Framing Pt. 3 - Zipboard
March 12
Temp: 23°/ Partly cloudy
Today was flippin' cold, and I promise I'm not too much of a wuss when it comes to the cold. But, we had a free Sunday and all 3 of us, so we got after it. Though we had to run inside more than once to find more layers or to warm our fingers and toes, we did make progress. Apparently it may snow up to 2 feet on Tuesday, so anything to get the tiny house more covered was going to help.
The focus for today was to show dad what mom and I had done in terms of framing and to get things totally level. So far we had done the rough framing. We got the 👍 from the contractor!
We started with the wall adjacent to the already finished wall in the front. By adding this piece and pulling the wall we were able to get this side plumb. Before adding the zipboard piece we added a short length of 2x4" that extended passed the bottom to provide an extra pair of hands. This will be removed, it just holds the weight of the 4x8' zipboard while we're screwing it in place. We add glue to the studs that the zipboard will be screwed to, then drive (LOTS) of screws. The glue will be mostly holding the board in place once it drys, the screws suck the board in nice and tight. We are adding a screw about every 6"- foot along each stud. When screwing into the zipboard you want the screw head to land flush with the board. We tried to use the nail gun but couldn't perfect the guns depth into the board, so we used a screw gun which allowed us to be more precise. The goal is to use as many full sheets of zipboard as possible. I learned that the 16-on-center studs is intentional for the 4x8' sheeting. :) We will go around with a circular saw to cut out the windows and doors. We started by adding the zipboard to the corners because this will ensure the house is totally square, and we can fill in the remaining walls after. With just this first piece, you can already feel how much stronger and sold the entire frame gets. It's locking things into place really well.
We spent another portion of the day getting the windows in the loft framed. With this we had to consider the height of the step up that we have in the living room, and the frieze band near the top that will go around the whole house. This is simply a visual break that unifies and ties together the top of doorways and windows. These 2 things determined where in the loft the windows sit. Eventual aesthetic exterior considerations had to already be considered at this stage.
Where do we stand? At this point, we're expecting lots of snow this week, but I'm optimistic that after this week we'll be in the clear and the house building can charge full force ahead. We'll finish placing the zipboard on the whole house then tape seams and fill the screw holes. We'll add the other side of the metal weather protection on the bottom lip of the house, then we're onto the roof!
Brrrrr....Dad even wore a hat today, and he'll be the first to tell you he NEVER wears hats.
March 26
TEMP: 42°/ CLOUDY
Today, we finished placing all of the Zipboard on the exterior walls and finished cutting out all of the windows and door openings, with the help of our friend, Fred. We also went around and made sure all of the screws were flush at the surface and filled stray 'misses' with silicone to close up any penetrations that weren't intended.
