Framing

In this blog we are going to be discussing the frame of a house. we will also be discussing why it is one of the longest steps in the process of building a house.

The first thing you have to do is send your engineering plans to a lumber company (for a wood frame house, it doesn’t need to be wood) and they send a specific amount of lumber for your house.

There are 8 main steps to framing a house. Framing has so many steps because it makes up most of the house. The first step is, fastening a board called the sill plate to the concrete foundation. You do this so you can have a place to put the floor to walk on. Step two is, laying out the header joists, which are the beams that hold up the floor joists.

After doing this we are brought to the 3rd step. In the third step we put down the subfloor so we have a surface to walk on.The subfloor is made up of large pieces of thin plywood. This is the surface that you install the flooring on, which can be hardwood, tile, carpet, etc.

We are now at the fourth step where build the walls. First the bottom and top plates are laid out, which hold together the walls. First they build the walls while they are on the ground. Windows and doors are framed within the walls while the walls are being laid out. Once they are done with the walls they set them up and then make sure they are plum(level).

On the 5th step we will fasten studs to the two plates ( Studs are typically a 2in x 4in piece of lumber). In step 6 we put the walls up and add another top plate. Finally, in step 7, it's time to add the ceiling. Rafters are placed diagonally meeting a Ridge board at the peak to get a triangular look. In our final step, step 8, we sheet the roof again with plywood and cover it with a weather barrier until the roof material (Shingles or tile) are added.

In this post we talked about the steps to framing a house. This is one of the longest steps in the process of building a house. In my next post we will be discussing the steps of plumbing and electrical.