20x34 2-story universal in upstate NY

Started by NathanS, May 13, 2016, 11:04:09 AM

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Don_P

I'd make sure to put a nice curve on the projecting bottom riser and tread. Somebody I know real well curved the tread on the projecting bottom tread but squared off the riser underneath it. I've He's stubbed his poor toe on it more times than I he can count walking by in the dark d*

NathanS

 :) If you knew my wife you'd say to make it out of foam. We have single hungs instead of casements because outswing windows are a multiple times a day head hazard.   ;D


NathanS

Been wrapping up lots of odds and ends. The insulation is basically done - we have to position a few pieces in the attic, still have to run our upstairs bathroom vent out - and wrap it in insulation. Pretty quick job.

The big one for the past few days was all the plumbing drains and vents. Our upstairs bathroom toilet had to cross through a bunch of joists and 22 around the stove pipe - luckily 2x12 can suffer a 3 5/8 hole in them.. there is no wiggle room for getting anything wrong though. I probably spent 2 days thinking about it, 1 day laying it out and a half day double checking before I started drilling. Glad I did, it came out perfect.  Everything runs from the slab up and out the attic at this point. Also includes a 3" radon stack vent that went through a couple joists.

Today I was doing layout for the staircase. Used my plumb bob to transfer the stair opening to the slab, and took my exact floor to floor height measurement. This kind of stuff takes a long time with primitive tools. The slab is not perfectly level, but dang close. I wanted to be positive that my floor to floor measurements were the same - or i accounted for any differences between the U stair landing and the upstairs. That is a tricky measurement to take. I was about to break out my clear hose for water level.. and had no water.. considering melting snow on the stove. Then I broke down and bought a Bosch plumb/level laser. Wow that thing is awesome. It turned 1 hr job of transferring the stair opening to slab to 5 minutes. Seems like a game changer. Transferring the landing height from below where the upper stringer terminates is a simple fast job now.

I checked the level line from the laser level (which is automatic) against my 4' stabila level and they were identical. I think this tool could make a whole lot of finish jobs easier. Antique doors that need finish jambs and head probably wouldn't be too bad with this rig.

Anyway last comment about the stairs, everything I have read and watched says divide out your total rise to get your riser height, then round to the nearest 16th.. well this can cause a pretty big compound error over 15 risers.. 1/4-3/8" by the time you get to the last step. I am thinking to round each riser to the nearest 16th, giving 1/16th of variation every second step or so. Maybe thinking about this too much but uneven stairs are no fun to walk.







Finished insulation. Highs in the 20s or low 30s and lows in the 10s, usually around 42 inside in the morning, have 1 fire to bring it to the mid 50s. Still losing tons of heat through ceiling without an air barrier. Really happy with performance so far though.



Laser level sitting on the ladder.



Here's my stair calculation I was talking about.


Don_P

Sweet, I got the pinpoint version of the same laser, a friend got the crosshairs.. much better.
It looks like you figured it out, the elevations come from where you land on the concrete, it may not be in plane with what is above. Make sure you are calculating elevations from finished surfaces. I'm assuming nothing on the slab.

"Stepping off" with a square (and hopefully a pair of square nuts) is one way to do stairs or rafters, it is prone to cumulative error, especially if you are rounding. Use a knife rather than a pencil. I like that you understand to use the cumulative numbers. The ones that will be of most use is the cumulative hypotenuse (stringer) numbers. I prefer the innermost corner points of each step running up the stringer. You can then use a straight snapped line on the stringer up the inside notch corners rather than following an edge which now doesn't have to be perfectly straight.

You can get the hypotenuse length per step using Pythagoras , square root of (rise squared + run squared). Have the cumulative sequence of that in hand when you layout. Layout the first step using your square. Measure perpendicular in from the edge to the inside edge of the step. Go to the top of the stringer and measure in the same amount. Snap a line and layout the sequence up the line from that first step inside corner. Now make sure the square layouts hit that corner, you may need to shift the square up and down the stringer to get first the rise then the run to intersect there. If you are following me and if you are having to shift, this is not of concern, it is showing the factory edge is not perfectly straight.

