The Legacy of 3283: Not A Washout: Stairs, Floor Deck and A Wall

The wet weather continued today. TV weather claimed total of 1.08 inches of rain fell in the last day in Holland. It came in spurts. Heavy rain...then drizzle...then a little clearing...then more rain.

Jeff Sparks and two of his guys showed up first thing this morning. They were shortly followed by a truckload of lumber. It was Jeff's intention to frame the floor deck for the addition. The idea was that if the basement under the addition could be enclosed the basement floor could be completed.

The rain was very light at the time and the crew started work on the floor deck. They managed to install all the sill plates and the end joists -- the very beginning of the job -- when the rain intensified.

We have lumber....

John is attaching the sill plates to the foundation.

After a short wait to watch the weather, Jeff decided to move the work to an "indoor" project.
When you add a basement to a home that never had one, you need to provide a stairway to access it. We, fortunately, had a nice wide stairway leading from the main floor to the second floor in the home. The basement stairs where built under them.

To do this the crew needed to cut the floor out where the steps would be. And to do this they needed to build a support wall to carry the floor joists that would be cut. They built this wall when the rain chased them inside. [I was meeting with the Township Building Department when they built the wall....so no pictures.]

Once the floor joists had support they could be cut and removed along with the flooring above. By doing this a hole was made under the current stairs for the new basement ones.

The rough hole was first cut.
Here John is trimming back the opening so walls will line up with those above.

Jeff calculated the length and slope of the staircase [the height of each riser and length if each tread] and cut the three stringers that would support the stairs. The slope had to be kept within code guidelines specifying minimum and maximum riser and treads while assuring that proper head clearance was maintained beneath remaining floor joists.

Three stringers were custom cut by Jeff to fit the total rise and run measured after the hole was cut.

The south stringer is being attached to the support wall.

Once risers and treads were cut and installed for each step we had a basement with access from the first floor.

The staircase was built between the basement and the first floor.

In the picture at the left the center stringer can be seen.

Looking up the new stairs

Looking at the stairs from the south side.
They wont be able to stay with just studs on the sides.
Code requires they be enclosed or have 4" spaced balusters.
I'm thinking of extending the bead-board siding down the walls.

Someone at weather control was watching the job today. Because, while the day was far from perfect, once the crew finished the stairs a semi-dry window opened in the weather. So, the guys jumped back onto building the floor for the addition. It actually went quite quickly -- especially since it was later in the day. Within an hour or two the addition's foundation was covered with joists and sub-floor.

Floor joists are being constructed.

The first piece of sub-floor has been installed.

Before long all the sub-floor was glued and nailed into place.

Since the rain had seemed to have let up, Jeff decided to begin framing the walls for the addition. I hurried to dig the proper window rough opening information from my not-so-well-organized brief case and got it to the crew in time for walls to be built. They started with the west wall -- framed it with studs, covered it with OSB sheathing and covered it with house-wrap [generic Tyvek].

But...just as the guys tipped the wall into place, attached it to the floor deck and the wall of the existing structure...we all noticed the west sky get very dark and saw lightening and heard thunder from over the lake. Time to pack up and go home. And, just as I closed my car door to leave the site....the skies opened up.