14x24 on 5 Acres in Mounds, Oklahoma (2nd CountryPlan Build)

Started by ajbremer, March 21, 2016, 05:46:04 AM

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ChugiakTinkerer

#275
Quote from: ajbremer on January 26, 2017, 05:53:29 AM
Nearing January 2017 End.
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My thought is to add my top plates right after all external walls are done, then make sure walls are straight, level, and plumb and then keep them that way using  braces and nailing temporary diagonals on the inside. Next step is to add the interior walls which there are only two of them, bathroom walls. The loft floor joists are going to rest on the top of the bathroom wall just short of the half way point in width.

I plan to use doubled 2x6's at 16" on center for the loft floor, they will act as beams. They will rest on 2 sistered studs at each 16" point at each end of the loft joists. That will make for a really nice sturdy loft floor. I want to use 2x6's instead of single 2x8's, 2x10's, or 2x12's because I want to have every inch possible for head room up in the loft.

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Al, here's how I secure framed walls.  First you want to make sure your walls are plumb and true before you put on the top plates.  Start on one wall and get it plumb and then add diagonal braces.  Move to the next wall and make sure it is plumb as well as the corner where the two walls meet.  Nail them together and add diagonal braces to the second wall.  Work your way around the rest of the building in this fashion.  I do this as each wall goes up so that I have diagonal braces as soon as I can.  Then put on the top plates, overlapping at each corner.

For your loft joists, will the loft be free-spanning the 14' or will there be any wall underneath to support it?  I ask because doubled 2x6 is going to be very much on the razor's edge of providing enough stiffness.  Wood species and grade will be critical in keeping the bounce out.  If you can get your hands on some rough-sawn 4x6 (actual dimensions) it will go much better than the doubled 2x6.

[Edit to add] I didn't catch it until now, but you want to put up any interior walls as well before putting on the top plate.  You want the top plate to anchor and stabilize the interior walls by overlapping onto the exterior wall.


My cabin build thread: Alaskan remote 16x28 1.5 story

ajbremer

Thank you so much for helping me out ChugiakTinkerer!

There will be a wall under my loft joists, the bathroom. Those interior walls will be lower than the 10' walls to make head room for the loft so their top plates will not be the same height as the main 10' walls.

Thank you for all of your help. I'm going to make some calls here in the Tulsa area to see if I can get some rough sawn 4x6's.
Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.


ChugiakTinkerer

I think I've got your description figured out.  Dunno, still low on coffee this morning so I may be slow.  If your bathroom wall will be supporting the loft joists then you should be just fine with the double 2x6.  In fact, single 2x6 on 16" can span just over 10' for a sleeping loft.
My cabin build thread: Alaskan remote 16x28 1.5 story

ajbremer

#278
Last wall has begun, one more little section to go. Also, here's a pic of the underside 2x12's on 2' centers:



Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.

ajbremer

#279
Got all walls up:



Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.


ajbremer

Getting excited about sheathing the walls. I called my local lumber yard for the price of 4x10' sheets of 1/2 OSB and calculated that it'll cost me around $350 to go around the whole thing.

ChugiakTinkerer mentioned that I might use 4x6 rough sawn lumber for my loft joists. I called my lumber place and a 14' long 4x6 rough sawn cedar cost $65 each. Is cedar strong enough for that and I wonder if their usually nice and straight? I probably will just go with 2x6's at 16" on center though because it'll be way cheaper.
Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.

icanreachit

Depending on which species, cedar is generally weaker in bending. Sounds like 2x6's 16" OC would be your best bet. At that price you should even be able to 12"OC and still come out at a fraction of the price.

NathanS

Quote from: ajbremer on January 31, 2017, 05:13:14 AM
Getting excited about sheathing the walls. I called my local lumber yard for the price of 4x10' sheets of 1/2 OSB and calculated that it'll cost me around $350 to go around the whole thing.

ChugiakTinkerer mentioned that I might use 4x6 rough sawn lumber for my loft joists. I called my lumber place and a 14' long 4x6 rough sawn cedar cost $65 each. Is cedar strong enough for that and I wonder if their usually nice and straight? I probably will just go with 2x6's at 16" on center though because it'll be way cheaper.

Yeah, I don't think I'd use the cedar. If you can find a real sawmill they will have 4x6 rough sawn for a very affordable price. Probably not much different than the price of two 2x6 at a regular lumber yard. I want to say my 6x6 - 10' rough sawn hemlock posts were $10 or $15 each. In my neck of the woods it is mostly the Amish that do the sawmilling for a living now. One potential issue is that the wood is wet, so it will shrink. Also for joists just make sure that there are no huge knots on the edge of material.. especially facing down toward the first floor. That is the 'tension' side so it would weaken the lumber significantly.

ChugiakTinkerer

I agree that the cedar probably won't have near the rigidity of your other dimensional lumber and probably isn't a good choice for this application, even if it were affordable.  I also wasn't considering that you could be buying green rough-sawn lumber and shrinkage from drying is a definite concern.

I think that trying to shave too much off of the joist depth puts you at risk for having too much bounce in the loft floor.  But I don't know what your use plans are for the loft, nor how you are framing it.  It seems to me that it would be good to take a little time and get a better sense of what you have to work with so you can make an informed choice on your loft floor joists.  If you want to work within the residential code, a 2x8 #2 or better spaced 16" on center will span up to 13'2" (IRC Table 5.2.3.1(1) ) and I am assuming a measurement of 13'-1" for the free span.  Assuming your framing lumber is the same or better as the species in that table, you can use single 2x8 and your floor won't flex more than 0.44".

