Construction Project

[Swingman]

In the process of organizing photos for a new company web site.

Since it was a relatively unusual "non traditional" construction project, and traditional projects are a dime a dozen, I wanted to eventually highlight the recent "Straw Bale Wall" construction project on the new site (and perhaps drum up some "non traditional" business in the process).

The current plan is that the photos will be "pulled" from Picasa, which will hold the photo content, by the site software. Right now I've only got two "Picasa web albums" holding construction content: "SB-Foundation" and "SB-Framing", more to come for the other usual stages of construction.

Only those albums with the prefix "SB-" refer to the subject construction project. Captioning rewrites and positioning, photo additions and deletions, will be an ongoing progress until I get a handle on all the photo content.

ITMT, and since it involves lots of "wood", thought I'd post the preliminary Picasa links here in this thread if anyone is interested in following along:

stages and thread updated links to follow, feedback welcome ...

[Max]

Excellent set of construction details. As a former instructor of firefighters I could have used those pictures several years ago. {:-)

Max

[Larry Jaques]

On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 10:19:45 -0600, the infamous Swingman scrawled the following:

You do good work, Karl. I like that you glue and nail the subfloor to prevent squeaks.

I also like the pea gravel under the house. You ought to see the unflat, rocky crap under mine. They built it in '67 and never put in a vapor barrier. Some day, I will, but I'm still bruised from the last venture under there...

What's "TJI bracing"? Is it the little diagonals going from the bottom of the engineered roofing trusses to the top? Whuffo dem? Googling, it looks as if it might be iLevel Trus Joists.

[Swingman]

Thanks, Larry ... I firmly believe that "attention to detail is the difference between mediocrity and supremacy" and endeavor mightly to build that way. It would be a damned sight easier if all subs had the same philosophy, but you do what you can do.

The more the supervision, the better the house ... and I don't supervise out of a Lexus while wearing designer sunglasses and blue blazers like most of my builder brethren in this locale.

I like to put a "mud slab", with French drains, under the pier and beam houses I build if soil conditions allow, but this one didn't allow.

IME, TJI's, particularly those over 12' in length and 12" high, have a tendency to rack, or twist. Blocking and bracing the "chord" of the truss on each end mitigates that tendency, making for a more solid structure ... most folks either don't know that, don't bother, or don't GAS. See first above. :)

[Swingman]

Damn me ... where the hell did I get "chord" from? Got bass brain, meant "web" instead of "chord". Just to keep us anal honest.

... and you are correctomundo, they are indeed iLevel joists.

[Nonny]

I'm going on memory, but recall two kinds of bracing for TJI's. The first is the typical X bracing you use on all joists to prevent them from twisting and to pass a load onto adjoining joists. The second is unique to the TJI and is merely blocking to reinforce the web where there is a known vertical load. For instance, when a TJI passes over a wall, such as a basement wall, any deflection at that point would put a vertical load on the thin web. The solution is to simply install blocking between the upper and lower member to shore up the web at that point.

[Larry Jaques]

On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:44:11 -0600, the infamous Swingman scrawled the following:

I've yet to hire a sub, as I keep hearing horror stories.

Ah, so you're under one of those headdresses I saw in the pics, are you?

Putting the whole monolithic mutha up in the air was enough, eh?

Just the ends, or midway, too?

[Larry Jaques]

On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:39:51 -0600, the infamous Swingman scrawled the following:

I wondered what you meant the first time but it was at a subconscious level. Now I fail to see any web bracing. Oh, OK, I see it in 17 and the diagonals are hiding it in pic 18, but only at the ends, eh?

OK.

[Leon]

Picture 8 under SB Framing, looks like the guy is eyeing the area where I found a hole in the floor. ;~)

Looks different now!

Are you going to post pictures of your "big deck"?

[Swingman]

This was the fun part of the project.

[Robatoy]

Those series of photographs would do well in a brochure.... that is if you want to do another house like that.

[C & S]

Very nice work, I enjoyed looling.

But, did you miss the "Three Little Pigs" bedtime story?

;-)