How tall is the house going to be? It looks like you are building with a method called balloon framing, which is no longer in use here, but I remember seeing it in Italy. Italy also has a predominantly masonry building culture, so I suspect there are some similarities with Slovenia when it comes to building houses.
Platform framing uses slightly lighter weight studs, but you have to frame it on the ground and then raise the walls, so it is probably not any easier working solo. Also, those stem walls on the slab would be an annoyance to frame up the walls for the first story. One of the only real drawbacks to balloon framing is that it doesnt build in fireblocking by default between stories. Is it going to have a full second story, or a loft? What sort of siding is going to go on it? I really do wish I could come lend a hand!
Very nice surroundings, Kristijan.
If you find the time I would like to see the structure from the side/ground too, to see what @oregoncarl ment by balloon framing. I agree with him wishing to be able to come lend a hand.
If you pause the video at 0:40 you see that the joists of the platform are nailed straight onto the studs - which project up beyond the second floor. In theory you can run the studs all the way from the foundation up to the rafters. These studs seem too short for a second story, but it is kinda hard to judge the height. Balloon framing makes a really strong wall, but the modern method is faster, so it has taken over here in the US.
To platform frame, you would cut all the studs on the ground and nail perpendicular plates to the tops and bottom. You build the whole thing laying flat on the ground, then stand it up into place. To build the next floor you then put your joists on top of the plate, lay down a new deck, and repeat the process. It goes really fast, but there is a limit to how large a wall one person can stand up safely on their own, especially if you put the sheathing on first to keep it nice and square.
Swedish houses would have traditionally been log cabins, right? I seem to recall plywood was not much in use in building there, has that building method started creeping in?
Carl, to tell the truth l have problems with the nomenclature. Studs and rafters l understand but not much beond
But based on what you described yes, this is what l am doing. Not having level ground and being alone deterred me from building the entire wall on the ground althugh it might be easyer and more precise. Allso l am building out of 2x6.
Height is 5.5m. There will not be the full story up stairs where the bedrooms will be, but 1m wall and then 45deg roof. Whatever thats called Carl, right again. The rafters come up right on the top of the studs.
On the inside l will bolt on osb. Roof too. At this point l will focus on the interior. Build the chimney and stove plus both floors and bathroom. Once thats over with (probably in the begining of winter) l will fill the voids between studs and rafters with glasswool and start hamering on boards on the outside.
Thanks guys, l wuld apreciate that. House building is not my preffered occupation⌠l wuld rather build 10 gasifiers
Carl, our European mentality is different to American. We like to joke your houses are made of paper that is ofcorse not true literaly but compared to a traditional European house thats preety much the same. Our mentality is still that we build for generations. The house we currently live in is at least 220 years old and if repaired some will last a nother 200. The stone walls are 2 feet thick! Same goes for wooden buildings. All made out of oversizes oak and will last for centuries if roof is properly maintained.
In general we like to make everything last. Thats why we like building gasifiers out of stainless aint so JO?
So no, l dont think l ever even seen plywood osb is used a lot thugh in the last year.
Steve, yes. Acording to google earth its around 300 yards away. Other thain a old lady on the other side of the woods thats my only neighbour
Looking good, Kristijan. Only, a 45 roof seems extreemly steep to me. 27° is the norm here. Makes it a lot easier to replace a broken tile or access the chimney. Just saying.
Obtainium reasons mostly, for my part. One of very few advantages working in a paper mill
Right. Even larger structures, like barns, were built the same way. There are still livable log houses, originally built in the 1600s, around.
However, in the southern parts of the country criss-cross framing used to be the norm. Voids filled with a mix of clay and straw.
For the last 40-50 years most houses are built with prefab wall blocks, as you described. As far as I know not much plywood is used. Osb and plaster boards are a lot cheaper.
Very few people build their own houses nowdays, but Iâve been involved in a couple of buids. We knocked together 3-5m wall sections on the slab and raised them for long sides, but used Kristijanâs method for gables.
