have question about timber frame floor system

[platinumphoenix]

Well I'm back. Oh boy lots of changes. I have my son home again. So 14 year old monstro. We're so far out the school won't send a bus down here to pick him up for school. So he's here doing remote learning on a school laptop. T to be fair. They will send a bus. But it's 11 miles from the house. My broke ass ain't driving 44 miles 5 days a week. Heck no. So anyway. I managed to get 90% of the foundations trench dug out. And I've decided to change the plan. I will not be putting a cellar area under the house. No crawl space at all. And no plank flooring. Instead it will be packing the dirt solid and laying down tightly packed brick with fine sand clay filling for interior flooring. Very rustic I know. But it will much easier to repair if anything shifts. So the sill will not have extra cuts put into it. No middle sill like the original plan. I'm still planning on slip form/stone foundation. Larger boulders on the bottom smaller stones on top. With rebar woven in for extra support. I will be shoving the extra dirt up against the exposed foundation to create a hill to help direct water away from the foundation. Would you like me to post better pictures? I think I can do it better this time. I have pictures of the boring trench too.

Also I'm still unclear if I should be buying greenwood for the timber frame or if reclaimed wood is acceptable. I've seen people building timber frame with a mix of it. And I've heard people swear using already seasoned wood is a big nono.

[timberframe]

Well I'm back. Oh boy lots of changes. I have my son home again. So 14 year old monstro. We're so far out the school won't send a bus down here to pick him up for school. So he's here doing remote learning on a school laptop. T to be fair. They will send a bus. But it's 11 miles from the house. My broke ass ain't driving 44 miles 5 days a week. Heck no. So anyway. I managed to get 90% of the foundations trench dug out. And I've decided to change the plan. I will not be putting a cellar area under the house. No crawl space at all. And no plank flooring. Instead it will be packing the dirt solid and laying down tightly packed brick with fine sand clay filling for interior flooring. Very rustic I know. But it will much easier to repair if anything shifts. So the sill will not have extra cuts put into it. No middle sill like the original plan. I'm still planning on slip form/stone foundation. Larger boulders on the bottom smaller stones on top. With rebar woven in for extra support. I will be shoving the extra dirt up against the exposed foundation to create a hill to help direct water away from the foundation. Would you like me to post better pictures? I think I can do it better this time. I have pictures of the boring trench too.

Also I'm still unclear if I should be buying greenwood for the timber frame or if reclaimed wood is acceptable. I've seen people building timber frame with a mix of it. And I've heard people swear using already seasoned wood is a big nono.

Working with green or dry wood are both fine, advantages and disadvantages.  Green wood can be nicer with hand tools, but if they're sharp, you'll be just fine with either.  Seasoned wood often has all of it's twists and movement "out of its system" already and joints can stay tighter over the next 5 years as a result, but green wood can be more enjoyable to work with.  

[Brad_bb]

This is my first time seeing this topic, so I'm way late to this party.  I just want to say (if no one else has said it), if you're  going to have a stepped footer on the foundation as you showed in the pics on the first page, make sure at the steps that the concrete guys actually tie them together properly with rebar and that fully pour the steps as shown.  Around here some concrete guys automatically won't do that.  Verify the forms and rebar are correct yourself before the pour scheduled.  Use a tape and measure the forms too to verify.  You don't want it poured and then find out something is too short or too long.  It happens, trust me.  And it costs a lot more to fix concrete issues than to check it before hand.  Also, do you need to run any conduit or water piping underneath before it's poured?

[platinumphoenix]

I'm a simple guy. I like things accessable for repair. So the only water pipe will be the kitchen sink. It will go through the wall from the holding tank/treatment filters outside. And if I have an electric light, that will go through the wall too. I do not want to break concrete or foundation to make repairs to a pipe. I don't mind pipes buried, but I'm not there in planning quite yet.

Thank you for the advice. I will be laying the foundation myself. So I'll keep this in mind about rebar.

[platinumphoenix]

I found this video. It looks exactly like what I'm doing with the foundation. The only difference is that it will be partly buried. This video shows them laying the foundation completely above ground.

https://youtu.be/lryKoJa_hjA?si=Q0E4Pk7eAplgqn-z

I kept seeing stone foundations with nice perfectly square stones. I don't have that. My rocks are all sorts of odd shaped. But I'm sure it will work out well enough. I expect to post pictures and an update by June. I'll see you all then.

Also, noticed the motor is more granular than I'm used to seeing. Does anyone know why this is?

[platinumphoenix]

Heres the same foundation. Seems like a rubble trench foundation. With the slip stone foundation on top of it.

https://youtu.be/Nl_Nlm_-vqY?si=VG6kLUaqzUuWwK9W

[Don P]

I'll finish watching tonite. That is a rubblestone wall being built. Rubblestone is uncoursed masonry where ashlar is coursed work. All was going well, notice they make sure to slope the top of stones inward to keep the wall pushing in on itself... till at about 2 minutes yellow shirt throws a hog in the wall. That outward sloping stone is not a good thing, the wall wants to shear under load there. Drop in some rebar as you work and a vertical every 4' or so, aggravating to work around but well worth it if the wall does try to break up.

Coarse sharp aggregate makes stronger mortar, that looked like pea gravel concrete, sakrete type mix.

For slip form info look for stuff by Scott and Helen Nearing from the 70's, they built a number of structures and wrote for Mother Earth Magazine back in the day.

[Don P]

Ah, start with the second video. I would call that closer to rubble with "flowable fill". I'd bet that is the same mortar mix you were asking about that he is washing in. The granular texture must have just been a dry mix, which is often what stone masons prefer. Not that I'm calling any of that that good masonry. The basics were there but the finish was as poor as if he had simply slip formed it. That is about as sloppy as it gets. But, look at the surrounding walls, it might get a smoothing parge coat hiding the stone.

Look up the foundation under a wood foundation wall in chapter 4 in the codebook. That is the gravel trench I've built on. Also find Superior Walls installation manual online. It gives a good description of how to do one. There is no mortar used in those it is just a gravel filled trench that extends below frost depth. The foundation walls begin below grade and bear on the gravel trench. Once you begin using mortar completely fill all voids in the wall, trapped water freezing in a pocket in the wall will damage it. Either let the water drain freely, as in the contained gravel trench, or build a watertight wall that doesn't let water collect in it. He was leaving all kinds of voids in the wall.

I was showing some bondstones crossing between the 2 faces in this retaining wall;


Here at the house we were blessed with lots of ugly rocks. I've got concrete mix (portland/sand/pea gravel) filling behind these stones trying to make it look dry laid.


That was for the firewood shed, I had the easy inspector. He was as good as one could ever ask for.