Sheath first floor before going higher?

[dougpete]

Greetings -

We are building the two story and have the first floor walls up and are working on the second floor joists.

Should we install the first floor wall sheathing before we go much further?  I am thinking if we do it sooner, then we get more strength sooner.  If we wait and do the first and second floor together, the wrapping will go more smoothly and we have a better chance of keeping that osb dry.

Pros or cons one way or the other?

Dougpete

[MushCreek]

You should at least sheath the corners to prevent racking, unless you have some kind of diagonal bracing. A good wind could literally blow the house down without bracing.

[Dave Sparks]

Why would you not want to?  I did BTW.

[dougpete]

I was thinking it may be easier to wrap and keep dry if we go all the way up at once.  I once read on this board that starting a framing project is a sure way to get a long rainy spell......we actually seem to get more rain now than in the winter.

We'll probably just go ahead and put the first coarse of sheathing on and not worry about it.

Dougpete

[MountainDon]

You do want to get it dried in as soon as possible, but the primary thing is to get that first floor sheated to a point where it has strength and is square, level and plumb. Take your time on those things as any errors can easily be magnified as you go higher. Check the plumbness of the walls before setting all the ceiling joists. Once that's done and the second floor is up you could wrap the walls or get the roof done first and warap that. The wall sheathing will stand up to rain better than the roof or especially the floor. There's also no need to cutout the window holes in the sheathing right away as that can keep blowing rain outside until you are ready to install the windows.

[dougpete]

We'll start in on the sheathing - thanks all.

Dougpete