Conference 7.286::home_work

    Soffit - Special, horizontal, finished surface.  The under-part
    	of your eaves are soffits.  The underpart of a garrison overhang
    	is too.  Your ceiling is not a soffit, but a special, lowered
    	part of a ceiling, such as a framed portion above your kitchen
    	cabinets can be called a soffit.
    
    Fascia - "Face Board"  The vertical part of your eaves are fascia
    	boards.  So are the boards which are the edge of your roof on
    	the gable end, but in that case it can be known also as a
    	Rake Board.
    
    Ear Board - The "return" part of a rake board, where the rake meets
    	the eaves.  It's used to cover the end of your soffit and fascia.
    
    <#> Pitch - as in "6 pitch" is the angle of your roof.  It's measured
    	by how many inches of "up" for each 12 inches of "over"  The full
    	term would be: 6/12 pitch, but since its always 12, its abbrev'd.
    
    Types of walls-
    	Knee wall: any short wall of any material. Wood knee walls,
    		cement knee walls, etc.
    	Purling wall: In a Gambrel roof, its the wall which rises to
    		meet the second angle of the roof.  It usually sits
    		2 or 3 feet in onto the 2nd deck, rather than directly above
    		the first story exterior wall.
    	Frost wall: In a walk-out basement, the it's the wall that goes
    		beneath the frost line, under the cement floor. (Req.
    		4' in N.E.)
    
    Mortise and Tenon - "a square peg in a square hole" the square hole
    	is the mortise, the peg the tenon.
    
    Mitre - French: "Angle", a "mitre box" is a manual or power tool
    	that makes accurate angle cuts.  The 45 degree cut on your door
    	trim is a "mitre".  A cut along the flat part of a wood is called
    	a mitre, along the short direction it's a Bevel, and cutting
    	both at once is a "compound angle"
    
    Gusset - a plate of material to hold two pieces of wood together.
    	If you splice two 2x10s together end to end with a piece of 
    	plywood, you've used a gusset.  The metal plates on roof-trusses 
    	are gussets, and in that case they're also called "gang-nails".

    Other framing terms:
    	Cripple: Short stud, like under or over a window.
    	Plate: the horizontal portions of a framed wall.  The top one
    		is always "the plate", the bottom can be called the
    		"shoe".
    	Jack: stud that holds up a header.  In the case of rafters,
    		the short rafters that go up a Valley are called
    		"Jack rafters"
    	Nailer: any "second thought" piece of lumber... when you put
    		a block of wood between two studs to support your shower
    		head, you've put in a nailer.  A strip of 2x4 against
    		the wall to support your cabinets is a nailer.
    
    Champher - a three-sided piece of mold.  Its often used as a shim
    	to help straigtened out your fascia.

    RE: champher - 3 sided piece of mold.
    
    Don, I've only been able to find 2 sided piece of mold. I've heard
    that if you stick a piece of bread under a prism long enough, you
    just may end up with some 3 sided, but have always thought this
    to be an, "mold wives tale". Any truth to this?
    
    Charlie

    
>     "mold wives tale". 
    
    ? Charlie, you've been here too long today - why don't you get some
    rest? :*)

    From the context of a statement about them, I get the impression
    that a "collar tie" is a horizontal 2xN whose ends are each nailed
    to a rafter (to form the base of a triangle).   Did I guess right?
    
    Dick
    

    Yep.. a collar tie is a horizontal member connecting two rafters,
    not necessarliy a 2x however- could be a 6x6 in post and beam and
    is often just 1x6 in garages and attics.
    

re: .1

    That's a 'purlin' wall.  From Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary:
    "a horizontal member in a roof supporting the rafters".  I've always
    used purlin to describe any horizontal structural member on the pitch
    of a roof.  For example, on a post-and-beam frame, the rafters might
    be spaced 8, 10, or 12 feet apart.  The space between them is spanned
    by horizontal members spaced about 2 feet apart.  The (board) sheathing
    is then installed vertically over these members.  I thought these
    horizontal members were purlins, too.  Let's hear from the P&B folks.

    Some additions:

    ridge - the top edge of a roof, the crest of the roof.

    hip - when two pitches of a roof meet to form an outside corner, the
	intersection is called a hip.

    valley - when two pitches of a roof meet to form an inside corner,
	this intersection is called a valley.

 	NOTE:  ridges and hips are NOT loadbearing, any piece of lumber
		can be used to form a ridge or hip.  They can even be omitted!
		In practice, a ridge board helps to align the rafters during
		and after construction; I can't imagine trying to build
		a hip roof without the hips.  Valleys ARE loadbearing and
		must be sized like any other structural member.

>  For example, on a post-and-beam frame, the rafters might
>    be spaced 8, 10, or 12 feet apart.  The space between them is spanned
>    by horizontal members spaced about 2 feet apart.  The (board) sheathing
>    is then installed vertically over these members.  I thought these
>    horizontal members were purlins, too.  Let's hear from the P&B folks.
 
