Expert framer Larry Haun details guidelines for working efficiently and accurately.
By: Larry Haun
1. Don’t move materials any more than you have to
Hauling lumber from place to place is time consuming and hard on your body. Make it easier on yourself every chance you get, and start by having the folks at the lum
beryard do their part. Make sure lumber arrives on the truck stacked in the order it will be used. You don’t want to move hundreds of wall studs to get to your plate stock, for instance. And floor joists go on top of floor sheathing, not the other way around.
2. Build a house, not furniture
In other words, know your tolerances. Rafters don’t have to fit like the parts of a cabinet. Nothing in frame carpentry is perfect, so the question is: What’s acceptable?
You do need to get started right, and that means the mudsills. Whether they’re going on a foundation or on a slab, they need to be level, straight, parallel, and square. But there’s no harm done if they’re cut 1 ⁄4 in. short. A rim joist, on the other hand, needs to be cut to the right length (within 1 ⁄16 in.) before being nailed to the mudsill.
3. Use your best lumber where it counts
These days, if you cull every bowed or crooked stud, you may need to own a lumber mill to get enough wood to frame a house. How do you make t
he most of the lumber that you get?
Use the straightest stock where it’s absolutely necessary: where it’s going to make problems for you later on if it’s not straight. Walls, especially in baths and kitchens, need to be straight. It’s not easy to install cabinets or tile on a wall that bows in and out. And straight stock is necessary at corners and rough openings for doors.
4. Work in a logical order
Establish an efficient routine for each phase of work, do it the same way every time, and tackle each phase in
its logical order. In the long run, having standard procedures will save time and minimize mistakes. Let’s take wall framing as an example.
First I snap all of the layout lines on the floor; then I cut the top and bottom plates and tack all of them in place on the lines. Next I lay out the plates, detailing the location of every window, door, stud, and intersecting wall.
5. Keep the other trades in mind
If you want to waste time and money when framing, don’t think about the electrical work, the plumbing, the heat ducts, the drywall, or the finish carpentry. Whether you do them yourself or hire subcontractors, these trades come next. And unless you’re working with them in mind every step of the way, your framing can be in the way.
For example, when you nail on the double top plate, keep the nails located over the studs. This tip leaves the area between the studs free for the electrician or plumber to drill holes without hitting your nails.
6. Don’t measure unless you have to
The best way to save time when you’re framing a house is by keeping your tape measure, your pencil, and your square in your nail pouch as much as possible. I have to use a tape measure to lay out the wall lines accurately on the deck, but after that, I cut all of the wall plates to length by cutting to the snapped wall lines. I position the plate on the line, eyeball it, and then make the cuts at the intersecting chalkline.
7. Finish one task before going on to the next
My first framing job was with a crew that would lay out, frame, and raise one wall at a time before moving on to the next. Sometimes they would even stra
ighten and brace the one wall before proceeding. We wasted a lot of time constantly switching gears.
8. Cut multiples whenever possible
You don’t need a mathematician to know that it takes less time to cut two boards at once than it does to cut each one individually.
If you have a stack of studs that all need to be cut to the same length, align one end of the top row, snap a chalkline all the way across, and cut the studs to length right on the pile. Or you can spread them out on the floor, shoving one end against the floor plate, snap a chalkline, and cut them all at once.
9. Don’t climb a ladder unless you have to
I don’t use a ladder much on a framing job except to get to the second floor before stairs are built. Walls can be sheathed and nailed while they’re lying flat on the deck. Waiting until the walls are raised to nail on plywood sheathing means you have to work from a ladder or a scaffold. Both are time consuming.
With a little foresight, you can do the rafter layout on a double top plate while it’s still on the floor. Otherwise, you’ll have to move the ladder around the job or climb on the walls to mark the top plate.
10. Know the building code
Building codes exist to create safe structures. Because building inspectors are not capable of monitoring all parts of every project, it’s your responsibility to know the building code and to build to it.
For instance, the code actually specifies how to nail a stud to a wall plate. You need two 16d nails if you’re nailing through a plate into the end of the stud, or four 8d nails if you’re toenailing. When you nail plywood or oriented strand board (OSB) roof sheathing, you nee
d a nail every 6 in. along the edge of the sheathing and every 12 in. elsewhere. And if you’re using a nail gun, be careful not to overdrive the nails in the sheathing.
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