Master class, following that logic, you can shallow up the line preserving more unnotched stringer. Move the line say 1" closer to the upper edge of the stringer. Now you'll really need to slide the square, with square nuts riding the edge of the board, back and forth to hit the inside corners. The notches will not come to a point on that top edge there will be short sections of the factory edge in that last little bit of the outer corner... you don't need that corner, your stringer just got 1" deeper, major.


NathanS

#229
Don.. that is an awesome way to do it... I was on the right track with actual cumulative riser, but the actual cumulative hypotenuse is much better. I don't think I would have gotten that, at least not in time for my stringers - haha.

Makes sense to leave an extra ~1 inch of unnotched stringer too - whatever is going on at that outside corner is irrelevant for making your rise/run marks.

Once the stringer is in front of me it will probably fully click, but along my straight line I make my marks for cumulative hypotenuse (inside corner of rise/run intersection). If I connect the dots with the rafter square, and make sure my run is always 10" that would guarantee the rise is correct. I think I follow what you're saying with the rafter nuts - my rise and run could be set exactly correct, but because the edge of the stringer is deformed, I may have to mark the rise, then slide the rafter square up or down a small amount to mark the run. And then between marking the rise and run for a stringer with no outside corner intersection you would need to slide the square for each individual rise/run.

edit: I did a stringer like this today. It looks like everything came out just right.

Kind of hard to explain, just making sure I understand the square nuts to speed the process up. I know I could technically put the rafter square at 10" for the run on one inside stair corner, then pivot the square until it intersects the inside corner below. Just would be a little more time comsuming that way.

I have read a few stair making books, and watched some videos.. I have not seen it put this way anywhere and this seems like a more intuitive way to me. It also will produce the most accurate steps possible. And especially on long straight flights it seems like a good idea to leave a little extra stringer for that span. The most recent stair book I read suggested using LVLs for stringers - that is a really expensive way to do it.

Thank you for sharing this.

The laser.. I was using it today and what a time saver and accuracy improvement. And especially working alone, sometimes you need a third hand even without holding the level. There's no going back now.

Also did want to mention the stairs are being planned for keeping the slab as the finished floor. If we decide to put down hardwood in the future it will screw up the bottom step. I did frame out french doors on a 2x so that there was space for a wood floor. It is what it is.

Also yesterday never got above 19 or 20 and one big fire took it from 42 to 62. House is performing pretty awesome I'd say. I think the slab temp is finally rising and helping to hold/release heat at night. Will have to shoot the temp gauge at it today.


Don_P

 [cool]... I've never been able to explain that to someone without showing them before.
I can't remember if I mentioned it here. I cover the stringers with 3/4 ply for subtreads and risers glued and ring shanked on then glue and screw the finish risers and treads on from the backside wherever I can reach. I usually apply the subtreads and risers to the bottom, top, middle and then fill the rest. This lets me crank the stringers into line better. I then have a solid temporary set and a good base to work from... of course account for those thicknesses when laying out.

NathanS

That sounds like a nice way to beef them up. I already cut a stringer for the lower flight. I think all I'd have to do is take another 3/4" off the bottom if I do that. I had been planning to put on temporary treads until after drywall at the least.. but realistically I will not do most finishes until we are already living in the house.

It also sounds like you do not cut a housed stringer. With finish treads glued and screwed in place, and the subtreads things must stay together pretty good? I will not lose any sleep if a couple years down the road there is a seasonal crack between the tread and skirt board, but would be nice to not have that. I had been intending to leave a 1.5" (2x spacer) or so space for drywall and skirt board, then to butt the finish treads up against that.

