle, and at times it’s downright impossible. However, we’re planning on in-floor radiant heat, which uses plywood and aluminum panels that lie on top of the subfloor and has channels for PEX tubing. The subfloor needed to be level and flat, and the existing plank floor was not going to cut it.

Wet wall subfloor

The first new subfloor was done when I reframed the wet wall back in September. At the time I decided that “level” was where the joists rested on the steel beam at the center of the house, since I knew the beam was level. The joists sloped slightly higher toward the South wall, so I used a planer to shave them down to be level and put the new subfloor down. I call this planing method of leveling “Method One”.

Shimming over subfloor

When I started work on the back section of subfloor, I realized that the wet wall was the exception rather than the rule when it came to joist height at the South wall. Most joists were ¾” higher at the outside wall than the beam, making Method One a bad option. Not only would planing that much off be a time consuming pain, I didn’t like removing that much wood from the joists. I decided instead to establish a new level, on top of the small section of subfloor I’d already done. Instead of planing down, I cut and glued down long shims that tapered from nothing to ¾” (depending on the particular joist) over the course of ten feet. This is “Method Two”. It is also a pain in the ass, but slightly less so. There were a few variations of this while we tried to work out the best way to do it.

Jacking up joists

With the back section leveled, but time consumingly so, I wanted to find a faster way to do it. Since the ¾” slope was fairly consistent, I next tried jacking up each joist at the beam and/or the outside wall and putting a shim underneath it, using my trusty hydraulic jack. This is “Method Three” and so far the most straightforward, if still time consuming. In some cases this was all I needed to do, while in others there was still a bow in the center of the spans that I fixed with a long shim, ala Method Two.

I did consider some other methods, such as sistering another joist to the first one. Some people have even used just a 2×4 rather than a full height piece. I didn’t do that partly because I didn’t want to rip out and replace all of the cross bracing between the joists, plus I don’t like the idea of the weight being carried off center of the joist. I want the floor to be as quiet as possible, which is why all the shims and subfloor are being glued down in addition to screws.

Shimming under the joist

I still have a ways to go before the subfloor is done. I’m doing the leveling and the subfloor installation concurrently because we need a way to walk through the first floor, plus a place to put all of our tools. I’ll be working on it in the evening this week as well as this coming weekend. I’m hopeful I can finish by Sunday, but we’ll see.

Chimney Removal, Part 2

December 2, 2013 / Matt / 2 Comments

All right, back to the chimney. In Part 1 I got up on the roof on a particularly stormy and unseasonably warm day (at least is started that way), took the top of the chimney off, and patched the roof. This was followed up later in the week with removing the portion of the chimney in the attic. A couple Saturdays ago we took out the second floor portion, which has the added wrinkle of us living there. To prevent dust and debris from coating all our stuff, we started by taping up some plastic sheeting.

Plastic walls

Matt looking in

With that in place I started work up in the attic, taking out a few feet of bricks before finally breaking through the plaster. At that point I switched to the second floor and a step ladder. Sarah spent most of the day on brick duty, where I lowered buckets of bricks down using our pulley system and she emptied them into the first floor, though she did try her hand at brick removal. I wound up doing most of it with a pry bar, forgoing the air hammer and the accompanying dust and noise.

Matt removing chimney 2013

Sarah removing chimney

Almost there

I can see light coming through!

We needed to get the whole thing done and patched in a day because it’s gotten cold outside and a giant hole into an uninsulated attic when you’re already relying on electric heaters because you don’t have heat is a really bad idea, mmkay? We finally broke through into the first floor around 7 pm. With that milestone reached it was on to framing and drywalling, which I think we wrapped up around 10. Sarah’s in charge of getting it mudded and painted. So far we’ve got the first coat on. I picked up the flexible paper corner bead and we like it better than the metal corners.

Giant hole (that’s plaster, not more brick)

Framing

Drywall

Sarah mudding

From there it was on to the first floor, where I took down another eight feet of bricks early last week while Sarah broke mortar off of bricks we’d already taken out. Will was over this past Saturday and finished it off, getting the top of the chimney down into the basement. Along the way we found that the best process was to knock the mortar off the bricks straight into the chimney. It’s bad enough hauling down buckets of bricks without having to also deal with the heavy, dusty, crumbly mortar. There’s an opening at the base of the chimney in the basement where we can just shovel the mortar out and take it into the back yard in a wheel barrow.

Chimney gone

Our back yard has gotten even more attractive as of late. Now in addition to the giant mound of clay from the footings that’s been gradually melting (currently covered in leaves), the paint bucket planters, the garbage cans full of compost, and the scrap metal, we’ve added a tarp-covered stack of OSB, both a pile and a giant stack of bricks, and a pile of mortar. It’s quite the beautification program we’ve got going.

Beautiful back yard

Oh well, that can wait for another day. We still have impressive piles of bricks and mortar in the first floor that need to be hauled out, along with the rest of the mudding, sanding, and painting to get the second floor looking respectable again. We’re planning to use some of the bricks to make the base of the columns under the front porch. The rest we’ll probably sell.

Window Week

October 15, 2013 / Matt / 0 Comments

I took off work all last week to instead work on the house. After we installed the door on Sunday, I spent Monday doing some follow-up tasks like replacing the handleset with one that fit and matched the door, plus reinstalling the porch railings, mailbox, and doing some weather sealing. With that finished I got to work on the windows.

