Framing FASTER with no waste... Ready-Frame overview!

foreign a builder's favorite day on the job site is when this big truck shows up check it out you all know what this probably is already Builders First Source which means my framing package is in here but this is no standard framing package of course we have some trusses which some of you use some of you don't these are from my first floor framing but back here this package a little different than what you're used to seeing rolling off the back of the truck this is a ready frame package I've not used ready frame before this is my very first project doing it on one of my job sites I've seen it at job sites before we've made some videos this is a pre-cut framing package back at the Builders First Source lumber yard where they make the trusses they're also pre-cutting all the framing for this house so when the framers show up all they're going to do is drop this load here pull it apart grab the first and second floor wall packs and they're going to assemble the house like a big Lego set no saws needed very little ways they tell me the framing time is much quicker I'm really excited today's build show all about this ready frame package let's get going [Music] all right friends day one of framing always a fun day for a builder we got our first two walls up we're about two and a half hours in and already we're seeing the ready frame is faster but let me break down this for you a little bit look at these piles we got here the Builders First Source they did a nice job of dropping them off in in an order that makes sense for us but we've got pre-cut studs down here we're doing two by six uh framing so those are two by six pre-cuts we've got sheathing we've got um taller studs but then the ready frame package and our floor trusses are right here and this is where the money is so for instance we've been breaking down this package right here let me show you one wall and show you how it's labeled and bundled they try to make the bundles not too heavy for the guys moving them around the job but see all these little straps right here this is one wall that's bundled together and you're going to notice I've got a bottom plate that's pre-cut they've labeled it where exactly things go we've got a King stud right there we've got a and we've got some standard length studs on there and it's inkjeted so the guys know the frame cover is also the head guy on our job is carrying the package that shows each individual wall so he knows what's happening with that wall but cripples underneath the window are pre-cut and labeled even these which are header cripples HC right here all pre-cut and ready to go there's no cutting on the job I'm kind of in a slightly remote location so I don't have Shore power I've got a generator going I've got a compressor for the nail gun going but what you haven't noticed is zero saws so far so much so that even the header for this is ready to go as well labeled so we know exactly where the cripples go insulation even between the layers and of course you can decide ahead of time with your Builder's First Source guys uh you know do I want this to be a Timber strand header do I want this to be LVL or just some standard 2x6 yellow pine like we're doing here which is plenty strong and is the budget choice for us this wall over here though I think really tells the story of why ready frame we've got a rake wall going on we're right outside the master bedroom and check this out on the rake all those cripples all those studs are pre-cut with the angle of the rake and even the cripples are pre-cut like check this out it's labeled right here header this angle has been pre-cut for us too so as this wall gets built no saws no head scratching no tape measures everything's just going together perfectly pretty awesome again the headers in place our bottom plates are pre-cut it's pretty sweet okay before we take a break uh and let these guys go I want to show you one detail that's not a ready frame detail but it's one that I like to do for bottom plates and all my framing jobs okay we've all seen this this is still sealer pretty inexpensive material and the main purpose of seal sealer is to provide a capillary brake so moisture in the concrete we don't want to transfer into the lumber above and Wick up but the other big thing this does for us is creates an air seal now seal sealer on on its own unfortunately I found out the hard way only does an okay job and the reason is our concrete is never perfectly perfectly level we've got some undulations so that means we need to do something to make this a better air seal and I got this detail from my buddy Steve basic what we're using is acoustic sealant we're laying a bead on the concrete and then we're putting our bottom plates down and putting a bead on top of that now wherever we've got a budding bottom plates we also need to put a bead where they abut so that we're making sure we get a good seal here and the reason why we're using acoustic sealant is because this never hardens it's always going to be pliable it doesn't actually dry now if this isn't available locally for you need to order it online ahead of time if you can't do that an alternative could be something like lexel or big stretch from sashco they will stick to the concrete and those will cure over time but at least we've got something in there that's going to take up all those minor imperfections and stop that air from coming in which is also going to stop the bugs from coming in that being said let's let the framers keep going on this ready frame package [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] my friends here we go day six check out the progress it is looking really good over here uh normally at this time day six and we certainly would not be uh decking already and have these trusses rolled for the second floor hard to predict