Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Main Level Floor Framing
The house framing has started. Our framers, Brad and Mark, erected two posts in the basement on the concrete pads. The posts are built-up with several 2 by 6s. Three LVL floor beams (LVL stands for Laminated Veneer Lumber) are butted up against one another resting atop the posts. The floor framing, engineered wood I-beams, have been framed on top of the LVLs and the exterior concrete/ICF walls.
The floor beams are attached with hangers to LVLs around the ICF wall.
LVLs were also used to frame the stairwell opening. Here the floor joists are attached to the LVLs with engineered hangers.
This part of the house framing shows a small cantilevered section where there will be a bumpout for a kitchen window. Here again, there is one long LVL which runs across the width of the house and sits atop the main floor beam LVL and the exterior walls. Two small LVLs are attached by hangers and cantilevered off this one. Between the two small LVLs are the same type of floor I-beams used in the rest of the floor framing.
The only drawback of framing the bumpout this way is that you are not supposed to drill through the LVLs anywhere. This makes running electrical wires, plumbing, etc. tricky anywhere where an LVL is at the same height as the other floor joists.
