Square Up Sill Plates

jaymay75

Foundation was laid this week. 24x32 foundation. Meausred the diagonals to find it was 1" out of square. Is this usual? What is the best way to go about addressing this? The one 32' wall measure correctly, but the other end is 32' 1". I belive the one 24' wall runs out.

Joe Carola

This is typical for a mason who doesn't know what he's doing. I've seen it many times and it's up to me as a framer to make my work square no matter what the foundation looks like. I had a few mason’s come back and say to me that I should’ve followed the foundation instead of sticking my plates past or in and I just tell them that they should go find another job or go back to school and figure out how to square something up.

I assume your 24' measurement is ok.Your diagonal should measure 40'. The way to find out what wall is out of square would be to start out with the 32' wall and measure up for example the left side wall 24' and make a mark, now hook your tape from that 24' mark and measure the diagonal back to the right side of the 32' wall and it should measure 40'.

If that's the case, then the right side wall is out 1" and you can come in 1" on that side. If you come in with the framing in 1" with 1/2" sheathing giving you 1/2" sitting on the foundation, meaning you have to fir the sheathing out a little bit depending on what kind of siding you have.

There's a lot of ways to adjust the framing to make up for a bad foundation.

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Joe Carola

mrmojo

your a smart man joe carola
ive usually enjoy reading your posts,times that i dont is when i get lost in what your saying -my fault not yours

vtgaetano

No offense but isn't that about the first thing you should learn IMO? I rarely ever get anything concrete that is square. I built a car wash one time, block walls I just set rafters, this thing was out 2 1/2" and had a good inch "sag" in the thing too. Only way anybody will ever now is that my soffit is 9 1/2 on one side and 12 on the other. Do you own a construction master? You can pull any diagonal you want with one of them. Pulling a 40' diagonal is a bit much.

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Joe Carola

Why is it a bit much?

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Joe Carola

vtgaetano

ummmm because it's forty feet. your pulling a hundred foot tape as tight as you can when an 1/8" descrepency is to much,when your trying to square something up, why not go 16' X 20'( or whatever) and get a smaller diagonal to read? That was my point.

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maj

I'll butt in here...

An 1/8" descrepency over 40' would transfer to 1/16" in 20', 1/32" in 10'

As you can imagine, it would be real hard to get it within 1/32" with a 6,8,10 triangle.. Much closer tolerances the farther out you pull diagonals.

vtgaetano

well, I don't use 1/32"(not in our vocabulary) anyways so we all do things different. That's what makes the world such an interesting place I spose. All I'm saying is in forty feet, it aint as accurate as 20. Just make sure you pull your NYLON 100' tape reeeeeally tight j/k.

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Joe Carola

I've never had a problem pulling a 40' diagonal before and when my plates are all laid out they’re nice and square just like when I get the deck down, all the plates for the walls are nice and square.

I’d rather snap the lines to the exact 24' mark and the 32' mark than making a mark at 16' and 20' and then extending the chalklines lines to the 24' and 32' distance with no marks until they hit your 16' and 20' marks. I think there's more room for era that way extending a chalkline to no marks at the end.

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Joe Carola

maj

I disagree.... It is MORE accurate in 40' than 20'

I was saying that if you can get it within 1/8" at 40', then essentially it is within 1/32" at 10'. Imagine a 40' tall wall, if you can get it plumb to within 1/8" at the top, then it will be 1/32" at 10'. Now that is a damn straight wall if you ask me!!

I do not use 1/32" tolerances either in framing

vtgaetano

I never mentioned anything about snapping lines off those marks. Squaring the foundation to determine where you will put the marks is all. If you pull in 5 1/2" all the way around say, then measure up 20' and over 16', take a diagonal, that will tell you how far off in whatever the diagonal is, so when you get to the 24' wall you know how far to go in or out with your mark.

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Glasshousebltr

I'd set the plates right on the wall, then slightly shift the joist so as a half inch hangs a little over on two corners. I always frame square.

It wouldn't hurt to steal a quarter of that in plates either.

If it's that out of square, whats the up and down look like?

Bob

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Bob

vtgaetano

I guess I just like my FAT MAX better than my hundred footer

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Glasshousebltr

Fat Max here also, I think thats about the best tape made yet.

Bob

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Bob

vtgaetano

Me too, let's start a new topic, pretty sure we all know how to square a slab....LOL. Anybody have a problem with the fat max breaking in or around the 7" mark, seems thats where all mine break.

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Glasshousebltr

Fired a guy last week for several things, breaking at Fat Max was one. I tryed to show him how to flip the tape to use as a story pole. Jeez ya should have seen him, he looked like a drunk Pee Wee Herman trying to have sex with a 10ft snake. Frickin idiot.

Bob

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Joe Carola

Yes, that will tell you how far off the diagonal is at the 16' and 20' marks but not at the ends where the lines have to be snapped. So even if you adjusted the mark at that point you still have to extend a chalkline past that 16' and 20' mark to the end of the foundation on each side.

The guy asked how to fix the problem, so figuring out where to snap the lines is what I'm talking about.

I will snap the 32' line and then come in 5-1/2" on each side giving me 31' 1" and then I will deduct 11" from 24' giving me 23' 1" and that would give you a 38' 8-5/8" diagonal.

From the 5-1/2" mark on the left side of the 31' 1" snapped line I will measure up 23' 1" and make a mark and then measure from the right side 5-1/2" mark I will mark the diagonal until 38' 8-5/8" hits the 23' 1" mark and that's where it will be square and then snap my lines.

Where do you snap your lines from?

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Joe Carola

maj

That's exactly how I do it Joe.

jaymay75

I did a little more investigating. BTW. I'm not a pro, but a do-it-yourself guy. This is an addition. I have two 24' walls coming out from the side of my house (perpendicular), and 2x32' walls running parallel to the house to make a box. Couldn't share the existing foundation because it was stone and no footer.

Anyway, everything else is square, but the one 24' wall runs out 1 1/2". I will just move my sill plate in 1 1/2' inches to fix the problem. Later I will be putting a deck on that side, so the ledger board will fill in the gap and you won't know

Sound good everyone.

thanks

Glasshousebltr

Be sure to flash it Jay.

Bob

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