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Old 04-21-10, 08:05 AM   #11
gasstingy
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My wifes aunt passed away yesterday, sothe demands on my time are shifting somewhat until after the funeral tomorrow.

Still managed some time after visiting family to do just a little. My walk-in door headers and window headers are made with two 2x6's parallel sitting on a 2x6, sort of a U shape. I planned to cap one of the headers with 1/2" plywood before installing it so I could use the scrap pieces I had from making the headers. The scrap was about 1/4" too short. Before covering the open part of the U with plywood, I took a can of Great Stuff foam and some small pieces of extruded polystyrene and insulated the void. I cut the four cripple studs and think I have all the materials I need for this first wall section. It was getting late, so after a couple of pictures were taken, we swept the garage.

This morning, I tried to download the pictures and found the battery dead on the camera. I'll try again this evening with fresh batteries to download the pictures so I can post them tomorrow. That failing, I'll take a couple more pictures and try to get them posted tomorrow or Friday. Thank God for this forum. Without posting here frequently, I would likely put off some of the work and it would take even longer. I can't tell if more than Daox is looking, but you guys keep me going.

Thanks! Mark

I came back and added the door header picture. It turns out that the camera did not store the picture on the removable disc, but in its internal memory.

All I had to do to the header after this picture was let the foam cure over night and I went back and trimmed it with a regular hacksaw. Some of it the hacksaw cut, some it just ground off sort of like a cheese grater file. Then I added a 1/2" piece of plywood on top and called it complete

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Old 04-21-10, 01:00 PM   #12
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Sorry to hear about your loss.

There definitely a fair amount of people watching. The view per post is fairly high on this thread.

How are you planning on making your trusses? Got some sketches or something?

I like the idea of the U with foam. Any pics so others can more easily reproduce this?
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Old 04-21-10, 02:52 PM   #13
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I do happen to have a copy of the truss plan that was drawn up for my project. These will be placed 24" on center. You'll note that the trusses are designed to overhang the walls of the garage by 21" on either side. This is part of my passive solar plan, along with five 36" x 60" south facing windows. Could be overkill, but assuming 80% of the window size is unobstructed glazing, I'll have 14.4% glazing to square feet floor space for the first floor. The recommended number is around 9%, but I figure that since my siting isn't due south, this should compensate.
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Old 04-22-10, 07:38 AM   #14
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I went back and edit / added a picture each to post #3 for the garage door header and post #11 for the walk-in door header.

Last night after sorting out my picture problem, I had about an hour and a half to work on my wall section. I was hoping to be able to say this morning that I completed my first wall section, but that wasn't to be. Previously, I had laid out my top and bottom plates and marked them for the king studs, trimmers and cripples. (I've got a how-to book that I learned what to call full height {king} studs and what to call header supporting {trimmer} studs and what to call the little studs {cripples} installed over headers.) I had already cut all my king studs and cripple studs to length and had built this doors header. So, I took my top plate and clamped it to the header so I could mark where the cripple studs should go to be aligned. Then I laid out some double stacked 2x6's to hold the wall section off the floor. (It makes it easy to get my framing nailer in position.) I laid out all of the wall studs and top and bottom plates and started by nailing the studs on either end. Then, I used two ratcheting straps connected together to pull the slight bow out of the top and bottom so the intermediate studs would stay in place so I could nail them in too. (You'll note that I was working solo last night, as most nights.) It took a while but I got all 5 king studs, the header and all four cripple studs in place and mostly nailed together. I have to turn it over to finish nailing it, and I just didn't have the energy to continue that late last night. Hopefully I'll have time to complete this wall section tonight. I have to finish nailing it together, square it up again and sheath it. That's just something else to learn how to do.

For anyone who might be curious, I am not a carpenter, nor have I ever worked as one. I am a retired Air Force fighter aircraft mechanic, reeducated into a bookkeeper and sit behind a desk all day. I have done a few small DIY projects and have a carpenter brother-in-law I can ask for advice and help. I try to limit the asking for help so he doesn't feel over used. And I read a lot of how-to stuff before I jump into the fray!
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Old 04-22-10, 11:16 AM   #15
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Thats very cool. I'm no carpenter either and I know next to nothing about building. I call in help for that stuff. Thats one of the reasons I'm so interested in this thread.
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Old 04-23-10, 07:28 AM   #16
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Last night I managed to get just a little farther along on the project. I had to turn the skeleton of a wall over to finish nailing it together. Not too bad as this wall section is only ~ 7' long. After that, it was time to move on to the next wall section. Except that there is no room in the garage to build but one section at a time. My plan has always been to store the completed wall sections out on the slab and cover them with a tarp. So, I went around the house gathering up 6 concrete blocks and two 2x6x14 boards that I salvaged off of a 14 wide mobile home I helped tear down a couple of years ago. I wanted to keep the wall sections off the ground, knowing that water on the slab will get under the tarp at some point. Grabbed my hand trucks after that and then dragged the wall out onto the driveway so I could stand it up. My wife and brother-in-law (BIL) steadied it in the upright position while I strapped it to the hand trucks. As a team effort, the three of us rolled it across the yard and put it on my cobbled up wall rack. My day was spent by the time we got it tarped, so I called it a night. The batteries in the camera are dead, but I'm going to get more this afternoon and take a wall picture to post (I hope) on Monday if all goes reasonably well. The weather is not supposed to be good at all Saturday, but I still plan to try and build another section of wall.
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Old 04-25-10, 07:33 AM   #17
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Nice update. Love the wall section transportation tool idea!
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Old 04-26-10, 08:03 AM   #18
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Friday evening I managed to assemble the second wall section. The bad part is, by the time I finished, a hard rain had started so I couldn't take it out and put it on the rack. I don't have room in my garage to build more than one section at a time, so I quit for the night. The bad weather really started in earnest on Saturday, so I started cutting the 8 foot 2x6's down to 91 5/8" and drilling the 3/4" holes for pulling wires. I cut and drilled all the rest of the wood that was fit to use. Out of 100 pieces, I will be taking back about 35. What a lousy percentage! The down sides are transporting and loading/unloading and stacking. Add the lost work time and it doesn't get better.

