My Daughters New House

[chambezio]

The daughter got married in October last year. The new son-in-law- is a very motivated young fella and got onto designing his own plan. Well the frame and roof were erected this week so we went to have a look at this momentous stage.

The frame is Treated Radiata along with the trusses, so what you say......in my experience I have never seen 70 X 19mm radiata used for noggings! They have a square edged mortise machined through the face of the studs. What a great way to straighten studs as well as giving the Electrician and Plumber an easy way to get there services in.

They are using a national franchise builder who is very active in our area. I was very impressed with the set up. After the formwork was stripped a rubber wheeled machine leveled out around the perimeter of the house making a clear go for the trades that will follow. In the house the concrete floor had been swept and all rubbish put in the skip. My days back when I was working you had to dodge heaps of dirt and other stuff just to get onto the floor of the house I was very impressed.

[rwbuild]

Never seen this before, makes for a very strong frame and easy to scaffold if required.
Can you tell us who the builder is please.

[Cal]

Plasterers will love them too, straight walls!


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[FenceFurniture]

That's very interesting Rod. I'd wager that overall it's probably quicker to assemble, especially if on-site. Even in a factory it's probably quicker. I guess they have a stinkin' big automated mortising machine, and there'd be a massive stash of pre-mortised studs to pull out.

[chambezio]

The builder is GJ Gardner Homes I don't know how big they are but they have quite a lot of houses on the go in our area. The frames are made up in town by Trussted, they have been going in town for more than 20 years. The Ali windows came from Mannila which is a little town 30 minutes away. A young fella started building windows about 15 years ago. He is cheaper than the 3 big mobs in Tamworth and he is getting more work all the time.

Could the machine making the mortises be a chain morticer?The corners are so crisp though. I have never seen a Chain Morticer in use so can't tell. As soon as I saw it I thought "that's a great idea". They used some laminated pine beams with labels saying they were F17 and stained yellow in colour. The bottom chord on a few trusses had the same yellow stain and marked F17, but they were only 90 X 35mm.

My mind set is still stuck in the past....I can't get my head around the prices.....the house is $420,000 and the land $187,000 but it is 3.2 acres.

[rwbuild]

That company has been around for a while and has a good reputation.
The mortises are done with a chain mortiser and if you look closely you can see the indent of the locating foot.
This method doesn't necessarily make a "straight" frame but would help a bit. A straight frame relies on several factors ie: the individual studs (all cambers should face the same way on the edge ~ face camber is rectified when nailing the ribbon noggin as per photo or individual noggins cut to the stud spacing) and this relies on the assembly crew sighting each and every stud before nailing. Also it depends how long the frames are stacked on site and how well they were stacked, also how long from frame erection to roof / wall covering and exposure to the weather and finally how diligent the erection crew were ensuring top & bottom plates are fixed straight, walls plumbed and rooms squared.