If you want to deviate from the code span tables, you should run some calculations to determine if your proposed beam will be comparable to the 2x8.  To start with, you need to know the species and grade you are working with.  There should be a stamp on your lumber like the ones described here: https://www.thisoldhouse.com/ideas/how-to-read-lumber-stamp

If you can post a picture of that, we should be able to determine how to build your loft with 2x6 joists.  It will tell us what species and grade you are working with, and looking those up in the NDS we can figure out the engineering properties.
My cabin build thread: Alaskan remote 16x28 1.5 story


ajbremer

Thank you ChugiakTinkerer.

I'll get a nice pic uploaded of how the loft will look and what will be below it. My loft will simply be for sleeping and a little office. There will be an 8' x 6' bathroom wall below the loft so that wall will lessen the span. One bathroom wall will be out at the 6' mark in the width running down the length for 8'. Therefore the loft joists span will be 6' one way and 8' the other way. I'm sure that using 2x8's 16" on center will be nice, like you mentioned. There's going to be a 4' loft balcony out beyond the bathroom wall so they'll be 3 joist positions that'll span the 14' width at that point. I'm thinking that I could simply double those 3 2x8's at those outward positions and that would be fine. The weight on the balcony would be mostly just people standing and the weight of whatever railings I build.

Am I correct in thinking that I need to build the interior bathroom walls and then add my loft joists and the loft floor next? (after putting the osb around the outside) That way most of the buildings long walls will get tied together to support the addition of the roof.

I'm also thinking that I should add a couple of beams running width wise (doubled 2x8's) opposite the loft end resting on the top plates of the long walls for support at the 16' and 20' mark. (my build is 14x24) That way my long walls will be totally attached to each other throughout its length.

Thanks to everyone helping me, I need all the help I can get.
Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.

ajbremer

Sorry about all the pics not showing up because of what photobucket.com has done. I'll be fixing the problem shortly, thank you for your patience.
Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.

ajbremer

Allan's 14x24 in Oklahoma:

I ended up putting cross braces under the place for greater strength. I can tell that it definitely made it really stiff.

Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.

ChugiakTinkerer

Hi Al, looks like the URL is off for that image.

As an aside, the code to display an image in a forum post is [img]http://example.com/example_image.jpg[/img]

Like this image, displayed with the following:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/vToWqyQ.jpg[/img]




The src="" format is for HTML, which has to be enclosed in angled brackets.  However most forum software filters out many HTML commands so you're probably better off using the forum format, which I believe follows the original BBCode.

My cabin build thread: Alaskan remote 16x28 1.5 story

ajbremer

Tinkerer,
You helped me out a lot with the formatting of posting an image. It's been along time since I've posted here so I forgot for awhile.

Thank you sir!
Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.


ajbremer

14x24

Put up the first loft rim joist:

Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.

ajbremer

14x24

A few more loft joists:

Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.

ajbremer

14x24 with loft.

Was going to have a loft for one half and cathedral for the other half but now we've decided to just do a whole 2nd floor. I have all the common rafters (12/12 Pitch) up and left 8' of length for a 4' high knee wall that will create a nice shed dormer on both sides:



Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.

ajbremer

Wednesday - November 29th, 2017

14x24 / 2 Story With Shed Dormer

Here is how I'll frame my Shed Dormer but without the ceiling joists at the top.
This pic just shows it done on one side of the house but I'll be doing mine on both sides:

Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.

Don_P

The flatter a toggle is the more spreading force it has, I'd keep those ceiling joists.

ajbremer

Wednesday - November 29th, 2017

14x24 / 2 story with double shed dormer.

Got shed dormer wall 1 of 2 up today. I weighed the wall before I put it in place: 80lbs!



Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.


ajbremer

Thanks Don_P for the comment about the ceiling joist.

There's a graphic pic 3 posts above that shows brown ceiling joists above the 1st floor and blue ceiling joists at the 2nd floor above the shed dormer wall. The joists that I was thinking about not including are the blue joists at the very top. I figured the outward thrust against the short dormer walls would be minimal because of the small roof surface area and small roof pitch. I have 2x10 loft joists 16" o/c going across those walls under the loft floor.
Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.

ajbremer

14x24 / 2-Story with Shed Dormers

Thursday - November 30th, 2017

Figuring out the 1st rafter that goes on top of the first shed dormer wall took me a long time. Getting
the birds-mouth and the upper angle was kind of trial and error. It's not right at a 3/12 pitch so I had to
make adjustments using a scrap piece of lumber. Now I have a traceable template to help me with the rest.

Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.

ajbremer

Saturday - December 2nd, 2017

14x24 Two-Story with 8' Shed Dormer

Finished rafters on top of the north shed dormer. Now onto the south side shed dormer.



Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.

ajbremer

14x24 / 2-Story with Shed Dormers

Thursday - December 7th, 2017

Finished south facing shed dormer and moving onto its rafters:





Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.

ajbremer

14x24 / 2-Story with Shed Dormers

Friday - December 8th, 2017

It was 18 degrees here near Tulsa when I woke up this morning. Gotta force myself to get out in that!

I really didn't want to do those shed dormers at the start. I love the extra height, the windows to look out of, and the look and so does my wife but I kept dreading trying to figure out how all the transitions go together and the different size birds mouths and rafter cuts. I'm glad I did it now but I sure didn't do a great job. Some of my birds mouth cuts have gaps and the angle of the top rafters against the ridge board also wasn't great here and there so just don't look too close at the pictures ok?

Got the south side shed dormer rafters on today and started to put the roof sheathing on:







Click here to see our 20x30 and here to see our 14x24.