Framing the exterior wall trusses - part 2.

In part 1 of this "mini-series" on framing the wall trusses, I covered the installation of the "secondary" bottom plates and the gussets - both of which are required to tie the secondary studs to the "primary" structure of the house. In this post I will go over the process of how I installed the secondary studs. In part 3, I will cover the process of how I framed the rough openings on the secondary side of the wall structure.

Fastening the secondary studs is easy but some care must be taken to make sure they all line up to make a straight wall.

Prior to installing the secondary studs, I had to air seal the rim board assembly in accordance with my air sealing strategy. You may be wondering why I left this air sealing step to this point. The answer is that I wanted to wait as long as possible to avoid unnecessarily exposing the air stop tape to UV. My hand was forced however, since applying the tape after the installation of the secondary studs is a royal pain-in-the-ass.

The rim board was installed "smooth side" out - the air stop tape has no problem sticking to the "smooth side" but does not stick very well to the "rough side". 4" tape was applied along the bottom seam (plate/rim board) and the top seam (rim board/subfloor/plate) as the extra width is useful in dealing with any irregularities in the surfaces. Where two pieces of rim board butt together, 2" tape was used at the vertical seam as the narrower width is sufficient. I was able to "rip" my 4" tape into 2" strips by simply running my utility knife down the seam in the 4" tape's split backing.

At this door opening, I simply cut the tape and folded the tape back against the subfloor. Unlike the window openings, the door openings are tricky in terms of air sealing - I will get into this in later posts.

With the rim board assembly air sealed, the framing work could begin. To ensure I was installing the secondary studs in a straight line I first nailed up one stud at each end of the wall - using my 6' level and tape measure to get each of these as plumb as possible. I was then able to stretch a string line from one end of the wall to the other between them. The rest of this job was just a matter of fastening each new secondary stud, one at a time.

I started each stud by clamping it into approximate position against the middle gusset. Note that the gussets themselves, being cut to the depth of the wall cavity (10 1/2"), serve as pretty good gauges to begin with.

With the stud clamped against the middle gusset, I checked its bottom end against my string line then put a single nail through the gusset into the stud.

With a single nail holding the stud to the bottom gusset, I checked for vertical between the bottom and middle gusset. If any small adjustments were required, the studs could be tapped with a hammer while still clamped to the gusset. Once the stud was nice and vertical, I nailed it in place using five 2 3/8" air nails per gusset. I repeated this process for all the studs, leaving the top end of each un-nailed for now.

Once all the studs were secured at the bottom and middle gussets, I moved my string line to the top of the wall. I then went back to each stud, pulling or pushing them into position relative to the string line and nailing as I went.

The last steps were to nail the bottom of each secondary stud to its bottom plate and install a secondary top plate. The secondary bottom plate was marked so that each stud was 16" o.c. and in line with the primary stud it was attached to. I used 3 1/2" ardox nails to toe nail each stud to its plate. The secondary top plate was laid across the top of the studs and nailed first to a stud that was already pretty straight. I then worked outwards from that stud, measuring and nailing as I went.

North wall complete. I used site-built staging at the corners where the terrain is sloped. Nailing the staging to the secondary studs was not a problem. Even with just the bottom and middle gussets fastened, the studs were very sturdily attached. Over-all this wall system has proven to be very strong.

Tweeter and the Monkey Man - Traveling Wilburys