This is not about the little black diamonds on the tape measure, I promise.
Question: why do we space studs, etc. 16 in OC? I’ve been told that this is because it allows a 4X8 sheet to land on 4 structural members, but this can’t be the right answer. Our 1905 house in Buffalo NY is built on a 16 in module, but sheathed with planks. This suggests that the spacing rule preceded the plywood size convention, and, perhaps, influenced it.
Here in Scotland, sheet materials come in a size of 2400 X 1200 mm, which is close to, but not exactly 8 X 4 ft. Framers put studs on 400 mm or 600 mm centers, which are close to 16 and 24 inches OC. In a metric environment, these measurements make no sense — it would be much more natural to space studs every half meter, or 500 mm. and to manufacture DW and PW to something more natural, say 2500 X 1000 mm.
Does anyone know anything about the history of these building customs?
Replies
It is based on the size gap that allows a carpenter to fit through.
With America's growing obesity problem, we are now seeing more framing 24" OC
frankly I don't know, but you sparked my curiosity - too early in the morning too, LOL
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I, too, have heard that it was so you could "walk through walls" during construction.
How about because it's a reasonable distance between support members for use with commonly available building materials? Experience may have shown that 12 in. was closer than needed in most cases, and 24 in. resulted in bouncy floors, so we settled on 16 in. Probably could have gone with 18 in. just as well, but that would have had us building on 3 ft. modules and we don't like odd numbers.Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein (or maybe Mark Twain)
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
"Everything not forbidden is compulsory." T.H. White, The Once and Future King
I'll go with that one. I was thinking about an experiment wattle and daub wall once. Seemed like the materials dictated a lot. The vertical struts on that ended up about 18-20" spacing IIRC
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Interesting about the wattle and daub. You gonna make it to JLC this year?Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein (or maybe Mark Twain)
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
"Everything not forbidden is compulsory." T.H. White, The Once and Future King
Would really love to, but our travel budget is in medical lately. Sitting in a motel room now near test facility for wife's ongoing breast cancer followups.She keeps coming up clean, but there are 'suspicious' shadows they are watching every six months instead of once a year, and we both have some other issues - long story...but would really love to see your smiling face again someday.Good article on stairs latest issue. I am going to show it to a client tomorrow, He is trying to squeeze every inch of space he can out of a small design.
Funny one - he started out working to make the exterior as small as possible for visual impact, then started looking to fit more and more into the interior layout.I waas starting to wonder if you had quit working at HW Decks since you have been here so much lately
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Nope, still at Pro Deck Builder. But I'm starting to noodle out this garage, and of course I can't do anything the common way, so I've been here asking questions. It really helps to bounce ideas around with you guys.The stair article in the mag was an anomaly. It was adapted from my book, so all I needed to do was write a new intro and proof read it. I made sure my bosses knew about it, and no one is complaining. I'm sorry to hear about the medical stuff. That's no fun whatever. How far are you from Booth Bay? I go up there every summer for a few days, maybe I could slip over for a visit?Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein (or maybe Mark Twain)
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
"Everything not forbidden is compulsory." T.H. White, The Once and Future King
Right around the corner.I can practically see Dan Morrison's old stomping grounds from my house too
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I'll get in touch when we're making our plans. Last couple of years, we've gone up for Independence Day. Booth Bay is a great place to watch fireworks, and we can walk to the lobster dock from our friend's cabin. Would Islesboro be a day sail from Booth Bay?Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein (or maybe Mark Twain)
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
"Everything not forbidden is compulsory." T.H. White, The Once and Future King
gee Andy, I'm not a sailor, but I think so.
check your charts - smack dab in the middle of Penobscot Bay - Some refer to it as Dark Harbor
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
The house I was raised in was built in 1906, alegedly one of those Sears and Roebucks kits. Any way it had studs on 18" centers with some drywall like stuff that was apparently 36'' wide..
