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Post date: Jun 2, 2015 1:44:35 AM
The crew nailed sheathing on most of the outside walls today. The sheathing is green because it is Zip-Panel, coated OSB (strandboard) which will withstand the sun and water until the house is finished. With taped joints, it is also air tight, which will save heating cost.A significant part of adding the sheathing is making certain that the walls are vertical and the corners square. We had inadvertently cut the top plate (horizontal member connecting the studs) 2” short, so when that section of wall was connected to its neighbor over the garage door opening it pulled the walls out of vertical. Took a while to find this, but the solution was simple.
Meanwhile I was bolting (20 lag screws each bracket) the special shear brackets to the double studs — after Oraldo had bolted them to the foundation with 7/8 threaded rod and epoxy cement. These brackets keep the house from collapsing in a rocking earthquake or strong wind. Several of these brackets are hard to reach for pre-drilling and screwing in the lag bolts. Took a while and several special tools.Yes, we are in an earthquake zone. Earthquakes opened up the crack that is now filled with the Rio Grande through the Taos Canyon. The canyon is mostly filled with rock, sand, silt, and clay washed out of the surrounding mountains, but there are a few places where this outwash plain has broken away from the mountains by faults.
The crew has also been busy installing blocking - both for joining sheets of wall covering (visible at the top of the green panels on the outside) and for stopping fires from spreading inside the walls. Whereas the International Residential Code only requires fire blocking every ten feet, the tradition is to install it every four feet vertically between studs. Since this also supports the edges of gypsum wallboard installed horizontally, we’ll do it that way.
We also need fire blocking every ten feet horizontally. Most long walls are broken by doors and/or windows, but the west wall of the garage is unbroken 24’. I think that the fiberglass insulation itself will block fire, but we will check with the building inspector tomorrow.
Eli always asks me if there is a choice of ways to do something. Sometimes I really care. Other times I simply learn the local way of building. Since Eli is also a fine cabinet maker and finish carpenter, there are times when his view of how a door should be set (for instance) may be better than what the architect or I could specify. In any case I appreciate being asked.
While I had checked the truss design, Eli wanted to be certain that they were correct, so he and I went over the dimensions of each one together. There are 16 different truss sizes, mostly because they step up 1/2" as they go from the center roof drain outward towards the walls to provide a two-way slope towards the drain. This is a big change from the original five truss sizes, but will speed construction -- if they are built correctly.
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