Status 6/18/04 : Walls go up!!! ... yep we have cure the slab and now are framing the first floor of the new house... it is coming along a little slow because of the rain but we are moving right along... Ok I will not drag it out.. I know where are the Pictures....
Well to start we have to make sure we let the slab cure for a min of 7 days... and to help the concrete gain strength we have to keep the slab wet .. allot of builders will not do this .. it is a mistake .. and a reason why many slabs have cracking problems.. because we waited and cured the slab properly ... both with spraying it down and rain ... my slab has no cracks which I am very happy about..
As you see the rug rat will not let me cure the slab without soaking her also... she had a ball playing in the water...
We watered the slab 2 times a day if we did not get a rain storm ... this was a bit time intensive but it paid off in the end...
Tip... when raising a rug rat ... water them often... Wink ... she was having to much fun...
Tip #2 ... rug rats will find any water.. be it mud puddles or water standing in the new shower... once soaked ... and muddy ... the rug rats will always seek the nearest truck with cloth seats to rest in ... be prepared to wash your truck often if you have rug rat infestations...
After the slab is cured... and your ready to start the framing ... you start by laying out all the walls with chalk line on the slab itself... this took about half a day... and Oh my carpenters do not like odd measurements.. I.E. 1/16ths and 1/32nds... this makes there measurements harder to lay out... but I am paying the bill so they suffered and did the layout as I had drawn in the plans... the reason I used odd measurements for the C/L of walls was because it gives me nice round numbers for the room measurements and will allow for better furniture placement....
The framers will start with the outside walls first and work in ... but we did not get a ton done the first two days because of the rain .... the rug rat loved it thou... she got a chance to work on her balance beam work...
Just ignore the picture above ... I as forced to put it in... so I did .. but I hate pictures of myself... but that is me and my wife Tricia...
When you build in Florida your required by code to have wind resisting elements in the framing ... this will be specified in your wind analysis... as you see in these pictures ... we have anchor bolts and sp4 Simpson straps... These are placed 48 o.c. and are an important element in the wall wind resisting strengths... in building a house ... make sure every strap is installed.. and nailed in correctly to manufacture specifications...
When inspecting the work done on your framing .. make sure you check to see each bolt has a washer and nut... this bolt shown above is to close to the stud ... the framer will have to chisel out enough wood to go back and place the washer and nut on this bolt ... do not let them skip steps... or bolts because it may be a pain in their ass to correct it...
The framers will place many temp bracing to hold up walls as they are being built and raised ... the braces are nailed into the concrete... This can cause some small cracking in the slab... but these are not structural cracks... but care should be taken to not damage the concrete to much ...
The framers will also have to make sure that they cut the bottom plate in placed where the pluming comes thru the slab... this is where your rough in work on the pluming either shines or makes you pull your hair out... we did not have one pipe out of place... I have to thank Neal for that ... he had the plumbers come out 4 times .. to correct and adjust pipes before we poured... and man I am glad he did...
As you see in all the framing pictures ... we used a new type of bottom plate... it is a borate treated 2x4... the old PT wood we all know and love is no longer available because of arsenic being in the wood... so now you uses this product or a New PT wood.. the problem with the new PT wood is that is very corrosive to straps an nails .. so you would have to us galvanized products .. thus raising cost again... so we used the borate boards..
as you see the first few days went slow because of the rain...
but once we got the crews back out on site and the rain held off we made much better progress... I hope in the next update we will show you the first floor completely framed and trusses set... but we will see... Oh and on the town house sale ... we have had 2 offers we had to pass on .. because they did not work with our time tables... but it happens...
later for now...
Mark..