I was also just planning on using a hanger board with as many 16d ring shank as I can reasonably put into each stringer and then to the rim joist. Also if my foam glue isn't shot from yesterday I will probably put some of that on there. Do you think there is a better way to do this? Guessing build walls whenever possible? I probably could actually do that, but I am trying to not lose too much space under the stairs as it is going to be a pantry and storage area.  I haven't been too concerned with this set of stairs. Because of the landing I am spanning <5 ft with each stringer. If this was a straight flight I would have done the 300lb point load calculation.

Don_P

Just in to check the dog between pours. Yes 3/4 off the bottom, 3/4 off the upper back for the riser padding. Well nailed ply hanger is fine, deduct for its thickness. A strap hanging from the rim and then under the stringer is another. Yes a 2x4 flush to the outside bottom of the stringer against the wall, slide the stringer to the wall scribe the bottom on the studs, slide out the stringer and nail the 2x4 to the studs, slide stringer in and nail to 2x4.

NathanS

Thanks again Don. Looks like everything fits really good - I did take your advice and leave the stringer with an extra inch of depth, so the outside edge of my rise and run do not intersect on the lumber. Really like that idea. I guess I should trim 3/4" off the top plumb cut of the stringer. I had planned to add a sub-riser on that one too, but I guess it is pretty redundant with the hanger boards.

Finally remembered my camera today and took pics of the process, but left the camera there when I returned tonight.  d* Will post them tomorrow hopefully.


Don_P

I've never mortised the skirts for the risers and treads on this type, that is certainly a fine way to do it. I block the skirt zone and run them then with scraps of plywood and the screwgun mock up perfect templates for each stair. That will open more gap than the housed stairs. That is a plywood jig and a router, not bad, I do that with timber stairs.

NathanS

Ok got some pics of the stairs..


My rise and run is in the neighborhood of 7 5/8 and 10". Set that on the square, marked on stringer. Took a square and measured in to that depth then subtracted 1" from that. I went to the other end of the board and measured in that amount, snapped a chaulk line.



Then using a tape measure, and in my case I have a tablet with spreadsheet for my actual hypotenuse measurements, and mark them down the stringer. Double check, then triple check measurements if something was wrong on the double check. You can see I had to scratch one mark out.


Here is the interesting part, to get the square to intersect with the actual hypotenuse marks, you have to slide the square up and down the the stringer to get your intersection. Intuitively, if you forget the rise and run numbers, and think in terms of the rafter square creating plumb and level lines I think it makes sense.



Flipping the rafter square over shows from hypotenuse mark to hypotenuse mark I have my correct rise and run. And you can see the missing corner that does not effect the strenth of the stairs.




Doing a dry fit. I left an extra 3/4" on the subfloor which I cut off once the stringers were attached to the hangerboard. Right now the extra 3/4" is still useful for making sure my overall run is correct.



Making sure my rise from landing is exact.


Upper stringers mostly installed.


Still need to build the wall under the lower part of stringer, but for now I put a bunch of ringshank 16d through the rim board into the stringers.


The lower stringers are not in yet, just wanted to see how they will look.


The extra stair step because of our 8' 5" ceilings is actually going to end up being a good thing. The space underneath the landing will make a great storage area, Good space under the lower flight of stringers too. Under the second flight of stairs will be our pantry.

Just want to thank Don P again for awesome insights on creating strong accurate stairs.

Don_P

 [cool]
I love it when a plan comes together  :D

Rys

Love all the detail you and Don_P show. Very informative.
Can you tell me what your stair footprint is?
Thanks!

NathanS

Thanks Rys. I got walls built and set the lower stringers.

The rough opening width is 6' 7" wide. The depth (from upstairs hallway edge to exterior wall) opening is 8' 3.5". The 6x6 posts are a little narrower than the 6' 7"... ah I can't find my note with that measurement it might be like 6' 4" which is pretty tight but as posts it works - it will be code legal but I am glad my entire opening isn't that width.