The norm is not a problem, estetics are. I am ameing to make a traditional oldtimer kinda style homestead. Traditionaly roofs were wery steep here. Its what l try to recreate.
This is a traditional Slovene barn. The sides are made to hang and dry grain and hay.
Had a house that needed rebuilding from foundation to roof . had timbers for second floor parameter all other dimensional lumber . Platform frame ? Had a foot and a half gap between one timber and the one it was to join to . Also had big gaps in sheathing under siding . was on exterior wall of interior staircase .
Id call the short wall a âpony wallâ but I guess it goes by other names as well. A partial height space above the main living space would be a loft.
Standard practice would be to nail/bolt/screw the osb to the outside of the studs. The osb is acting as your sheathing, which is what gives the structure its strength against racking (tipping sideways). It also makes a flat surface to affix a waterproof membrane to, like tarpaper or tyvek or whatever. That way any water that gets behind the siding will not find its way into the structure. Without that layer on the outside, it will be very hard to seal your windows. That way you also get a closed up shell, so when you go back to put up the insulation, you do it from inside where it will stay dry. Also mice love fiberglass insulation, and they can sneak through some tiny little holes, so making sure the outside is tightly closed is a good idea. On the interior one would then hang gypsum boards, or in the old days, they would put up wooden lath and then plaster it. You can also do wooden paneling, which can look really nice.
In my opinion, OSB is a quintessentially American product - the only good thing there is to say about it is that it is cheap Sadly, I agree with you, that many American houses are not built to last. There are still builders out there who do quality work, but in general I think a lot of new construction cuts too many corners. The average size of a new house is 2500 sq ft, which I think is way too big, and it would be cost-prohibitive to actually use high quality materials and labor intensive building methods. What we wind up with is not houses that fall down, but rather houses that look so dumpy after a few decades that we decide to just tear them down. Also, since everyone wants a 2500 sq ft house, all the small houses that were built in the past just get bulldozed. Here in my area it is really hard for young people to find houses that they can afford, because developers buy up the affordable stuff, tear it down, and build something giant in its place. AnywayâŚ
I am a not going to be sad to miss putting up that 45 degree roof! That is going to be scary. What roofing materials are commonly in use over there? One thing that you might look into is a gambrel roof. They were common on barns in America, but you dont see them on houses here very much. JO has probably seen a few, though. They create a lot of space under the rafters, but I have never built one, so I am not really in a position to recommend it exactly. As a practical person, I think roofs should be as simple as possible, but then, I live in a very rainy place, and roof leaks are a drag.
Before I retired I was a residential builder. We built a lot of pole barns as well. Houses Mostly stick built but some ICF Insulated concrete forms and some SIP. Structural Insulated Panels. My personal preference if I were building for myself right now would be ICF, although the initial expense is somewhat higher. But for someone building their own place itâs real easy. The forms go together like LEGOs and then you call out the concrete pump truck. It takes a few more hands to put up SIPâs but again, super fast and easy. If you like a rustic look, we did a couple of the SIP jobs sided with slabs from the saw mill. Looked just like a log house when finished. We used synthetic chinking. That was pricey but looked real good.
Hey KristiJanL,
Stay with your 45 degree roof. The older part of our remodeled farm house has this. All were back in the early 1900âs. You just use a ladder section end hook modified to hang down over the roof top edge for roofing work.
Beyond snows slide freeing it creates the best loft-room space upstairs.
Beyond snows slide freeing with strong side winds 45 degree pitch âresistsâ converting to side thrust and guiding the wind up, and over. Pressure flattening down the windward side roofing materials.
The shallower roof pitches want to at the wall juncture to roof transition airplane wing lift and raise up tear off the windward side roofing. Even the whole roof! See this in hurricane videos.
Gambrel roofs were evolved around in-barn loose hay mound storing. Practical for that. The shits to hand stack small compacted hay bales up under an old barn gambrel roof!!
Residential? A style affectation.