exactly what our speed up time is but at this point I'm going to predict that we're 20 faster maybe 25 percent faster than traditional framing remember though this is our very first time this is a crew that I've worked for a long long time uh here in Austin uh probably I started using these guys 2007-2008 they do most of my work so I suspect on my next ready frame project is really when I'll see things speed up a little more we're still trying to get the system but let's go up to the second floor deck up here and I'll give you a little bit of a gauge for what's happening and show you a wall that we're uh working on up there foreign check this out I'm sure you've all seen floor Tresses before pretty common down here in Texas but other parts of the country we don't see these as often look at that nice open clear space in there we actually I believe have a square section right here I'm not sure I can get my camera over there to show you but this makes it really nice for the trades especially because we typically have HVAC conducting that's going to run on this truss space and with this nice open web we've got lots of room to run that also no drilling for Sparky all right here we go this is going to be a good gauge right here we'll show you this wall pack going in so this wall laid out here they just nailed that up this morning we're about to stand that wall up here's more of the packs as we're walking by notice what you don't see up here there is no saw on the second floor deck and there's no saw dust we got nothing and the guys are nailing together this pack right here this other other Gable end one thing that uh I think really struck me the other day was this angled wall right here really shows the power of ready frame and now that walls up you can see that would take some time getting all those angle Cuts getting everything really set and just went so much faster having it all pre-cut looking really good out here not so bad here at 8 A.M but it's going to get hot give it about two hours that Texas Sun is going to start baking on us [Music] okay guys on the second floor are putting our double top plates on you're gonna see that uh when they're when the ready frame comes out that includes the top plate which has the marks on it but we're putting uh the second plate on the double top plate so that we can tie the walls together so on this outside corner where this guy's working right here uh you're noticing he's got the walls attached through that top plate and then we're going to do that on the interior walls as well but while I'm up here uh standing on the trusses I thought I'd give you a little dumpster cam I think this is really telling we're on day six of Framing and this is all the semi dumpster a bunch of straps a couple scrap pieces of cut off from the uh advantec that we put down a few empty boxes and nails and a little bit of lunch trash and barely I'm seeing like one two by four in there uh maybe one other a couple of skids that's it and this is a small dumpster this is a little 20 yard dumpster I think that's really telling that we're this far into framing day six and our only dumpster so far on the job is Tiny I think underneath this we did have a little bit of lumber from the Foundation guy you can see we've got board formed concrete on the side of the uh on the side of the slab here and I believe there were a few form boards that had been tossed typically concrete guys will use those as long as they can until they start getting ugly and they'll that's awesome but that's pretty incredible that's all we've got in the dumpster so far okay it's 9 15. hopefully you can see that we started uh in Earnest about eight o'clock this morning so in an hour and 15 minutes we stood this Gable wall this Gable wall this outside exterior wall was already framed and we framed these interior walls these interior walls and were laid out for the next so this really shows you how quickly this moves when you've got a crew that's now or a couple days in we are reading the plans quicker we're understanding where bundles and packs go faster we're starting to see some speed so I could see that on the first ready frame project uh you know maybe you're going to get a 10 15 bump but it wouldn't surprise me at all if you're going to get a 25 bump in speed as you've started to do more than one of these projects and you really start speeding up and of course the lumber savings uh is a hard one to specifically quantify but here's a quick for example see that door right there that just has a single above uh often times in the past it's really easy when you're framing a house with just a set of plans to miss that you don't need a structural header there and a lot of times we always default to putting a structural header in we don't need one there it's really spelled out it's pre-cut so we didn't put one whereas we've got a header on these windows because they are structural so just another benefit that does add up over time I do want to mention too these headers are traditional headers these are two by eights uh tripled up and of course you got to get your engineer involved to make sure that the loads are correct but this is a family home we're really trying to do this on a budget and not overspend on Lumber if this was a high-end client's house I might have specified LVL headers instead of traditional Lumber or a Timber strand header the reason why we like LVL there's one in the distance actually that was needed for a load but these will move a little bit you might experience some minor drywall cracking especially in the first uh you know one to two years on the house perfectly structural perfectly sound no reason not to do it but I do sometimes like to upgrade to a engineered header just because I know it'll be Rock Solid and there'll be no movement in time no shrinkage that sort of thing it also helps that