If you have to follow the IRC stair code be careful of making these dimensions too tight. You have to allow space for drywall and skirtboards - on one side of the stairs that would shrink the width by about 1.25" - on both sides now we're talking 2.5". If you had all sides of the U stair walled up you lose 5" if everything is tight tight tight.. now if you intended to frame your rough opening at 6' 7".. some of your lumber is a bent here and there, or you just wound up .5" off you gotta get everything perfectly centered..

If you don't have to follow code my personal opinion if you needed to make rise a little higher than 7.75" and the finished width a little less than 36" you'd be fine. I have walked up the bare stringers and even 7 5/8 rise 'feels' shallow - it's nice, but I am wondering if the code is a lot more strict than what most pre - IRC houses have. I am leaving the the living room side open (railing). Hopefully I can snake furniture up there ok. Sure is interesting how those manufactured circular stairs are exempt from all the rules that you have to follow if you are building them yourself.


I got the lower stringers set and walls built. By the way I had to switch from a powder actuated concrete nailer to tap cons. The nailer goes in fine to mortar/block but the second one I put into the slab created a little crater. Might have something to do with how polished the top of the slab is.


Might be kind of hard to see, but in between the center wall I built and that stringer I nailed a 2x spacer so I can slide my drywall and then skirtboard down in there. Then when I put on the finish hardwood treads I can butt them up against the skirt board to hide any gap.



We are also running the pex water lines. We went with the expansion fittings and are doing just an old school trunk and branch system. It was about $300 than rigging up a manifold and I wasn't too keen on drilling a dozen or more holes through the LVL. If we used the "Viega" system, with the manabloc and crimp fittings the cost may have been more doable for home run. Either way our runs are quite short base on our small house and I hope and don't think we will be waiting too long for hot water upstairs. Downstairs the shower should almost immediately get hot water.

Trying to get everything lined up for drywall delivery this Friday.



NathanS

#239
Still doing lots of odds and ends... in good shape though. Once I was sure that all my clearances were good on the stairs, they went together very quickly. I believe smallest to largest rise is within 1/16th.





I got the drywall delivered on Friday. The little Ford tractor saved the day again.. I plowed a lane to the french doors for the fork lift to roll right up. It was 9F when I started it up by the way... really impressive. Because our ceilings are around ~ 8' 5" we bought a bunch of 54" drywall that just fit through the opening without having to turn all of them on end. The upstairs balcony would have been a good entry point for a boom truck, but it was broken down. Which meant we had to carry all of our drywall upstairs through the stairwell. My parents helped me get everything upstairs.. these were not 4x8 sheets either. Lots of 4.5 x 12, 4 x 14, 4 x 12 and 4 x 10. Not much 4 x8 at all actually.





You can also see we bought our upstairs tub already. I want to plumb that before doing the downstairs drywall so I am not plumbing it blindly from above. The American Standard steel enamel tubs are really nice and affordable. They feel like cast iron without the weight and cost.


Drywall lifts are surprisingly inexpensive, you can get them on ebay for $125 to your door.


The downstairs also got furred out on 16" centers. This helped minimize butted seams and the 1/2" light weight stuff will stay straighter than if I did 24". The LVL was also in the way of the drywall.


Just a few other thoughts.. Myron Ferguson has the best drywall information I could find. Again published by Taunton Press.

I used my house plans to come up with my drywall layout/estimate.





Also you see no plastic on the walls or ceilings. I think plastic is a really terrible building material, and am avoiding it in the walls by putting in >11.25 R-value exterior insulation. On the ceilings we were able to get vapor retarding primer with a permeability of less than 1.0... which meets the code. It is not has harsh as plastic though. Condensation in the walls happens by air movement, not by diffusion. Air movement could cause some water to get trapped if you have plastic in your walls. I think this building practice started in the 70s and inertia is a heck of a thing. Plastic has no capacity to store changes in humidity, whereas wood can absorb lots of water before you start seeing water actually condense on it, and cause mold or rot.

Rys


NathanS

Been hanging lots of drywall. Can't imagine doing ceilings without the lift. Especially those 16 footers.. they bend so much I think you would need at least 3 people - one to support the middle to lift them that way. The other nice thing with the lift is that you can get everything centered - doing that while two people are holding a panel up would probably be pretty tough if you don't do it every day.

