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Behind the Build: First Floor Framing 150 150 Administrator

Behind the Build: First Floor Framing

A behind-the-build look at how new construction framing is created for a custom home – air compressor nail guns, raising a framed wall, managing a lumber shortage, interior light management through high ceilings that allow for large windows and doors.

Enjoy our video series of this new construction design-build in progress!

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Video Transcript

Alright this is Tom Kenny here at Scott Simpson Design Build. We’re building this house on Butternut and we’re starting the framing now. We’re done with the concrete work, the foundation has been backfilled and now the guys are laying out all the studs. They’re planning where all the windows and doors go and they’re nailing all the studs together. When they’re nailed together they actually raise it up and then we brace it off and then we’ve got our first sections of walls.

So, we’re using an air compressor to compress air to about 120 pounds per square inch. It runs through hoses and then it fires through that pneumatic air nailer right there. So, we just fired two nails without a hammer. That brings the speed of construction way up and the construction costs way down, that’s why we use nail guns.

Right now, because of the coronavirus, there’s a lumber shortage, so we stockpiled all this lumber. We’re buying it all at one time to not put this construction project at risk because we’re having a lumber shortage. That’s how we’re dealing with the problem.

In order to make the spaces look bigger we’ve got 10 foot ceilings. So this is a very high ceiling for a first floor, gives us the ability to put really big windows in, really tall doors. It brings in a lot more light, makes the building look more open. It’s a really inexpensive technique to take a smaller house and give it a lot of drama.

They are lifting up the wall enough to get some two by sixes underneath it, so now they can get their hands underneath it. It’s hard to handle when they get it up high, they push it up. He’s rolling out an insulation that goes between the concrete foundation and the wolmanized plate. Now they’re going to drop it into place.

These guys are going to frame all the outside walls first, put all these braces in. Then they’re going to frame all the inside walls, because as the inside walls go up, they can use it to build scaffolding on, so they can start working on the second floor. But once all the exterior walls are done and the interior walls are done, and they’re all braced off and straightened, and leveled, and squared up, they’ll actually start building the second floor. They want to make sure that the first floor is all done first.