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 CHAPTER 8 Framing, Roofing & Masonry:

 
The major activity of this chapter is framing. However, brick work follows naturally in the construction schedule, and is discussed later in the chapter. Other veneers can often be installed by the framing subcontractor, like lap siding or board and batten.

Detailed Schedule - Part E*   [part of a total schedule to build a home]

• hire framer. Fill out I-9 formsⁱ, get Social Security Number, W-4’s, address, phone, I-15 form for workman comp. (TN) / certificate of insurance, email address.
  
• (See Appendix E, Lumber Order.) Install black plastic sill skirt flashing (TN). Caulk or use sill sealer under bottom plates. Slab insulation if required by energy code.
  
• Give the cornice details to framer. Count chimneys to be built for sub.
  
• Order lumber and sheathing through top plates (after 1^st of month.) Reuse 2x8 forms as headers. Install sill sealer?
  
• Order TJM joist package if desired, 2x4 utility grade lumber for plates & braces, a roll of Seismic & hurricane straps if in a natural-Disaster prone state.
  
• Order rafter /truss package.
  
• Order windows (see Chapter 9) and exterior doors.
  
• Order cornice (soffit vents & louvers) –wood window arches
  
• Order prefab fireplace installed (Chapter 11.)
  
• Build whirlpool platform for drop-in type.
  
• Order roof decking (or 1x8 no. 4 spruce roof deck planks), plywood clips, & siding. Install louver dormers. Ask if framer needs more nails ordered.
  
• Install skylight curb & flashing & fireplace chimney chase (Chapter 11.)
  
• Foam insulation or board at slab edge.
  
• Clean interior and throw into yard at regular intervals.
  
• SLAB ENGINEER’S LETTER needed, and due about now -verify received.
  
• Build shutters for painter and trim subcontractors (see Chapter 16.)
  
• Any painting required? Prime cornice, siding, louvers, plywood corners, and gables.
  
• Hire roofer (verify liability & workman’s comp. Insurance.) Install copper over dormer roof (range hood? Chimney cap?)
  
• Hold off roof below stucco interface, just felt temporarily. Provide flashing for stucco.
  
• Order roofing (1 bundle/sheet of plywood), FELT (400 sqft/roll), and 90#rolls (for valleys); hip & ridge shingles, skylights & dormer step flashing, & valley flashing rolls.
  
• Get quotes: Hardwood / tile floor (Chap. 15), fireplace surround, tile countertops, wall & shower enclosure.
  
• Bricklayer / Stonemason (leave gas starter for plumber.) Order brick, flue cap, any stone, sand, mortar, quoins for windows.
  
• Order brick for fence posts & mailbox (or steel mailbox,) cast iron (C.I.) crawlspace grilles, ash clean out, flue liner, C.I. damper, lintel, 7 bags mortar/1000 brick, and chimney cap flashing. Get brick wall tie inspection.
  
• Pour fencepost footer & condenser pad (does HVAC sub provide?) after brick delivery.
  
• Call-before-Dig ___(phone no.)__ 72 hr. in advance -good for 15 subsequent days.
  
• LG&W to mark gas and electric meter location on inside walls.
  
• Plumbing top-out gas to front lanterns.
  
• Call-before-Dig ___(phone no.)__ 72 hr. in advance -good for 15 subsequent days.
  
• Order cabinets (6 week lead time,) pulls & hinges, 8”deep composite sink, 32”high vanity, tile/granite tops?
  

*Detailed Schedule – Part E in this chapter continues the sequence of construction tasks following Part D in Chapter 6. See Appendix B for the complete Detailed Schedule. Dimensions and amounts are based on codes in Tennessee, Colorado, and Florida, local requirements, and the Uniform Building Code that change annually in some cases, so verify all in this book before acting on them.

