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have question about timber frame floor system

Started by platinumphoenix, September 19, 2022, 01:42:38 AM

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TN King

Observing the discussions. We're working on plans to build two Timberframe homes. One for the wife and I and one for our Son and daughter in-law. 
Your plans and modifications look pretty good thus far. Good job. 
TN Treeing Walker Hounds keep critters at bay around here.
 

 
Timberking 2020 - Mahindra 3550PST - Titan implements -
1840's two story log home - 50x60 log pole barn with 6 stalls - Trout pond - Hardwood timber stands - fruit trees - natural springs and lots of wildlife.

platinumphoenix

Is anyone going to have a heart attack if I put the house on a shallow pad pillar foundation?

As long as the pads and pillars are thick enough and numerous enough. I have the tools to pull out and replace a pillar. Seeing as I already have a 15x10 shed (stuffed full of heavy things) on blocks for the last two years with no sign of sagging or damage. it doesn't look to be a HUGE problem.

Poured concrete and filled concrete blocks is looking less achievable by the minute. Expensive.  I can almost guarantee I have the lowest income of the group. I'm starting to feel discouraged I confess.

I wanna put a timber frame on pad foundation. ROAST ME!

Don P

Your call, if shallower than frost depth quite a risk. Trace the loads down the piers. You will lose a lot of lateral stability, consider at least wall sections in the corners. Technically engineer required.

This is rubble stone outside the door, lick and stick on block inside.


 

I just set up forms for the next section. I do stone up front and rubble/concrete to the form in the back


platinumphoenix

Quote from: Don P on October 19, 2022, 03:10:36 PM
I just set up forms for the next section. I do stone up front and rubble/concrete to the form in the back


I was told I couldn't pour the foundation in sections. Is that what's happening here? Is there a specific method?
Could you expand on what you mean by wall sections in the corners? It seems simple. But I googled and came up short. Just want to make sure.

Prizl tha Chizl

“I can almost guarantee I have the lowest income of the group.”

I’m sure lots of folks here understand what it is to live and work on a budget, and can understand why a person would make compromises to match their means. But the way I was taught it, you’ve got the triad; Built “Right, Quick, and Cheap,” you can only pick two out of the three.

Countless old cabins, sheds, granaries and more have been built on foundations that amounted to little more than piles of rocks. Many of them lasted a lifetime or more, but very few had level floors for long, or doors and windows that didn’t stick and squeak or let in a draft, or both. It was a part of the price paid when building within the means a serf or settler had.

If you don’t have the money, but have the time, I might think about the best way I could get something solid below the frost line. Rubble trenches with drainage and a bond beam are an other idea that has been “floated.” If you’ve got neither money or time, do the best you can with the compromises and accept the inevitable consequences-nature doesn’t take sympathy on the impoverished-but I’m pretty sure no one’s going to roast you here, you’re the one that’s got to live in it and it looks like everyone else has their own story deal with.
"The Woods Is My Church"

Don P

Well said.

What we are doing there falls under the rubblestone rules in the masonry foundation walls section of the IRC, chapter 4. This method is stronger than what they are describing but it is not for seismic areas. Also from that section we designed the main basement reinforced block walls, which were built in sections over the course of a year. I'm not aware of anything in the accompanying concrete foundation wall section stipulating that a basement has to be poured monolithically, did the inspector give you a cite for that?

When the big sail on top of a pier tries to move horizontally, piers tend to slide or overturn. If the corners are lengths of wall in each direction at least as long as they are tall, with intermediate piers as needed down the wall. Those corners will do much to stabilize the building. i've seen it enough to say you will probably regret this approach as time goes on vs a conventional foundation.

platinumphoenix

Yes I agree to all this. Another scale I live by is convenience vs effort. There's a lot of things on the farm I do the old way, requiring more effort and skill, because doing the task the easy convenient way is too expensive. I don't buy pellets for my chickens for instance, unless I run out of the food I grew and store for them mid-winter. I occasionally have skinny chickens come spring. But otherwise it works out fine.

