Framing a New House

There are many factors to keep an eye on during the framing process when building your new home in Traverse City. First, let’s define exactly what framing is. Framing is the assembly of the walls, roof, and floors of your new home. Everything else that makes up the visual appearance of a house is done after the framing is complete.

Traditionally, there are three styles of framing, which are post and beam, balloon, and platform framing. Post and beam framing is how most barns are framed nowadays, but it also used to be the standard for home construction. Then, a further development was balloon framing, which is when the exterior walls are built with studs tall enough to reach the roof and the interior is built afterward. In the modern era, your contractor will most likely use the platform framing method, which is when the walls of the first story are constructed, then the floor is placed atop it, and the process is repeated until the necessary height is achieved.

Now that we understand the basic history of framing, let’s examine the platform framing method more closely. The builders of your new home must pay attention to a multitude of factors to make sure the house is accurate to plan, and looks nice. The most important detail is for everything to be square and that all measurements are even. If the framing isn’t square, then things will look off and it will hinder every step that comes after it. This comes into play during every step of construction, and it must be the top priority of the builders.

After the foundation has been poured, if you have a basement, the floor must be constructed above the concrete walls with joists. The joists must be evenly spaced, and openings for stairwells braced with strong engineered lumber. After that, the floor itself must be laid atop the joists with sheets and screwed in place. Then the construction of exterior walls can begin. Lines are snapped in chalk to show where the bottom plates will go and then the walls are constructed flat on the floor, and raised, then nailed in place. The process is then repeated for interior walls.

Once all the walls are up, the frame of the roof can be laid atop the top plates of the walls. When the roof frame is engineered and brought in sections to the job site, these are called trusses. The trusses are laid evenly spaced and then connected one by one to secure them for the roof sheeting, waterproofing, and shingles to be placed on top. This completes the framing process and allows for drywall, siding, plumbing, electrical and HVAC to be installed.

Now that you have a better understanding of the framing process, we hope to go through this process carefully and skillfully for you at CMB Construction.