It's sort of crazy making enemies of home building products. You know? But if those home building products have cost you bigtime, hurt you bigtime, failed you bigtime, then just disliking is too good a word for 'em bigtime. “Famous Quotes," Before The Architect
INTRODUCTION
Before The Architect's custom home design guidelines are tough on home building products, among them, framing lumber materials.
Custom house construction framing lumber specifications
Ought not offer lots of swell ways to cut corners, cut costs, cut safety, cut durability, cut convenience, cut and run from owners who don’t know what they’re looking at.
But it does; if you don't specify, you won't know.
It’s hard and harder to come by decent building home materials framing lumber and easier to come by worse.
Lower expectations reap lower quality.
Without time on the line year after year working with and observing the good, bad, and ugly in home building materials, you might even think, “What’s the big deal?"
From the granite knee of custom home design and residential construction since the ‘60s: for sure, all trees are not created equal, nor are the boards cut from them.
You don’t need to know a whole lot about framing lumber to make it clear to your general contractor, lumber supplier, and home framing contractor that you expect your custom house or addition to be built with the same or better quality lumber than that which they’d acquire for their own house or addition.
FRAMING LUMBER STANDARDS
Here are home building materials framing lumber design standards we write into our custom house plans, and suggest you consider doing the same.
Framing lumber–
shall be identified by the grade mark of a framing lumber grading or inspection bureau or agency approved by the American Lumber Standards Committee (a/k/a ALSC)
shall be Group 2 or 3
shall not be less than #2
shall be (in decreasing order of preference)
Douglas Hemlock Fir-Larch
Southern Yellow Pine
Spruce-Pine-Fir
for engineered applications only and then
only as last resort
shall be naturally continuous for a given member
shall be fully dimensioned
Framing members on application
shall not be less than 2 linear inches in nominal thickness
shall contain not more than 12% moisture content
on delivery to the jobsite
on application
on closing
except preservative-treated wood products, which shall contain not more than 19% moisture content
shall be determined to have been stored dry before being delivered to a site
shall be delivered to a site on other than a rainy day and
shall be stored on a site
sheltered from natural elements
flat
fully supported
if graded, shall not be ripped to structural application
if engineered, may be ripped if appropriate adjustments are made to performance metrics given the member’s post-rip dimensions
Prohibited framing member materials shall include
these materials
standard and utility grade lumber
including all lumber less than #2
lumber finger-jointed
lumber end-jointed
members scabbed
members butted
members spliced [except in certain rafter applications discussed below]
when applied to these framing members
ridges
rafters
when overlong then
deep-V incised with
not less than 3 linear feet past incision termini having
both faces flushed with not less than ½ linear inch CDX
over 2 continuous beads construction adhesive each bead not less than ½ linear inch diameter and
fastened overall with not less than 2 rows of 10d nails on not greater than 6 linear inches centers
with purlin not less than 2x6 at incision midline
roof trusses
exterior wall studs
braces including
purlins and struts
knee braces
cross-braces
etc.
load-bearing studs
headers
beams of all sorts
girders
plates of all sorts
posts
all joists including
head
end
common, or field
strongbacks
ledgers
blocks
floor trusses
any other framing members imaginable, when applied permanently
Before The Architect designs and drafts custom home plans nationwide. Its principals Ralph and Jean Pressel have worked hands-on together since the ‘60s in custom home design, drafting, consulting, plus building and repair in every major trade.Their plan sets are extraordinarily detailed; their clients' active involvement throughout is essential.
Home Design Standards - Home Building Standards 4Q08 Edition e-book at 823 pages and the website www.beforethearchitect.com at nearly 1000 pages of text and illustrations are enterprises of Before The Architect’s principals.
The author of this article has chosen to make this article available with free reprint rights. Click here to copy this article.
Disclaimer: All information on this site is provided for informational purposes only! By no means is any
information presented herein intended to substitute for the advice provided to you by any health care or other professional
or organization.