Water and wind shedding roofing surfaces cost more that exterior walls surfaces. The âA-Frameâ bugaboo. Cost more for less usable interior space. Plus not flat walls will have your wall picture hangers bitchinâ at you. Tall folks having to stand-off in the rooms centers.
Only thing worse than a very impractical freeze on the ground floor; sweat on the third floor loft bedroom A-Frame, is residential Dome. ALL roof. Echo chambers. Shudder. Pie shaped rooms. Lots of hand crafted weird compound angles to have to hand craft interior dividing.
Just put some horizontal fire-blocks in your upright wall cavity spaces. Youâll be OK.
If you not panel but go with your own cut boards for paneling put the first outer layer diagonal. Then vapor barrier. Then outside horizontal or vertical wood sheath weather layer. Stout-built like the really old have-too-many-tree/weeds way here. They would wood craftsman cross diagonal interior board sheathed too. Covered that with decorative patterned wallpaper. Ha! I have pealed off up to 10 layers. It was the upscale places that wood or expanded metal lath and interior plastered. The best for inside home started fire resistance.
During the second world war the DOD came up with the quonset hut, and a method of making cheap, strong laminated beams fast out of otherwise sawmill waste. Cheap, strong âglue lamsâ then replaced the old Gambrel roof with the âround roofâ barn. The round roof has almost exactly the same hay storage capacity. Most farmers did not stack their square bales, just let them tumble off the elevator. As the hay settled, most would throw a bunch of the bales from the peak of the pile to the sides. So that more would fit.
Now we seem to have gone to big round bales. I suppose you would put these in a pole shed, or wrap then with plastic and store them outside?
Rindert
I am guessing there is some regional differences in what things are called, but I suspect building methods have become fairly standard across the US. Gypsum board, which we would call âdrywallâ out here, means the paper-backed sheets that are 4 feet by (8,10 or 12) feet. Its either half inch of 5/8ths thick, and is very fast to put up. All the seams need to be plastered over; it is then often textured (to hide the shoddy job you just did covering the seams) and then you paint the inside. A smooth finish could be wallpapered, but I dont think I have ever seen that here.
Plaster and lath is way more time consuming, and hence much more expensive. Older houses still have it, and everyone in the building trades seem to hate it. In the old days they uses like 1-1/2" wide and maybe 1/4" thick wooden slats nailed to the studs (by hand, no pneumatic nail guns in those days). A gap was left between the laths for the plaster to grab onto. I honestly dont know what the material was, might have been lime based? It needed several coats, took a very long time to dry or cure, and also required a skillful craftsman to get a nice smooth finish.
And I might be off base here, but to me a rafter is any angled member that holds up the roof. A truss is a complete structural unit, often built offsite and delivered by truck. It generally consists of rafters with some sort of collar-tie (the horizontal piece that keeps the rafters from bowing out under a load). The simplest roof, a âshed roofâ is just a rafter going from one wall to the other. It is also the ugliest. As Steve makes good points, and I am personally in favor of a roof that is simple and functional. That said, it is also not a bad idea to copy the local tradition. There is probably a good reason that they are built that way.
If you do build a 45 degree roof and intend to do it all solo, I am going to ship you a fall-arrest harness. Falling off the roof is a bad idea, and we all want to see it finished.
On remodel jobs I tore off scads of that plaster and wood lath and that was a dirty nasty and dusty job. They used to mix horse hair with the plaster for reinforcement. The plaster would squeeze between the 1/4" spaces of the lath and bulge out behind to lock it in place. Rock lath was the replacement for wood lath after the 2nd war. It came in 16"x48" x 3/8" for the walls and 16" x 48" x 1/2" for ceilings. âGround stripsâ were nailed around all doors and windows and at the floor plate to gauge plaster thickness. A 3/8" rough coat of plaster was applied and then a finish coat of lime plaster was troweled over that and later painted. This was later abandoned for 4x? drywall which was faster and put a lot less moisture in the house. I donât know if this method was nation wide but that how it was done in Michigan back then.