So if there's a easy cheaper way to build the foundation. But it requires regular maintenance and repair. I'm totally ok with that. This is the only reason I was thinking of shallow foundations. But I haven't researched the recent suggestions yet. I'll go do that now.

Prizl tha Chizl

Not easier, but while you're researching, slip form masonry is a way to save on cement and form material, and makes the pours more manageable for a crew of one. https://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/stone-masonry-primer-zmaz96djzgoe/
I imagine you'd still want to follow the guidelines outlined in DonP masonry code, but if you've got rocks in Missouri you can probably get away with using a little more than half the cement you would in a regular poured wall.
I've been working on these since I was washing rocks at for years old, they work!
"The Woods Is My Church"

beenthere

Pictures of the process you have used and the results would be great to see. Pls.   ;)
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

platinumphoenix

OMG! Slipform looks like the answer. I can do it in reasonable sections. I have free rock everywhere here. I drop the price of concrete by half. I'm going to research this. This just might work. So cool! Now I can finish up my plan revision.

Don P

Anything by Scott and Helen Nearing on that method would be good. They kind of hammered out the details in the 70's and wrote extensively for Mother Earth.

Both slipformed and what we are doing, I guess "back formed", are really just modifications of the oldest roman "opus incertum", probably worth a quick google there as well for background.

Prizl tha Chizl

Quote from: beenthere on October 22, 2022, 02:52:45 PM
Pictures of the process you have used and the results would be great to see. Pls.   ;)
Sorry, all before I went digital📸, but I do have a pretty good section of  barn wall to redo in the next couple few years and that will certainly end up on here. Karl and Sue Schwenke also wrote an "updated" version, (second edition 1991) that's a pretty thorough guide. 
Warning- slip form masonry is a LOT of hard work. The savings in cement is real, however if you're buying sand and gravel it certainly narrows the margin. It's waaay cheaper though than a poured wall with veneer, and if done well can look much better. I like it because I can use my own rocks and sand, I can build at the pace I want to without having to talk five friends into helping with a grueling pour, and I don't have to worry about how to get the concrete truck to the building site.
"The Woods Is My Church"

platinumphoenix

Thank you again. Yes I really can only use quickrete or equevelant. Well maybe I can mix my own? I'm not sure it would be worth the trouble or cheaper with gas/distance/new equipment factored in. There only seems to be a .50-1.00 difference.

In other news. Mother-cat Maze brought her baby Tea-Lily 2 mice last night. So I didn't get much sleep. With the two of them thumping growling and such. And thankfully Tea-Lily actually eats the whole mouse. Maze just eats the head and leaves the rest with me. Right on my bed. Yuck!

beenthere

Platinum
You have a problem there that I wouldn't have..   :D :D
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

platinumphoenix

 

 

 

 

I only posted chat that were changed. Here the updates with the changes that were suggested. I'm not sure if the fire place foundation should be separate or attached to the main foundation. The door and windows are smaller then expected. They will be screened and shuttered. I'm not likely to use glass. Since they will be shuttered when cold to retain heat. And opened for airflow in the summer. I don't usually stay up and around when it's dark out anyway. And I'm working outside most the day. Even in my old city apartment i didn't use much light except open windows. The wattle posts won't be especially heavy compared to the main support posts. Those only need to support the wattle frame. Well? What do you think?

Don P

I would just taper the footing trench from 8" thick to 12" thick in the fireplace corner. 
Make that hearth extend up through the floor and a minimum of 18" on all sides of the heating appliance minimum. Then your foundation below the floor extends out underfloor enough to provide a minimum of a 3" wide ledge to catch the floor joists.



platinumphoenix

Quote from: Don P on October 28, 2022, 07:10:08 PM
I would just taper the footing trench from 8" thick to 12" thick in the fireplace corner.
Make that hearth extend up through the floor and a minimum of 18" on all sides of the heating appliance minimum. Then your foundation below the floor extends out underfloor enough to provide a minimum of a 3" wide ledge to catch the floor joist
I'm not sure what you mean with the footing trench. Can you explain more? Maybe a drawing?

Don P

The footing is in gray. It is 8" x 24" and tapers to 12" thick under the hearth area.