Fun to know that. I'd love to have the time to research and write a history of post-medieval carpentry.Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein (or maybe Mark Twain)
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
"Everything not forbidden is compulsory." T.H. White, The Once and Future King
Andy,
Here's a theory based on nothing, really. The balloon frame and the 16-in. by 24-in. steel square were both developed in the the 1830s. Maybe the square simply provided a convenient way to lay out the stud locations in a consistent, workable pattern.
It's funny how the 16-in. by 24-in. steel square was established long before materials (drywall and plywood) were invented to fit the 16-in. and 24-in. layout pattern. Because there were no materials manufactured to fit that size, I think the dimensions of the square might have been chosen because a 16-ft. by 24-ft. house was a very common size. It could have been used to make scale drawings and to find the diagonals for squaring things up.
On the other hand, the 4-in. by 8-in. brick, pretty standard by colonial times, may have been a factor in what became our basic building module of 4-in. --JC
The 12th scale on the square is for the purpose of scaling, so you might be on to something there, John. How've you been? Ever get up this way? If you do, we should drink.Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein (or maybe Mark Twain)
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
"Everything not forbidden is compulsory." T.H. White, The Once and Future King
i was told it was based on the average length of a carpenter's hammer
later it was standardized
obviously , a module was introduced at some time or another... when was the 4' module introduced ? it probaby preceded plywood
another module was rock lath
which was 16"... th is is what was used after wood lath and before drywall
Mike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
For some reason I'm imagining Father Mulcahy on MASH drunkenly slurring the word, "Modularity."Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein (or maybe Mark Twain)
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
"Everything not forbidden is compulsory." T.H. White, The Once and Future King
The rock lath was almost always put up horizontally, so the 16 inch dimension was irrelevant. Can't recall if the long dimension was 32 or 48, though.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
no... not irrelevant..... the ceiling ht. was typically 8'... so no waste
8' must be a human module ( typical man can touch ceiling )
and 4'... typical man can carry a 4' sheet
you would think that 6' would have been a module ( outstretched arms .. fingertip-to-fingertip )
then there is standard guage ( 4- 8 1/2 .... based on wheel-to-wheel of roman chariot ) but why was the roman chariot 4'8 1/2" ???? )
almost all of our modules evolve from the human form...
16" from elbow to closed fist.....Mike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
You'd understand that it was irrelevant if you'd ever seen rock lathers working. "Beat to fit" is an apt description of the technique.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
i only meant that it was relevant to the module....
14" wouldn't work... 12" would but the pcs would be too small for production
so.... yes.... all of these standards are relevant
how did we wind up with 2x4's as a standard framing member ( stud ) ?Mike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
We didn't. We ended up with 1.5x3.5.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Re: Your self-serving JK Galbraith quote.
You bet! Feed your own kids asswipe! Oh, selfish...
Learn that in church?
There are quite a few homes around here where the floors and rafters were laid out on 18" centers to match 12' t&g fir flooring and 12' 1x8 rough sheeting. Walls in these places are still 16"oc.
I just made it up and look how far that rumour has spreadd already! must be the speed of the web
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What Piffin says is the honest truth. More or less.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
This was discussed here before. I think that was the best we came up with then too.
Family.....They're always there when they need you.
"
It is based on the size gap that allows a carpenter to fit through.
With America's growing obesity problem, we are now seeing more framing 24" OC"
THAT WAS A GREAT ANSWER!!!!!
No history here, just common sense thinking. 48 and 96 are easily divisible numbers. Quick math on the job. So is 2400 and 1200. Nice ratio also, 2:1. 4x10 (osb in my experience) is a little harder to handle, too. Good observation, though - never thought about it.
This could be a somewhat bias, since I've been using 4x8 since, well, the beginning.lol
Yes, it was boards on the o/s, but the early dw panels were 4 footers, and so were the lathe straps .. other than that, the codes were based on 16s so ..
Are you in Buffalo, or in Scotland....????
His main home is in buffalo, his summer Maine home is near me, and he is now in Scotland with relatives
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Busy Guy....
I'd be interested in meeting, next time he's in Buffalo......