we're framing this in the middle of July we haven't had a drop of rain on this house during Framing and at this pace day six I suspect we're gonna have the roof on in this house we'll have seen zero moisture and in fact it's almost a little too hot and dry we might see a few studs especially this SPF move on us a little bit we're gonna have to go through with a level and just double check everything hasn't moved on us with the extreme heat we had a framing date of the day that was 106 or 107 out here's a quick tip for you double top plates we're putting the second plate on later so we can tie our interior walls to our exterior walls and tie Corners together but when you've got the exterior walls up first you can see we've got a continuous plate there how do we tie this into your wall in when we've got that well the guys at Madera my framer are going to take his saw here in a second and he's going to plunge cut on that double top plate out a two by four opening and that's going to allow him to put a double top plate on that kind of sinks in made a nice little notch love it so now we've got a two by six wall here we got our 2x4 intersection we're about to drop that on you also notice that he broke it in the middle of that wall right there not sure if you've seen this product before this is called advantec X Factor this is uh by the same makers that make Zip system sheathing Huber engineered woods and it has this coating on the top that is it kind of reminds me of the Zips sheathing coating it's going to give it some additional water protection but what I like about it is that snapped chalk lines really visible really easy to see Sharpie marks stand out really well in here and it's really easy to clean it makes a really nice surface when you sweep this thing off a bit of a premium product you're going to pay a little bit more for it but boy it is really nice I don't believe they make it anything but three-quarter at the moment and I don't know that it's available on all markets but I'm sure that's coming soon to all markets across the country of course we glued it with the Huber polyurethane glue they called advantec glue and that's going to give you a squeak free warranty from these guys as well all right guys go for it just that fast that Gable wall got framed it's a few minutes after 8 A.M [Music] one of the big benefit of this that I think we've really come to realize is by using this ready frame the Builders First Source people have ahead of time basically framed the house on the computer so that we could look at everything and decide is everything going to work with our mechanical systems not just trusses which of course is awesome we're a big fan of floetresses but studs layout headers beams everything's on that model that we can scroll through and here's a quick example when Luke my project manager on this job was laying out the underslab conduit he was able to actually look at the layout on the iPad and go okay where are the studs and what's this Dimension from here to the end of the wall so that you can actually lay out this pipe and look at that it landed perfectly right in between there now a smart builder of course could look at the plans and go oh I've got a window here I don't want to place that conduit under a window because they'd immediately have to go through some structural Jacks but having this all in 3D just makes everything really easy and uh allows you to visualize that house ahead of time [Music] hey yo one thing I wanted to clarify this video is really about ready frame which is that process of taking the 3D model and turning that into a pre-cut framing package but Builders First Source also has this really cool rendering service called Builders First Source renderings powered by Paradigm and they were able to take the ready frame base basically the bones of the house and give us an actual rendering of the house that Luke and his wife and family were able to basically walk through the interior of the house and really understand and see the spaces what's cool about this now this is an additional service that you can opt for from BFS I believe they're rolling this out in many markets but I don't know if this is available today you have to check with your local BFS but what that allowed them to do is look at for instance what color cabinets in the space make sense what about this Nook underneath the stairwell area how could we use that and I think there were several aha moments for Luke and his family for several spaces that frankly are hard to see for people in 3D I've found that a lot over the years sometimes the wife is an architect and the husband works in Tech he can't read plans or vice versa so to see an actual 3D full-size rendering of the house and understand the spaces this is a really big deal and was really helpful to Luke stay tuned for a future video on Paradigm but let's get back to ready frame okay day eight on the job site the guys have made some great progress here first floor trusses on the uh on the one story portion up we're waiting on a crane that's coming next week uh so the weekend or not according to telehandler so we can get these trusses on the second floor up but she thinks gonna arrive here any minute we got a bundle of sheathing we mistakenly were shipped uh standard uh OSB sheathing but we're going with the zip r on this project so that's going back and the real stuff's going up in a minute stay tuned more exciting stuff to go [Music] all right my friends welcome back it is day 13. it's Monday morning uh before the cruise gotten started nice and quiet this is my favorite time to walk today mornings or evenings but we started two weeks ago Thursday we worked a couple Saturdays as you can see we are looking good so some roof sheathing to go and just a little bit of zip sheathing on the back of the house but otherwise the house is basically