Sheathing Walls On The Ground Or Standing?

A W Smith

when I sheath We use ten penny commons as ledgers to hold the sheet when going up the wall as we feed the sheets from inside sometimes or climb up a ladder and flip them. You have to space the sheathing anyway and a ten is just about the right gap. A guy can reach over from the top and can just about nail off the entire sheet except for the bottom eight inches with all sheets horizontal and staggered. Ive stood on the edge of the lower row to guide one end of the sheet into place. Hell Ive sheathed by myself this way with no problem.sheathing crews don't use scaffolding. or even sheathing brackets anymore. just vans stacked with lots and lots of light weight aluminum ladders. Since most all home builders in my region sub out the sheathing and framing separately thats the method thats still prevalent today as it was in the sixties as a kid during the summers in the sixties I used to watch a crew of about four or five sheath three houses a day. Hand nailing with seven penny rosin coated "coolers", (boy thats a term you don't hear anymore, that and "plyscord") Remember at the end of the day you would have that green rosin all over your hands?

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woodworkbykirk

typically ive sheathed the walls and tyvek them on the ground then stand, only time we frame em up then sheath after is if its a tall wall

although for tyvek, ive found it can be a bit of a waste of time and money, im on the coast so with heavy winds the tyvek is either half off or completely off when we come back after the weekend so its a waste of material if the sider isnt right behind us waiting

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putting down subfloor with glue and screws, well i saw dr. smith and the robot too , i had a martian burger and a sonic shake

dlcj

yeah we have lifted 40' walls with the boom but we find it faster and safer just to do 12-16 foot at a time by hand. If the exterior walls are taller than 9' then the lift is a must anyway so go ahead and build the whole wall length cuz the truck dont care. We dont like to go over 40' cuz all the rigging (tieing to wall at 2-3 places with speader cables) just takes to long and dangerous. I think it also has to do with how many hands you have on site. Its always been just 2 or 3 of us so sheating and standing short walls is the fastest and easiest way or use the truck for big ones. If you have 10 men on site then standing first and then sheathing may be faster.

SNC

http://www.toolfetch.com/wall-jacks.shtml

user38755

We're siding guys but we have framed. We also build entire wall on the deck, sheet, wrap and standup. I like that gravity works for free to hold all of the sheets in place while we nail them down. That S.O.B. has never let me down and never sent me a bill. On the other hand the harder I have to work against gravity the more I charge!

K2

I've known guys that liked to put their siding on and set the windows while the walls were flat on the deck. Saw a crew in Omaha that did that and built and attached their soffits to the walls laying down. ... We did some apartments once and we sheathed and then rolled out the stucco lath while the walls were down. I thought rolling out wire was a good idea because i thought of it. That was the days of the thicker stucco and the wire was heavier. Guess there's a bunch of ways to skin a cat too.

Gary H

When we worked in detroit ( home of the 0-16 Lions football team) The crew next to our house framed the walls flat on the deck, sheet, tyveked, sided, installed all the windows,soffit, fasica, and if there was a bump out framed the roof complete with sheeting. when they stood the wall up that baby was done. The best part was the soffit and fasica. They layed it out so that the trusses would plane into the top of the fasica. That framer must of had his act together for that to work out. It all fit close to perfect.

Cole

Frame / Stand / Sheathe

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K2

It takes one smart framer to build the soffits and attach them to the wall laying down and have them fit. . Smarter than I ever wanted to be. If you go that far you might as well paint the sonomabitch while it's down too. Pour and roll. How about stucco on the flat too!!

forsmant

I must have been on that crew because that is how I was taught. The first house I framed we also sided and put the windows in while the walls were on the deck. It was a ranch, one that the crew leader had built at least 40 before. Where I work now the lead is setting rafters before we finish CJ's. I find that frustrating but oh well.

rbconstruction

I found that it is better to stagger the sheeting but if you are on a second story were you can not get a lift or a ladder up there or were you are on a hillside it would be better to square the framing sheet it then throw it up

K2

Welcome to CT.

Timuhler

Do you know who the framer was? Was his name Jim Allen? He posts over at breaktime and has shown pictures of that work. It is some of the best framing I've ever seen online. He is a cool guy

Edit: here is one thread of his http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breakti...Reading+%3E%3E

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ryanh

Thats some cool framing!

I've always sheathed the walls on the ground . Nothing over 20' yet though i might say

KennMacMoragh

That's when I sheet afterwards too. When ever I've framed condominiums on posttension slabs, we stand the first story walls without sheathing. But every wall above that we sheath on the ground. The reason is the concrete is never level. If we did our sheathing on the ground then we would have a hard time connecting the walls together, they would be at different heights. One problem is the wavy concrete transfers through to the tops of the walls with no sheathing on them. But we fix that by shimming the rim joists.

dlcj

I worked with some guys once on a small house with full basement that was set on a steep hillside up from the street. The front wall was about 40' long with a full length country pourch. We built the wall complete with siding, windows, sofits, 8'x40' pourch ceiling with its sofits and all trim. Braced the pourch ceiling with diagonals to wall and stood it up using 3 wall jacks. Had to tie it off with rope to keep from losing the whole thing down the hill. Took all day for 5 of us and they said probably never do something that big like that again. When up it was over 20' from outside edge of pourch ceiling to the ground where the pourch foundation not yet existed

Gary H

Tim, I don't who they were. But you could tell this was not their first project. That was a first class crew. We would go over there after they left and take notes. We learned alot from that job. I thought I knew a lot of shortcuts in framing until that crew showed up. It showed us that we had a long way to go. Excellent pictures.

Timuhler

I skimmed through some of the threads to find those pictures. There are a lot more.

If you don't mind, can you list some of the tips you picked up? I'd like to add them to my bag O' tricks. This is why I love the 'net. How else would we find out about this kind of stuff?

Assuming we get any work? I'd like to frame the soffits on the walls before we lift them. I just haven't had a good job to try this on.

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hughjazz

We always build them then sheath them on the deck. We have wall jacks.

Last duplex I did there was 2, 40' walls 9' high.

2 guys 2 wall jacks.

I can't imagine sheathing a 2 story after the walls are standing, doesn't make sense to me. We also don't have to install house wrap, unless we install the siding too

Gary H

Here is a couple tips 1. Always field measure the foundation before you order trusses. Then build the house to the size of the trusses. 2. Order the tails of the trusses to the overhang minus the fasica board. 3. If the truss over hangs are not pre cut, then before you unband them use a chainsaw with head cutter attachment to cut the length you need. 4. Express headers cost more but save time and labor to building your own. 5. Use a slammer to set T and G decking. The sledge/ block of wood is to slow. And the slammer lets you set the tounge of the deck with your toes. 1 or 2 hits and it is set tight to the grove. This is a couple of things, I will try to think of more. But you are way ahead of me on cutting rafters. That is something I would really like to try.