Working with milled timber

As we progressed through the building process we found that we would just master a skill and it was time to move onto another, new, unfamiliar task.  This started with the posts and beams and continued all the way through the build.

We had recycled the timber required for the posts and cut the timber for the beams so when it came to build the structural wall that braces the shouse in the east-west direction we were incredibly surprised how light the timber.  We no longer needed two people to move a piece of timber! 

 

We decided to stick with F17 hardwood for the structural wall.  We figured it was structural so thought it best to build it out of Australian hardwood.  We started by cutting all the required pieces to size then laid the timber out on the slab to make sure all components would be in the right place.

There was only one door to account for an no windows so it was a pretty straight-forward construction.  We were amazed that, within a day, a whole wall was build.  AND put into place.  The structural wall had two load bearing studs which were triple studs with which to hold up the beams.  These essentially acted as posts within the structural wall.

You can see in the photo above that the top plate of the structural wall is in tact.  We decided that it would be stronger like this and elected to chisel out the section where the cross beam would sit when the beam was ready to go up.  This may not have been the brightest move as it was a nightmare to remove the top plate once the wall was up.  Especially because, without the two beams providing support to the wall it was actually surprisingly wobbly.  

The bottom plate was dynabolted to the concrete and the two ends were essentially nail plated to the beam on either end of the wall.  Still, there was a far bit of flex in the wall.  Once the beams were attached, the wall was much stronger but it was not until the joists went up that it really firmed up to our (read my hubby's) satisfaction.