Drywall router is also another must have for doing a whole house. Not just for electrical boxes, but it also can be used to cut open all your windows.

Some exciting news is that before putting the drywall up one of the building inspectors stopped by and approved plumbing, framing and insulation. So all I have left is final inspection. That feels great.

For drywall - my downstairs interior is about 19' 1" which is too long to run without a butted seam. I staggered the seams - which I now think was unnecessary, with the plan of 'floating' the joints and creating a board to pull the drywall upward to create a slight depression. I really did not like the idea of trying to use mud to hide the bump - an additive process to hide a bump just seems like trouble.

Anyway, the first board I tried didn't work - I used hardboard on the edges which is 1/8" thick - this created way too deep of a depression. If it was 1/16" it might have worked.

This one didn't work:


Instead I used my table saw to rip 7/16 OSB to 7" wide. Then raised the blade to 3.5" and set it to a 3 degree angle. With a featherboard I was able to rip a depression into the boards that worked great.







This is what I mean by 'floating' a joint - the edge is in between furring strips (or studs, joists, rafters). Unintuitive, but in the land of butted seams this is supposed to create a stronger joint that is less likely to crack or 'ridge'.



Attached the board - screws every 4-6 inches.



Using the lift to do the work



I took a few pictures of the joint - hard to get a good one. The depth is similar to the tapered seems on the long edges of drywall, but it goes out wider, so it will require more mud to make level, but there should be no bump (if I am any good at mudding).



The angle of the light is exaggerating the depth in this picture - but you can see it is quite a bit wider than a normal tapered joint.



I was able to take a picture of one through down along the furring strips to show the back side.


Some other progress pictures. The 8' 4.5" ceilings do feel noticeably larger than a normal house. Really glad we did that. The 16' piece of drywall that goes around the stove pipe also goes around the plumbing bulkhead, and the stairwell post. That was a heck of a thing to cut, and again to slip it into there without a lift would have been impossible without damaging something.





Anyway I thought that the butted seam thing was pretty cool. Still a bunch more to hang before I start mudding. Winter is breaking already which is pretty weird. Haven't even needed a fire half the time for the past week or two.

dablack

Looks great!  It shows how an owner builder goes the extra mile for his own house.  There is no way a drywall crew would have taken such care. 

Also, I don't know if you are done with insulation or not, but between the window and the framing (on the inside), I sprayed the low expansion spray foam.  It really made sure the windows are air tight in the frame.  I got a thermal camera and took pictures of everything.  That little area of foam made a big difference.

thanks
Austin

Rys


NathanS

Thanks Austin and Rys.

My mentality for the whole build is that if something doesn't come out right, or if I ever have trouble with something, I don't want it to be because I cut corners. So far, if anything breaks, if the house sinks into the ground, the roof collapses, the drywall is wavy, the plumbing leaks, I will at least take solace that I did everything I could to prevent it.

We have been doing so many different tasks lately it is almost impossible to mention them all.

I actually did pressure test my water lines despite it not being required by code.. the expansion pex did leak in a few places, I do not know if 100 PSI air pressure leaks would translate to water leaks, but I wanted to know before closing up the walls. The plumbing supplier warned  that expansion pex can leak if you expand it at low temps (I think we did a few joints when it was 40s F inside). Anyway, I put my heat gun on the joints that leaked and watched it with my radiant heat gun thermometer to make sure I didn't take it over it's heat rating. The heat 'activated' the pex A memory and stopped all the leaks. Been holding around 100psi for close to a week now.

I am planning to seal all the window gaps, did a few of them then ran out of foam that day. That's another one.. the 'great stuff' foam is the best type I've used by far, but whatever it gets on, it does not come off. Once cured, it is hard and durable - the stuff that looks like shaving cream is all flaky after curing. I don't trust that. Once you open the can, you have to use all of it.. it clogs up really quickly. I still haven't learned my lesson to always wear gloves when using that stuff.