complete now I don't know if I've said this before but this crew is a Cost Plus crew or a time and material crew so I don't pay them by the job or by the square foot like some framers do some Builders do because I do such unique jobs uh and I'm such a stickler for how I want things done I've worked out a deal with these guys uh over the years where I pay them by the day basically uh and I'll get together with Bill the head of the company at the beginning of the job before we bid things to clients or bids kind of a a misnomer before I give uh estimates to clients on what things are going to cost because I'm a Cost Plus Builder as well I sit down with him and talk about how long we think it's going to take this Project's a little bit different uh in that this is for one of my project managers I don't know if I've said this earlier in the video but Luke and his family this is their personal house he's got two young girls we're really really trying to do this on as tight a budget as possible a lot of times my clients have have bigger budgets and want more specific things or maybe have more aggressive architecture this one is a much more kind of value-oriented projects for lack of a better term no disrespect to anybody that has a value that's most of us out there but we really tried to do things as much as possible to balance high performance and cost especially knowing that this framer was Cost Plus now this is his very first time doing ready frame I think that as we do more of these we could certainly speed up if you did multiples of these you'd certainly speed up also remember this is not a small house this is a 4 000 square feet or so of custom home frame square footage and I would like to point that out remember when you're talking to your clients about Square footages especially when it comes to framing this is not HVAC square footage this is framed square footage you know garages porches uh this giant back porch none of that's free so you need to factor that in when you talk costs speaking of costs I know some of you are going to be asking so let's talk at least a little bit about cost even though I don't want to be too specific you know Lumber varies so much in price uh and it was super high last year it's come down quite a bit uh and in fact the timing on this house was actually pretty good when it comes to the lumber Market we're spending somewhere in the 25 to 30 dollars per framed square foot on this Lumber package and that's really going to include everything that would I would consider to be rough framing trusses sheathing decking Etc now when it comes to framing we're not quite done yet this framer is going to do cornice for me as well if you're not familiar with that term that's the exterior trim that's the uh the Hardy siding if we had an a that's the soffit and fascia we're going to be using Hardy soffit and face shots on this bundle right here on the ground he's going to do all that for me as well his crew so I suspect we still have at least another week here before we wrap this up we're still not quite there yet but the majority of the structural framing's done I suspect depending on what happens with the rain that's supposed to be coming in I suspect that within the next two days we're going to wrap up pretty much all the structure on this house and then we're going to be doing punch work and we're doing cornice work that's sort of thing bang what I would consider extras on the job and not the actual framing process but the job's looking really good so far so good I'm really happy with the Builders First Source ready frame program I've got a couple Kinks to work out especially this being our first time but if you're not currently using them highly recommend number one that you find a Builder's First Source and a lumber sales person in your area Lindsay who you may have seen earlier in the videos is my local Builders First Source rep I've known Lindsay for a long long time Builders First Source merged about a year and a half ago now with BMC and I've been a BMC customer prior to that merge for gosh almost 20 years now I think I started with them 2001 2002 so I've had a really good success with them over the years they mainly do my lumber uh sometimes they do my window packages often I get those from other people and they do a lot of or really most of my interior Millwork as well so Lindsay my salesperson is a big resource for my company and has really been a terrific partner in my business over the years now one thing I did want to mention about this process and I don't actually know the specific so I'll have to talk to your local group is you know we framed this on the computer prior to actually starting this project as part of that ready frame uh package and I think that there's going to be some charge for that because I could see some people maybe doing that and then maybe not moving forward with the ready frame that's part of their uh Paradigm system that they acquired a couple years ago but that was super valuable for us to be able to see this house in 3D see all the sticks in the air on the computer scroll around on those on the iPad and see where things were looking it also allowed Luke and I to look at those plans and go okay does our reflected ceiling plan for the kitchen or for the bedrooms do all those details make sense with the way we frame this it really allowed us to visualize the house and what it was going to look like prior to getting to this stage but that being said guys let's let the guys finish up the uh the process here they should be here any minutes uh going on seven o'clock here we'll get started with Framing and I'll come back we'll wrap up the video later [Music] all right guys let's wrap up the video my final segment here we took 18 total framing days to build this house start to finish uh so we're here on like day 20 or so and the Plumber's gotten