    Yes, those are purlins.  My house has 4x8 rafters running 6 feet
    apart and 2x6 purlins between them 2' o.c.  Purlins can also run
    parallel to the rafters.  Maine Post & Beam switched to running
    the purlins parallel to the rafters.  They say that it increases the
    airflow, somehow.
    
    The sheathing usually doesn't go right over the purlins.  If you
    run 2x4s perpendicular and above the purlins, that will give you
    2 inches of airflow above your insulation.  If you put the sheathing
    right on the purlins, then you'll be insulating right up against
    the sheathing.
    

    	Chamfer (sp?) is a "strip of shim material" A shim is (like
    a shingle) three-sided (or, five-sided if you're being fussy)
    Chamfer is a long, long shim... [who really cares?]
    
    	Collar ties also form the horizontal pieces as in a capital
    "A" in a rafter roof.  Doesn't necessarily have to be at the base.
    
    	Ridges *can* be load-bearing:  In an area of a roof where you'd
    want a cathedral ceiling, the ridge-pole actually supports the roof
    and keeps the walls from bowing outward.  With a load-bearing ridge,
    you can omit the collar ties.   ("Ridge-Pole" is a double or triple
    beam of 2xN material running horizontally at the peak of the roof)
    
    	BYW - I'd never seen 'purlin' in print... just thot it was being
    pronounced with a silent "g"...
    
    	"Balloon Framing" - old method of framing a house.  (Lot's of
    fire-code problems with trying to build a house this way these days
    and "Platform Framing" is easier and quicker!)  In a Balloon-Framed
    house, the exterior walls sit directly on the foundation and extend
    "in-one-piece" to the rafters. (In practise, they often used to
    simply "Scab" a couple studs together to get them long enough! UGH!)
    Then the first and second (or third) floors are attached to the
    studs afterward.  The first floor sits on the foundation against
    the wall, and the other floors are "let in" (notched in) to the
    studs at the appropriate height.

        Problems come with this kind of framing in that the exterior
    walls are virtual *chimneys* if the house catches fire.  A fire
    downstairs will nearly imediately reach the roof!  With Platform
    Framing, you build a platform (floor) then a set of walls, then
    another platform and another set of walls, etc.  The top plates
    of each wall act as a fire-breaks between each floor.
    
    	If you are re-modelling an old "balloon-framed" house, you should
    add blocking into the walls to provide the fire-break.  (That is,
    if you're gutting it...)
    
    	It's also possible to completely remove the floors independently
    of one another (and all interior partitions on that floor)  This
    can be handy if an old, old house has "dry-rot" and the floor is
    no longer safe.  Dry-rot happens when wood floors sit above medieval
    dirt floors!
    
    							Don
    

    When an electrical service is rated as "60 Amp", "100 Amp", etc.,
    does that refer to the total capacity or the max *per leg*?
    
    As I understand it, the two wires coming into the house are each
    at 120V over ground.  If I have 100 Amp service, does this mean
    I can only draw a max of 50 per wire?

    The capacity refers to each leg- the power comes  in to a 2 pole
    breaker of 100 amps each side. Therefore you can draw 100 amps per
    wire. 
    

                .10 was right as far as he went, but there is a slight
        catch. If you are using 110V, you can draw 100 amps per side,
        but if you are talking 220V, it doesn't add to 200 amps as it
        might look (100 amps out of each wire?).
                
                What happens is that with 110V, the return is the
        Neutral, thus 100 amps flows in on one wire and out on the
        neutral. You can then draw 100 amps on the other wire and it
        flows to the neutral making for 0 amps (that's right - zero) on
        the neutral (the two currents add so as to cancel). With 220V,
        the return leg is the other hot wire so 100 amps flows in on one
        and out on the other with nothing on the netral.
                
                /s/     Bob
                
  p.s. You still get the same POWER with 200 amps at 110V as with 100
        amps at 220V (both equal 22,000 watts).

	Well someone in 2245 brought it up so we might as well start
    one. Here it is!


    
    
    
    
    
    **********************************************************
    
    	A NOTE OF HOME CONSTRUCTION/BUILDING DEFINITIONS.

    **********************************************************
    
    
    



	SPAGS has a book I noticed the last time I was there called
the 'Contractors Illustrated Dictionary'. I was going to pick it up
for my father as he just started building some homes on a big chunk
of family land in CT. Now might be as good time as any. It's a big
book about 1000 pages hard covered and seems very detailed. About
$45 if I remember.

                 

    d'ya think we can get BEING::WEISS to organize getting the dictionary
    entered as a bunch of notes
    
    				herb

Don't count on it :^).  My only suggestion, if you want this note to be useful,
is to put the word you're defining in the title, so people can at least do a
directory of the titles. 

Paul