Thank you guys. You cleared some building terminology up for me.
Gypsum/dry wall boards seem to be the standard procedure for the last decades on both sides of the pond. For the most part osb boards are used behind the gypsum to be able to attach anything to the wall without special screws or trying to find the studs.
I donât think the plaster and lath method has been used much here, except for basements and brick walls.
My house, built 1946, is solid wood though. Standing tounged 2Ă6. Two layers of 1" boards on the inside and a 1" gap in the middle for insulation. Soft sawdust boards for the interior finish. How they did it prior to framework studs and insulation.
Carl, l agree with you, and l realise how its supposed to be done. The thing is its allmost winter and l need to move in the house ASAP. Closeing the walls from the inside shuld provide the same structural stability yet alow me to focus on the inside work first, like floor and bathroom. Wich is te bigest problem of them all. The old house has no bathroom and for the time being l built a small outside bathroom in the woods, works in the summer but not so much in freezeing winter
The house is small and even the thin osb paired with a good heating sistem shuld provide enaugh warmth to even move in. Then l have time to fix insulation on from the outside, tyvek, and exactly what SteveU sayd. Leave a paralell/vertical gap between so there is a air barrier for moisture. Althugh you do have a point on sealing windows! Need to think of a solution for that.
Steve, its exactly why the steep roofs were used here in the Alpes! Steep roofs were the only way to asure snow and wind dont crush the house in the harsh Alpine winter. But nowdays we barely get snow at all so thats not a real problem, yet l want to stay within the historical boundrys at least some.
Wich is why Gambrel systems are a no go. I have never ever seen such a sistem here. Just in the US and on JOs videos. Agree on it being space economucal thugh!
Carl, traditionaly it was straw in the country and wooden shingles in the alpes. Later came clay âfish scaleâ tiles. Nowdays, or the last 50 years or so, its mostly concreete or clay tiles wich is what l will put on. Got them for free last year tar schingles are used but mostly nowdays people put on sheet metal panels stamped in shape of tiles. This is by far the best in my opinion, preety much no competition here, but since l alredy have a the tiles l will go with that and save 2 whole sallarysâŚ
Water leakage is a nother reason for steep roofs! Much less likely to leak behind the tiles.
Ha, that plastering thing is what l plan to do some guys here report it being a good and fast solution. Since l have osb on the inside of the walls, they will alredy be level. Lay out a glass fibre mesh and plaster with a thin layr of special malter, similar to cheramics glue. Once dry, apply a second thin layr of gipsum based plaster, sand paper it smooth and paint.
JO, for some reason l thod your house is whole made of masonry? Interesting wayâŚ
WARNING!
Iâm sorry, but please donât turn on any heat inside until the insulation is in place. Lots of people made this mistake. Inner walls and ceiling will get dripping wet from condensation when warm air hit those cool surfaces.
Rafters: With that steep 45° angle you can probably get away with this. But I would use triangles of plywood, glued and screwed in the very top, rather than osb. And then wodden boards for the final A-beams at the proper ceiling hight. Also, make sure you secure the lower parts of the rafters well to the top of the wall, since there will be some giving sideway force as well, with occational snow load. The upstairs floor beams will take that force. Maybe wedges on top of the wall instead of cuts in the rafters, depending on what dimensions youâre using.
Sadly, I agree with you, that many American houses are not built to last. There are still builders out there who do quality work, but in general I think a lot of new construction cuts too many corners. The average size of a new house is 2500 sq ft, which I think is way too big, and it would be cost-prohibitive to actually use high quality materials and labor intensive building methods. What we wind up with is not houses that fall down, but rather houses that look so dumpy after a few decades that we decide to just tear them down. Also, since everyone wants a 2500 sq ft house, all the small houses that were built in the past just get bulldozed. Here in my area it is really hard for young people to find houses that they can afford, because developers buy up the affordable stuff, tear it down, and build something giant in its place. AnywayâŚ
