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Due to several factors, I am considering sheathing a small room (8×12), roof, floors, and walls with planks. My reasons are:
1) Wife home with kids now, less money available. I used to lean towards the “money” side of the “time versus money” argument, but now I am shifting to a relaxed renovation schedule and have to lean towards the “time” end of the argument now.
2) Dire need for storage space – eventually would form part of enclosed porch in an addition
3) At my day job we get in about 60 – 100 crates per month completely enclosed with 4/4 x 4 Swedish Spruce Planks – almost no knots, really planes beautifully, makes incredible looking flooring
4) I see this as sort of a challenge – see how cheap I could build it without sacrificing quality. Certainly a professional would think this “hoakey” at best
5) I would skim coat inside of planks with PUR and blow in cels, 15# felt and hardiplank clapboards. Metal roofing, a Marvin window or two here or there to tide us over for now. Framing would all be there for future windows, etc. Then just cut out when ready.
6) Will probably build staggered studs to try Gene’s methodology
7) There’s 200 used 2×4’s in the paper for $2 each, all supposedly straight, uncut, and denailed from a 2 year old partition in a factory.
I know I am nuts – but is there a reason to not use planks? I realize ply or OSB will be straighter, but my old bumpy house has plenty of character and it was sheathed with planks and green lumber besides.
This is quite a shift in thinking for me, and I just keep thinking its so cheap. Both at my day job, and at home and side work, I have always bought the best. But with our income being cut by 50% the $100 I’ll save becomes a good amount of money (basically it becomes a window). Especially when I’ve already got over 1000 l.f. stacked, dried, and denailed.
-Rob
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Hi Rob,
How long is it? If the planks are long enough you could use it at 45 degrees. If not you could use some let in braces in each corner or sheath the corner 4 feet with OSB. I would lean toward either all foam (PUR or Icynene) or all cels with a poly VR with all seams caulked with gutter and foundation caulk or other poly compatable non hardening caulk. If you dense pack the cels to over 3 lb/cu.ft. you can eliminate the poly. Cels in the ceiling of course. Good luck, I like the combination of re-used materials and energy efficency. BTW can you use the planks for flooring too?
Ron
*Yes, the granola-head aspect is nice. Re PUR, Gene has said it confers some structural rigidity -- but if this is nickel-and-dime, then cels are cheaper of course, in the shorter term...Definitely a lot more work. Those planks are only 4'? That's a lot of splices over the studs! How much will that many nails cost? I'd guess you'd space your studs according to plank length, nail them horiz. and get your racking strength elsewhere (maybe the PUR). Is $2 cheap for a 2x4? Not here.
*Great - you guys didn't kill me.The planks are 4" wide, various lengths up to 7' long. I will use them for flooring, or at least subflooring.I planned on setting them at 45 degrees. Because this will eventually look like a screened in porch, I will have a plate at say 36" up the wall which would eventually support the bottoms of the windows. It would be all windows mulled together from there up to the top plate. Short pieces would be OK for this.I get a deal on nails. There's lots of profit in them even at cut-rate retail price (friend in the business)Full wall of PUR costs LOTS, skim coat and dense pack would eliminate the 52% heat loss due to infiltration. The R-value I would guess at about 25. I would probably add 1/2" celotex inside.$2 is cheap for hem-fir. He said they are "not white" which means they are either not SPF or they are aged SPF. Even for SPF $2 isn't the final price.I got the idea from my grandparents house. They built it with old boxcars dragged to the rail siding, dismantled and hauled 600 feet to the house. Kind of neat to stand in the basement and look up to see the flaking paint from the logos on the subfloor. Some are even still muddy or covered with cow poop. IAQ may be an issue there though....-Rob
*The house I live in now is sheathed with 1x12 pine with wood siding over it. Its almost 60 yrs old and has withstood at least half a dozen hurricanes with no damage. Its all run horizontal to the studs. Thats the way they did it before plywood as far as i can tell. Older subfloors that I see are usually run diagonally but havent seen it on the walls except where done for appearance. Braceing is run diagonally but if they are long enough and you are doing the entire wall I,d run them horizontally unless you like the look of the diagonal. New 2x4x8 southern yellow pine is just undr 2 dollars here.
*Might want to check the openmindedness of your inspector first! (Yeah, i know "what inspector?") I stopped to look at some "townhomes" going up in a wealthy burb here -- starting in the 400's, ouch -- and realized there was almost nothing larger than a 2x4 anywhere. Floor trusses, OSB, those oriented-stand beam things, that's about it.Good luck.
*RobFrom one salvager to another. . . go for it.No need to do diagonal. . . Canadian code doesn't require any bracing as long as there is as little as taped horizontal d/wall on the interior, and if you really believe that horizontal d/wall has true racking strength, then you should be able to believe that horizontal sheathing boards do also.My house was built in 1951 with 1x6 & 1x8 t&g horizontal sheathing boards (mostly recycled from the foundation pour) under claps & cedar shingles. Why such attention to insul values in what will be a "screened in porch" sounds like the Pur idea is costly overkill. With all that glass you're not going to get much insul value out of the wall anyway. i Every little bit helps?Sure, but at what cost on your budget?Mike Mahan has written a very interesting paper, which he presented at Thermal 7, about surrounding living space with seasonal space that would also function as a heating & cooling buffer zone, thereby reducing the need for costly insul in all spaces. "Using the perimeter of the building as an occupiable but only partially conditioned space." He e-mailed me a copy some months ago & offered to do so for any other interested parties. . . check it out, when he gets back from the Riviera!!!-pm
*Hey, it worked for generations of other folks no reason it shouldn't now for you. It occurs to me that if you took pictures and were of a literary bent you might even be able to peddle a story about your "Rcycled Home" to someone and end up with zero net cash cost.
*Rob,a guy I grew up with build his house of 2600sq ft for under ten thousand dollars. He had no labor costs(that's what friends are for). All of the materials were salavge or left overs from jobs we had worked on.
*I have seen the same thing before. Sadly a lot of them look like jobsite leftovers. My network of friends all serve as "free" labor for each other.-Rob