The rubblestone walls are 16" thick. The hearth extends to the top of finished floor level, or above. Surrounded by ledges to catch exterior walls and floor joists.



 

platinumphoenix

Now that makes perfect sense. I don't know why I wasn't getting it. So the footing remains 24" wide, but becomes 24"x12" under the entire fire place foundation.

I originally planned to make the foundation walls 10" thick. Is there any reason they need to be 16"?

I just realized I didn't put dimensions on my updated sketches. ::)

Don P

The footing becomes 12" thick under the entire fireplace area. 16" thick is a "rubble stone" wall in the building code, random, uncoursed masonry. That is the approval I seek with the inspectors. On exempt work I've done 12" slipform with no problems. For perspective while you form and stack... castle walls were up to 12' thick  :).

Prizl tha Chizl

Quote from: platinumphoenix on October 23, 2022, 04:42:29 PM
Thank you again. Yes I really can only use quickrete or equevelant. Well maybe I can mix my own? I'm not sure it would be worth the trouble or cheaper with gas/distance/new equipment factored in. There only seems to be a .50-1.00 difference.
Where I live one yard of sackcrete (about ninety 40 lb bags) costs about the same as the three yard minimum order from the ready mix plant. But if you mix it from scratch you only need five and a half 80 lb sacks of Portland cement, about 1/6 of the price, but have to come up with the sand, gravel, and rocks on your own.
 Grandpa would scoop his out of the Arkansas creek bed after the spring rains washed it for him. We've got that nice silica fracksand in our hillside, but I've got to buy the gravel. Either way, that rubble or slip form foundation, while wider, better looking, and probably stronger, is likely close to half rock and rubble, the rest being the sand, gravel and Portland component. You can either buy a mixer and do it yourself, or order it, but keep in mind that you can only stack the stone and rubble portion a couple feet at best before you pour. IF your local concrete supplier is willing, you can sometimes get them to deliver a couple of yards at a time in their off hours, (not easy here the way the building has been going,) but still you're probably going to want help to pull it off well, concrete is heavy and they want to get it out of their truck and move on to their next job, not wait around while your gGetting your systems figured out.
For these reasons, if I'm mixing less than a yard for someone else I usually buy the bag mix, but at home I always do it from scratch, with the exception of our one slab, which is hard to mix in batches and get smooth at the same time.
"The Woods Is My Church"

platinumphoenix

Ok. It looks like I'm ready to do this project.  8) Thank you all. Should I update build progress here? Or is there a better thread for that?

Don P

Keep updating here, I'm old and easily confused!
I don't know about y'all but it drives me nuts when someone opens 15 threads for an outhouse  :D.

Yes, a pallet is 42 80 lb sacks and is roughly a cubic yard. I think an 80 is 2/3 of a cu ft.

Prizl tha Chizl

“Yes, a pallet is 42 80 lb sacks and is roughly a cubic yard. I think an 80 is 2/3 of a cu ft.”

I like the smaller 40 lb bags of sack Crete cuz they’re easier to get in the mixer, but when I’m making my own up I buy the 80 lb sacks of Portland, and dump them in a wood box that I can easily measure out of.

More importantly for your planning, I find that mixing and pouring a yard of concrete either way in a three bag mixer to be a pretty good days work for a crew of two. One person might stop a little shy of half of that much.

At home I’ve only used 12” walls, with the exception of under our masonry heater. Either way DonP historical perspective just made this all sound so much easier! (of course they had the serfs to lean on, all we could ever dream up were interns and they sounded like they were more trouble than they were worth)
:D
"The Woods Is My Church"

Don P

Whoops, Portland cement is a 94 lb bag, which happens to be one cubic foot. For mixer proportioning I'll split that bag up into 2 buckets and then proportion my aggregates around that. If you have help have the rocks ready, otherwise the help mixes more mud than packing rock. I suspect on the old castle crew if you wasted mud you were interning on the quicklime burning crew the next day  :D. 

A retired old mason was describing his first boss the other day. He had come up during hard times. At the end of one commercial brick job the boss asked him to clean up the mud around the foot of the walls. He said you could have fit all he dropped on one trowel  :).

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