started a couple final thoughts on this and I had a chance to talk to my frame cover before I put these together but I know you guys are going to be thinking about cost let's address that ready frame compared to just the sticks in the yard and the frame we're doing it it's about a four to six percent bump in cost and if you can relate that to a square foot basis uh that's going to be anywhere from maybe 50 60 cents 70 cents for a production Builder to a dollar or maybe slightly more for a custom builder now remember this is in today's dollars things change most of my houses I build are budgeting somewhere in the 30 to 40 dollars per square foot range materials only but I think the big savings on ready frame is time on the framers of the job site and that's really what we saw here when I talked to uh bill and his crew about time you know we did this in 18 days which was six day work weeks three weeks I think this easily saved us 20 percent in time maybe slightly more we also don't do a lot of roof trusses we typically do hand cut roofs and we saw some savings on time there so we really did great Bill my Carpenter said though the massive savings are going to be if you did this house again or if you did the server again so if you're a production Builder watching this or a semi-custom builder like I used to do gosh if you could do that same floor plan even if it's modified boy you would really see things go I think the other big savings is you could go to a smaller crew really there'd be no reason why a three-man crew couldn't frame this house we had a bigger crew like we're used to using I think you can get away with a smaller crew and I think I said this earlier in the video but you know as long as you have one seasoned frame Carpenter you can read those plans it's kind of a big Erector Set that's an old man term it's kind of a big Lego set for uh my uh younger crowd watching follow the plans it makes a lot of sense does it take the skill out of framing or the craftsmanship no absolutely not you still have to be a skilled firmer you still have to have a craftsmanship mindset but you can build a really really excellent house and potentially do it in less time with ready frame with a really consistent package now a couple things I want to mention we framed this house with all SPF Lumber which is really common here in Texas and really is the lowest cost lumber for us out there other parts of the country it's it's more common to see Doug Fir or maybe some other materials but I asked the ready frame guys could I have done this in some other either Lumber type Doug Fir or maybe even engineered and they said yes absolutely as long as it can be inkjetted you can substitute it another thing I might do if I had the budget would be just simply substitute out the wall studs to a higher grade wall stud you know a nicer more expensive material or potentially an engineered material if I had a lot of raking walls you know High windows with light coming down the wall with a level five finish that's where those engineered studs really come in a couple other big benefits though of ready frame that I hadn't thought of lay down space we've got a pretty big Suburban lot here with lots of space to put things down but if I was building in the city where I didn't have a a lot of space boy this could be really nice and compared to let's say a wall framed package where wall panels come out those guys ship a lot of air when they ship those panels so this is going to take up way less space on the job site I really like that and if you're thinking about maybe going to panelize someday it's kind of a nice intermediate step to kind of dip your toes in the water and see what you think the other thing that the ready frame guys mentioned which I didn't think about was if you increase your cycle time you're going to increase the time that Lumber is spent on the job site that could grow legs that could get stolen and a pre-cut Lumber package is going to have a whole lot less chance of getting stolen than a big bundle of studs or two by twelves out there that are waiting to get installed which in a lot of parts of the country can can easily get stolen the ready frame BFS program it's coming up on a decade old it's not perfect we had a couple of hiccups here and there but it's a really well thought out system it's not available in every Market but it's in a lot of major metros so I'll have a link in the description below so you can find out if this is available in your Marketplace but ultimately talk to your local BFS rep about whether ready frame is an option for you guys I really enjoyed building this house I think we built an excellent house for Luke and his family so big thanks to Luke for letting me use this house as a bit of an example and I think of what we did here with Zip system R sheathing stay tuned for my other video on modified Monopoly framing we've got a really well-built house a really high performance house but we stuck with not a modest budget but a slightly lower budget than a lot of the houses that I build that people have higher budgets so great house really impressed overall with the ready frame system and lastly big thanks to builders surfsource for sponsoring today's video and the build show in general they've been a partner of mine in my building business for 20 plus years now they've got like 500 locations around the country so there's probably a EFS location near you if you're not currently a subscriber hit that subscribe button below we've got new content here every Tuesday and every Friday follow me on Tick Tock or Instagram otherwise we'll see you next time on the build show [Music] [Music]

Channel: Matt Risinger

Views: 100,107

Keywords: Matt Risinger, Build Show Network, The Build Show, Build

Id: 9Y9e5Ttcrt4

Length: 33min 4sec (1984 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 04 2022