Weather radio warned of tornados and golf ball sized hail mid-afternoon, so our attention shifted to securing our property and I didn't go any farther on the construction Saturday. On Sunday, the weather was gorgeous, so after church I loaded the Friday wall on the hand trucks and dragged it out, pulled back the tarp, checked my wall rack, transferred the wall section to the rack and swept the puddles of water off the slab. Then I built another wall section and took it out and stacked it on the rack.

Please note that I mark all of the wall section locations on the 2x8 cap(?) plate so I can go back to them as a reference. This worked out very well on my Sunday wall section. I measured and cut the top and bottom plates for the wall and started marking stud locations. When I got it marked, I set it on the cap plate and found that I had mis-measured. All I had to do was trim 2" off the plates and remark where one stud goes, but it would have been a disaster on the day I got people to help stand the walls up if I didn't have the ability to double check.

That was about all I had time for yesterday. I'm attaching a few pictures. The first is my Friday wall section laying on 2x6's in the garage (makes it easier to build with room to maneuver the nailer close to the floor, plus a place to get your hands in when it comes time to pick it up ) The second is a closer shot that may allow you to see where I have drilled a 3/4" hole about 14" up from the bottom of the stud and the bottom plate got a 1 1/4" hole to go over the attaching bolt on the sill plate. I circled them in the new bigger picture. Bear in mind that this will be sitting atop a 24" wall of concrete blocks, plus the 2x8 sill plate and the 2x6 bottom plate, so my wiring runs are really about 41" off the floor. All the outlets in the garage are going to be where I don't have to worry about a work bench blocking them. Finally, the third picture is my rack right after I put the Friday wall section on it.
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Old 04-27-10, 07:23 AM   #19
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Sorry folks, no progress last night. I found out the Arab Electric Cooperative (AEC) Board of Directors meeting was last night and decided to go to it. You see, I have an easily expandable, professionally designed and tested 700 watt grid-tied PV system that is not allowed to be used at the moment. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has a Generation Partners Program and AEC buys power from the TVA. TVA's program offers a better rate than required by law, but that makes it optional for its distributors to participate. AEC elected not to, as they are afraid of the future. I try to keep up a little with what's going on and to remind them that I still want to connect my system on the TVA program.
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Old 04-28-10, 12:23 PM   #20
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Last night I went out and took measurements for my next wall section. To do that, I fit the 2x8 sill boards and then measure for the 2x6 bottom plates. By "fit" them, I put the adjacent sill board in place and measure for the bolt holes in the board I want to install next. Mark it and take it back into the garage and drill it for the bolts to go through and take it back outside and make sure it fits. It fit tightly, which is a good thing since most pressure treated lumber tends to shrink some. Then I made reference marks on the board to help align the wall sections come assembly time. All this went well and did not take but about 45 minutes.

Then I tried to find two 2x6x12' boards for the next wall section. Out of my stack of a dozen, I found one acceptable board. Too late to go to the lumberyard last night, so I fitted and drilled oversized holes to align with the bolts sticking through the sill boards in the one I did have that was acceptable. I also gathered up a window header and brought it to my work area (I've prefabbed all the headers already). For want of lumber, I called it a night. I'll be going by the lumberyard tonight for more material. Saturday morning, I'll take back about 35 of the 8' boards, 11 of the 12' boards and whatever else I find defective before then.

I'll check Saturday and see if my windows have arrived. I am also planning to go with a different supplier for my trusses. There design was essentially the same as the ones from this lumberyard and the price was very close. I am afraid that if the quality of the lumberyard wood they sent me out the door with is this poor, the trusses may be made from the same poor quality material. The other truss quote I got was from the same people who built the trusses that we installed on the home I live in. I know those were good quality.

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