We installed the first window a few weeks back and I figured out the details and made a couple of tweaks to the plan. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I installed a window a day. Each one took roughly twelve hours start to finish. The reason it took so long was all of the steps in the process. I’m pleased to say I didn’t need to make a single trip to the hardware store to do these windows and the whole thing went smoothly, it was just very time consuming.

Old window

Reframed, removing siding

Jamb extension

Flashing and insulation

Sill pan

New window

Here’s the rundown of the process: first I removed the existing window, established the exact window height with the laser level, reframed the opening using existing lumber and modern window framing methods (king post, jack post, header, and cripples), removed all three layers of exterior siding to expose at least 6″ of sheathing around the window opening, installed new sheathing to account for the higher sill, and built jamb extensions. With everything framed, I stapled on housewrap with taped seams, installed two layers of 1″ polyiso foam insulation with staggered and taped seams, flashed the window opening with a sloped Weathermate plastic sill pan and 4″ tape. At that point Sarah helped me fit the window into the opening and screw the facing clips through the foam and into the framing. With everything secure, the last step was to apply more of the 4″ tape to the sides and top, sealing everything up. I’ll come back through later and fill the gaps on the inside with Great Stuff and foam backer rod.

Bay with siding removed

Friday I was running low on some materials and I went to the store, then started removing the siding around the front bay, which has three windows. I discovered that the decorative sheathing had a frame that meant I had to do it all at once rather than just the 6″ around the window. Saturday we wound up completely removing the framing on the front section of the bay and rebuilding it with new sheathing. Unfortunately after putting everything together, the window didn’t fit into the opening. Between the existing studs and the taper of the lumber, we’d managed to build a parallelogram. All the dimensions were right, but it wasn’t square. We wound up unscrewing one side of the jamb extension and cutting down the length of the jack post stud at an angle to make it straight enough to fit the window. We didn’t get the window screwed in until 11:15 at night.

We still have two more bay windows to go, but this week I’m back at work, so I’ll need to figure out when I can get them in. I’ll be sure to check for plumb studs as I go to avoid a repeat of the last window. Thanks to Will for helping us on Saturday!

New bay window

Iron Front Door Installation

October 7, 2013 / Matt / 0 Comments

All right, front door installation time. Because we’re putting two inches of poly-iso foam insulation on the outside of the house, I had to blend a number of installation methods, starting with the Building Science instructions for both the door and the transom window. We didn’t want to remove the existing porch, and we plan to have a porch in the future, so we used the Green Building Advisor ledger attachment detail to plan around that, and of course we had the instructions from the door manufacturer.

Sarah removing siding

Matt removing siding

Wood siding

Down to sheathing

Before any of that could happen, Sarah and I stripped off three layers of siding from around the existing front door. The top layer was vinyl, followed by old cement fiber siding, and finally wood clapboard siding. Interspersed were layers of old paper house wraps.

Next we turned to the new door. When the door was delivered, we tore open enough of the packaging to make sure it was undamaged and then left it until now. Sarah started peeling back the cardboard and foam and asked, “Why does the glass look shattered?”

Broken door glass

We really don’t know how this happened. The door has been leaning against the wall in the same spot for a month and a half. The glass is actually broken on the other side —that is— the side with the wrought iron. We can only speculate as to what caused it. I contacted the manufacturer and they’re going to have a glass company come and replace it. I’m really impressed by their customer service, since they could easily argue that it happened after I accepted delivery and that it wasn’t their problem. In any case, it wasn’t enough to postpone installation, we’re just really upset about it.

The door crew: Dean, Mike (Sarah’s dad), Matt B, and Eriq

Sunday morning the door crew arrived, comprised of regulars to our house project. Dean and I got the old door out of the way and cut out two additional studs. We propped up the wall with some temporary boards while we framed in the header, just in case the house got a case of the saggies.

Trimming the sheathing

I’ve gotten pretty handy with a reciprocating saw. Once we framed in a sill plate, jack posts, a 2×4 between the door and transom, and a proper header (spaced with insulation), we nailed 2x4s flat on the outside around the opening. We wrapped the edges with housewrap and then attached ½” foam on top of the 2x4s. That way the two inches of foam on the rest of the house will be the same thickness as the edge around the door. We used WeatherMate flashing tape and sill pans to flash around the edges and make everything water tight.

Then we slid the door frame into position and tipped it into place. We put in one bolt in the top corner and then pivoted it a tiny fraction of an inch to get it perfectly level before putting in the remaining lag bolts to secure it to the inside of the framing. The transom was attached from the outside with facing clips that were screwed through the foam and into the framing, just like the other windows. With some exertions from Eriq and a lot of yelling we got the door hinges aligned and the door onto the frame.

Iron door installed

We realized that my existing handleset with an interior lever wouldn’t work because the lever didn’t clear the frame of the window in the door, so I picked up a replacement with a knob. The matching rubbed bronze looks better with the door than satin nickel anyway. I also put in backer rod around the edges and filled the gaps with Great Stuff foam and Sarah finished the interior with another layer of backer rod.

For the time being it looks kind of silly on our otherwise crappy-looking house, but eventually when the rest of the house catches up to the door, it’ll be amazing. As always, I have to finish my post with Sarah and my heartfelt thanks to everyone that helped: Dean, Mike, Matt B and Eriq. Thanks, guys!

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