Another one while I'm thinking of it, the 7-12 roof with standing seam sheds snow better than just about any roof I've seen around here. Even the 4-12 on the north side is dropping snow just about as fast as my 9-12 ag metal shed roof. My only regret is that I should have just popped the plumbing and radon vent out the gable wall.. I was concerned about following the code to the letter, but I think my code guys would have had no problem with me doing that.


dablack

We obviously don't have the same snow issues as you do, but since I was going with a metal roof, I didn't want to need to go up there for some time.  I have zero roof penetrations.  The big septic vent goes out the gable end.  I can't remember the details right now but I THINK as long as it is a certain distance from any operational windows or doors, then it is fine by code.  Going through the gable end eliminates the expensive roof gasket stuff and an obvious leak point.  Also, like you said, for you northern guys, it isn't in the way of shedding all that weird white stuff.   I will warn that before I got the cover on it, a bird did try and build a nest in there. 

Austin

UK4X4

All my vents exit the gable ends too and passed inspection, but again no windows close on that end of the house.

Definitely better than having multiple perforations and leak paths.


NathanS

Yep, no disagreement here. Smart way to do it. I was a little concerned about smell, or that radon is more dense than air and that if a window is open having any issues.

Anyway, still hanging drywall. Lots of progress, less to do than has been done.

Spending more time thinking about finishes. If I can figure out the logistics, I would like to tile our balcony. I ordered the TCNA handbook, which I think is sort of the tiling equivalent of the wood frame construction manual.

Anyhow, a cost saving idea I have is to cut stone from our property in to tile.

Diamond blade goes right through this stuff. I think it would look awesome in the end. Last summer the stone I used for fire rings turned orange after being heated. That could be interesting too I think. I think this shale is basically compressed and/or heated silt.


ChugiakTinkerer

Tiling with stone you quarry yourself would be simply perfect.  I have a vague recollection of you discussing the tile before.  Did you beef up the balcony joists to minimize bounce?  That slate tile may need a floor deflection of no more than L/720.
My cabin build thread: Alaskan remote 16x28 1.5 story

NathanS

The joists can handle the L/720. Thankfully #1 SYP 2x12. They are on 24" centers so the tiling book may suggest some reinforcement between joists - but on the inset portion of the balcony I believe my sloped sheathing already accomplishes that.

The tiling book was a good purchase, it is good to see all the schematics rather than trying to apply principles. It looks like because my upstairs bathroom is on 24" centers they want me to put down an additional underlayment, which is probably fine because I want my tile to be relatively level with the wood floor I put down in the hallway (thinking wide plank pine?).

We got over 2 feet of snow yesterday, and a looks like another 3-6" today. What a storm. It's good knowing that the roof can handle several more feet no problem.

The drywall is nearly finished, mainly just the bathroom, and small odd shapes in the upstairs hallway, bedrooms, and the area under the stairs still needs to get framed. Almost ready to try mudding.

We ordered all our breakers. In NYS someone convinced code enforcement that 'arc fault' breakers are necessary. The breakers for our small house cost $750. According to an electrician I talked to, unless you have aluminum wire in your walls and you put in new boxes made for copper, arcs are a virtual impossibility, and that some kind of lobbying probably was going on to make this a law.

We have done a great job sticking to our budget. Things average out when you estimate generously and then add 20-30%. But we have spent about $3060 on electrical - no labor in that. Still have to buy fixtures and plugs etc. Another $2264 on plumbing - still need the pressure tank but have the hot water heater. This does not include well pump - which the well stuff - excluding drilling (again no labor costs in any of this) we are at $1342.

Stuff that goes in the wall and ground that you will never see... over $6500. That number is close to what we spent on lumber excluding sheathing I think. I also have no idea how you would make any of this stuff cost less, I think these are pretty much fixed expenses in any build with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. Makes the idea of trying to save money by building your house on stilts seem silly.