Basic House Framing Guide

Foundation

• Carpenters must connect a home's wooden frame to a foundation. Foundations support and stabilize framing and safely transfer structural loads to the ground. Slab, raised footing, also called foundation walls, and concrete piers, or "spot" footings, are common foundation systems for conventional stick-frame construction. Many homes have both slabs and raised foundation walls. The term concrete pier refers to an isolated block or column of concrete that supports wooden floor framing, such as beams and joists. Framing carpenters often connect framing to piers with metal straps. Carpenters connect wall and floor framing to slabs or raised foundations with metal straps, brackets or anchor bolts.

Floor Framing

• With the exception of concrete slabs that serve as a ground floor, carpenters construct floors with horizontal framing members, called beams and joists. The term beam usually refers to relatively thick lumber, such as 3 1/2-by-5 1/2-inches or greater. The term joist usually refers to narrower lumber that spans across beams or load-bearing walls. Joists often sit on edge on top of beams and foundation walls. Carpenters usually attach joists to beams or walls by direct nailing or with brackets. Joists are evenly spaced across a foundation. Carpenters install short boards perpendicularly between joists, called blocking. A layer of plywood or oriented strand board, called sheathing, covers the joists and forms the subfloor surface.

Stud Wall Basics

• Stud walls form both load-bearing walls and interior partition walls. A stud wall consists of three basic parts: plates, studs and headers. Stud are the walls' vertical framing members, and plates are the horizontal framing members. To construct a basic stud wall, carpenters sandwich studs between a top and bottom plate. Headers, traditionally called lintels, are beams that span the top of openings, such as window and door openings. Carpenters attach stud walls to wooden floors by direct nailing and to concrete surfaces, such as slab floors, by anchor bolts, straps or concrete anchors.

Ceilings and Roofs

• Carpenters frame second-story floors with floor joists that span the tops of first-story walls. In this case, the underside of floor joists forms the first-story ceiling. Modern carpenters usually construct roofs with prefabricated, triangular units called trusses. To manually frame a roof, carpenters cut rafters and ceiling joists on-site. Rafters are the sloped members of a roof, which run downward from the roof's ridge board to the top of stud walls. Ceiling joists are horizontal members that run between adjacent pairs of rafters.