An old carpenter told me a long time ago that all this was a result of wooden lath being supplied in 4 foot lengths. The interior stud spacing at 16 inches accomodated the 4 foot lengths, and then sheet goods followed, many years later.
So the real question has to be, why did they supply lath in 4 foot lengths ? Chicken or egg ?
Greg
That may depend upon the period the house was built with wood lath. My house is about 200 years old and most of the wood laths (split lath, also sometimes called accordion lath) are longer than 4 ft. Mostly 6 - 8 feet. Maybe later sawn lath was typically supplied in shorter sections? Incidentally, the stud spacing varies but it looks like it's nominally 16"-18". The frame is post & beam and it looks like they tended to (more or less) evenly divide the space between posts. Floor joist spacing seems a little wacky to me - some are oak ~3x4 and are about 22" o.c. with 11' span (resulting in a pretty bouncy floor) and others are chestnut ~3x7 on 16" centers over ~14 ft. resulting in a good solid floor. I wondered if maybe they figured the oak was stronger so they could get away with lighter framing but they didn't figure on the bounce.
Maybe that old carpenter was right and to take that back another notch to the logging itself which is usually done in 8' or 100" logs. You would get a lot more than twice as many 4 footers than you would 8 footers, from an 8' log. Eight foot being the legal limit widthwise on the highway.
Eight foot being the legal limit widthwise on the highway.
So they carried the logs sideways on the trucks?"Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Certainly a lot of "cordwood" and "pulpwood" is carried that way. Stanchions at front and back of the trailer, with logs piled in-between. Obviously bigger/longer logs would be carried the other direction.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Obviously bigger/longer logs would be carried the other direction.
Vertical???????
Did you see the news this morning?? A dump truck was on the highway with his bed UP... UNTIL he hit an overhead interstate sign, it flip the truck vertical and balanced on its tail.... Whew, he's going to have bad day..... ;>)
Bill
Edited 3/5/2009 11:52 am ET by BilljustBill
>Eight foot being the legal limit widthwise on the highway.
So they carried the logs sideways on the trucks?<.
that allowed shorter trucks :)
http://www.oldhousechronicle.org/archives/vol01/issue05/technical/lath.html
"If you were to ask anyone in the construction field younger than 50 why wall studs are spaced 16 inches on center, they will likely tell you because 16 inch centers offer the best support for wallboard. Well, that is only part of the answer. This spacing standard came about because wood laths were cut in lengths of 48 inches. This necessitated spacing studs and floor joists at 16 inches on center to provide adequate nailing without cutting a great deal of laths. This also explains why in many older houses the stud and joist spacing is 12 inches or 16 inches while the rafter spacing is often 2. The unfinished attics did not require lath and therefore the on-center spacing was determined by the applied roof loads, not the nailing requirements for lath. "
I built a small building last year in Williamsburg, and we had to have the Colonial Wmsbg Foundation archeological folks "sanitize" the site first. I got to know them pretty well, and had several one-on-one history lessons. Did you know that the early settlers essentially wiped out the forests in that area due to excessive land clearing, and none of the current trees is more than about 150 years old?
During their digging, the archeologists uncovered a couple of pole foundations for early structures. It was fascinating to hear them explain how they could estimate the age of the remains. One way was that the earliest footings were on 10 ft centers, and later ones were on 8 ft centers. The reason was that the later timber was only available in the shorter lengths. ]
Anyway, my point is that even back in the 1700's they built on 8 and 10 ft modules.
"Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
In my apartment building, originally built as a single family house built in 1865, the studs are on 12" centers and the floor joists average out to 14". The joist spacing runs from around 9" to 18" depending on what was in the way. Some joists aren't even parallel.
It makes the math easier when people did math in their heads. Four feet is a round number of convenient length, and the other numbers followed from that.
Scotland used Imperial measure (feet and inches) until recently. When they went metric they standardized on sizes that were close to the Imperial measurements and "round enough".
Of course, that's the explanation, but I imagine that years from now when (in Scotland) inches and feet are forgotten, apprentice carpenters will ask why they space at 400 and 600 mm, rather than the more logical 500 mm.