Lumber

You as the builder must be diligent when ordering lumber. Many builders order an entire package once the slab is completed, consisting of plates, studs, rafters, sheathing, and even siding, all delivered at once. This may result in waste, weathering, inefficiency, vandalism, and theft more often than not. If you can time your order until after the beginning of the lumberyard's monthly billing cycle, payment can often be delayed on this large expenditure until the tenth of the following month, aiding cash flow. Lumberyards often offer a discount of up to two percent if paid by the tenth of the month (2 percent 10, net 30 in accounting parlance,) otherwise the total net amount is due within thirty days.

A builder can give a set of plans to the lumberyard, and they will do a detailed take-off of all materials that they supply, saving the trouble and time of this work. However, the lumberyard will normally over supply many components, since they are in the business of selling the goods they quoted, and they also do not want to be accused of holding up the job due to shortages. You will be told that they will pick up any excess overages at the end of the job, however, by that time excessive leftovers are missing or destroyed due to weather and mishandling on the job and not fit for return. If you do give your plan to a lumber company for a quotation you should also give them the job even if you do the ordering yourself, since the take-off is quite a bit of work. So, prior to asking someone to do an extensive plan quotation, do some pricing of items at various local companies first. For instance, get the price of a 2x4 stud and a 2x8, etc. and compare other samplings of wares. After that take your plans to only one company to be evaluated.

The lumber company's quote will help you verify your count of materials and is a useful tool as well. We always did our own take-offs, since this forced us to do an analysis of the design as well, when counting the elements making up the structure. We also saved a good deal of money by keeping our orders closer to an accurate amount with less waste, when we did our own counts and then compared to the lumber yard.

Be sure to consult with your framing subcontractor prior to ordering as to what he will need. A small crew may take a week and a half to two weeks just to erect the first floor walls and joists. In the meantime they will be tripping over excess materials on the site, which are usually placed in the most obstructive spot, right in front of the structure, as that is the most convenient delivery spot. This is also the easiest place for thieves to back up their pickup truck and abscond with your precious materials.

As the uninstalled lumber and sheathing lays around the site waiting for its rightful place in the superstructure, it is all the while warping or curling due to being unsupported at several points. This is exacerbated and prolonged if there is precipitation. The framer will separate the deliveries into manageable stacks of about the same sizes. At the end of each day you will find much of the lumber laying haphazardly around the site, unsupported and sitting in the mud and dirt. I used to visit the job periodically and spend time stacking lumber on ground skids made from scrap two-by cuttings, placed about four feet apart. This helped the framer remain organized, and saved my lumber from deterioration, warping, and bowing. You would expect your framer to do the sorting and stacking for his own efficiency, but that will not usually be the case.

At the same time you or your trash subcontractor can toss small pieces of lumber with nails exposed into various small piles away from the house. This will serve as a safety measure and make your job site more accessible. Your trash sub can gather and remove the piles quickly. Some small two-by scrap pieces can be used for bridging, fire blocking, or for nailing blocks behind the drywall toward the end of framing. This avoids cutting up long lengths of boards for piecemeal work. For this reason it is a good idea to keep a bit of trash on the job longer than a normal time. In the winter your subs will burn your lumber scrap for warmth, and when you aren't around they will cut up your lumber and burn that rather than pay for their own salamander propane heating. This may be avoided by ordering a face cord or so of firewood. During the framing process you or your trash subcontractor will need to make frequent visits to clean the interior floor slab, so that people do not trip over all the debris that continually piles up each day.

You may want to add nailing blocks after the framer has left the job, including behind towel bars, grab bars, toilet paper rollers, wall light sconces, curtain rods, stair skirts and handrails, or supports for closet rod ends. These block-outs provide a solid support for these accessories behind the future drywall, and waiting on the sub to return is inefficient.

We once had a guy just show up and start clearing away our scrap lumber without even consulting us. Later he asked to be paid for trash work that we did not even request. This was wrong of him in many ways. First of all, our insurance would not have covered him, since he was working on our site without permission. Secondly, we lost much of the useful small lumber pieces that could have been used in the framer's work instead of having to cut up full boards to make braces, blocks, etc. Third, this guy created animosity between us and himself by presuming that we owed him for something we did not even want.

