House Framing

With a sill made this way, you get the full strength of the studding; there is less work cutting same; and it is easier to lay the floor, as there is no studding to cut around.

A built-up sill that has a number of good points is illustrated in Fig. 9. This construc tion makes a very strong sill for a solid wall foundation, and makes the walls perfectly rat proof and also draught-proof. In case of using a sub-floor, the sill makes a good support for the ends of the sub-floor.

A box sill of still another type is detailed in Fig. 10. With it the building rests on a twelve-inch bearing on the foundation wall. You will notice that the top piece is not put on until the under rough diagonal floor is laid; then the shoe on top of the rough floor is put in place and spiked down to every joist. This shoe is just the width of the studding, and makes good nailing for the bottom edge of the base after the plaster is on.

Laying Out Joist and Studding.

In laying out the framing for a house, there are a number of factors in addition to the straight construc tion that should be borne in mind and provided for. One of them we wish to take up is in regard to laying out the framing of a house for the convenience of cutting the openings for furnace pipes. Many houses are heated with the warm air furnace, which makes it necessary for open ings to be cut through floors and partitions to accommodate the pipes. Now, when a con tractor has a house to build that is to be heated with a furnace, the first thing he should do is to properly locate all the registers on the plans, if they have not been located by the architect. Some architects leave the location of the regis ters to the furnace contractor, but a competent architect can locate the pipes and outlets for furnace heating to just as good advantage as the furnace contractor, and in making plans the architect should locate the place for registers and everything pertaining to the heating of the house.

When the carpenter lays out the joists and partitions, he should see that the joists on the floor above are directly over the lower ones, and that the studding are directly under the joists and in line with them, as in Fig. 11. When

this is done, there is no trouble in cutting the opening for the pipes and registers. On the other hand, if this is not done, and the studding and joists are put in without any regard to furnace pipes, then the contractor will find his troubles begin to multiply as soon as he begins to cut for the furnace pipes. He will find stud ding that must be moved; he will find joists that must be moved or cut into and headers put in; all this will consume three or four times as much time as will be required to cut the openings where a little care is exercised in spacing and setting the joists and partitions. The time taken to set the partitions to accom modate the pipeS'is practically nothing.

We have heard a contractor state that he would take a contract for a house heated with hot water or steam for fifty dollars less than he would if heated with a warm-air furnace, because of the immense amount of cutting the furnace work requires. The above statement is not well founded; a contractor with such an opinion surely does not properly lay out the framing of the house, if such has been his experi ence. If the house has been properly laid out, the cutting for the furnace pipes should not cost over five dollars. No man should be over one day cutting for furnace pipes in the average residence, and in some cases half this time would be plenty. The way to cut for furnace pipes is to have every pipe located, and to have one man, skilled in this kind of work, do the cutting; then, when he starts to cut, let him keep at it till the job is completed.

It is a great loss of time for a contractor to take men haphazard to do this work, calling a man away from his usual work at various times to cut for the furnace man as he happens to want it. All the cutting should be done at one time, in advance of the furnace man, by some one who understands it. Working here and there, and cutting for furnace pipes by piece meal, does not pay.