This builder prefers to order materials in phases (see Appendix E – Lumber Order,) and most lumber companies do not bill additionally for deliveries as long as you plan to order the entire package from them. Break the loads into manageable sizes based on use within a week to a week and a half. This means you can order the wall-framing package (through top plates) and perhaps the joists and part of the sheathing for corner bracing in the first delivery. The lumber companies we used could get an order out the next morning if placed before noon. Visit the construction site daily more than once, and near the appropriate time discuss with the framer when to order second floor or first floor ceiling joists and the remainder of the sheathing.

A separate order can include the second floor wall package and ceiling joists. The roof rafter order should be delayed until nearing the completion of all exterior wall sheathing. There is no need to have these members stacked idly for a week or two before installation, deteriorating. Place the cornice and siding order last, since this material needs to remain straight and will become warped & weather beaten laying around the site too long. Order attic ventilation (if not a cool roof / unvented attic) louvers and soffit vents at the time of the cornice order. There will also be several small weekly deliveries of 2 x 4’s and other miscellaneous pieces that have run short.

Order seismic straps and other hardware with the first order of lumber, since the framer will need them once the top plates are installed. These are sometimes called hurricane straps, since they perform a similar function in high winds as they do in earthquakes. This is to mitigate e effect of racking of the structure, rather the sideways deflection of the members at different degrees, which can break apart weak connectors holding building elements together. You will find that the strapping requirements vary state by state due to differing conditions in each local, so check your codes. Tennessee has earthquake influences, and Florida hurricane winds.

Engineered lumber, like truss joists or I-[shaped] joists, should be ordered as early as possible, since they have a long lead time before arrival on the job. This could take six weeks or more. Verify whether your lumber yard will hold them and ship to the job on the day they are needed. I once had a one-and-half story home where I mixed second floor joist types between engineered and normal two-by joists. This was done much to the dismay of the local lumber supplier, who wanted to provide the entire job in expensive engineered lumber. Our solution was possible, because much of the upper level was low attic, and elsewhere second floor walls needed support within in the ceiling below without bearing walls on the first floor.

Order windows and exterior doors about the same time as you order your first lumber delivery, since they usually have a long lead time. Most lumber companies will hold these until you request delivery, but will order them early to have them in stock when you call for them. See Chapter 9 for more on this subject. You should check windows and doors for level and plumb and shim them as needed after the framer has placed them and before the bricklayer begins encasing their brickmold. Almost all of our jobs had the fenestration installed improperly after the framer had considered it complete. If you can get the framer back to shim his work in a timely manner it will be unusual.

We used to ask the framing contractor to install a 36” inside door between the house and the garage, even though they did not normally do this in Tennessee by custom. The trim carpenter did it. We ordered that door with the windows, the front, and the rear door package, because that particular door similarly had exterior trim with weatherstripping, threshold, and brick mold. This way we could close up the house early to prevent intruders (usually teenagers partying or curious neighbors) after the framing. Since drywall normally is installed on the inside of the garage before this door, we had to have the framer space it with small pieces of blackboard behind the brickmold as a temporary shim where drywall would normally lie. This is an example of the problems incurred by attempting to do things in innovative ways, since it is often easier to merely go with the local tradition and avoid conflicts.

Order any trusses you will need for the roof at least two months in advance. There are truss manufacturing companies that will do a truss diagram for you, and engineer these to fit your project. There is normally no fee for this design if you order from that company.
When each lumber order arrives or any other materials, the builder should always plan to be at the job site soon thereafter to count the load. I occasionally found deliveries that did not match the purchase order. Oddly, these were always short (of a lesser count) and never in excess in my favor -go figure.

....(continued in book)

i See web page http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-9.pdf ; Dept. of Homeland Security employment eligibility for work in the United States. [last accessed 6/12/13]

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