Tiny House Built with Green Lumber and Floating Foundation

[Music] hey folks welcome back despite the gloomy weather out here i got a nice dry spot although i'm not exactly dry because i just got in from the rain but i've got a nice dry spot here and i'm basically sitting out on the porch of the tiny house now if you're new to the channel welcome aboard if you're not new you've probably seen this get built you've heard about it but i'm going to show you a little bit more about what i touched on yesterday what i talked about yesterday or my previous episode was building with green lumber now i am sitting on a chair that was not built with green lumber but the building behind me the actual tiny house was now building with green lumber as you saw in that previous episode has its own set of challenges but at the end of the day it's completely doable you just got to be careful with some of the techniques you use now i'm not going to go over those techniques again but i would encourage you to check out that video and if i can remember i'll put it at the end of this video so you can click on it anyways i'm just going to show you a few things up close and more or less illustrate how after time bot goes by uh green wood will shrink and it will crack and it'll cause a few little minor things so if we start off let's have a look at this post okay now this post is obviously a four by four it's an actual four inch by four inch this is good and dry now it's probably been up for over a year now remember how i was talking about cracks and splits that is a prime example of what you can expect i put this up green as a trunk it essentially created this little crack now as you can tell it's not overly deep i don't know what that is oh maybe a quarter inch maybe less and it doesn't go up the whole log it's only on that one side might be on this side as well i got a little one up there but it's not too bad right so just expect that with uh with post with green number for post if we come back here just a little bit i want to bring you back to the lap siding and here's the lap siding and although i do uh i do have a woodland mills lap siding attachment now and that thing works spectacular check out that video if you want to see that go on this is essentially lap siding without the taper so this board see how the thickness here is i think it's three quarters of an inch or one inch that's the actual thickness under the other under the other piece of siding as well it's in a lap format though and check this out well let's see if we can get down here no not down there head on up there see that see that gap there that gap right there and see the gap right here where my finger is so when i installed this oh especially right there when i installed this this board was sitting flat on top of that board that board was flat on top of that board etc etc etc now as the wood dries this wood does tend to curl a little bit depending on how you install it for me i probably wasn't as careful as i could have been to be honest with you it's not a huge deal probably what i would do at this point come along with some more nails and i might just put a face nail here and here at both ends and what that'll do it'll just draw the board down now under an overhang here it doesn't really matter out here i probably should have been a little more careful and to be honest i might have been i can't remember yeah i don't know i got some gaps some gaps underneath here but anyways if you put the cup of the board especially when it's green put the cup facing the building like so as it as it curls if it is gonna curl what it'll do it'll go from flat and it'll cup like this but it won't create a seam like that okay and that's if it cups now some other things you're gonna notice building with green lumber see the trim work i sort of did here i put two by fours just to give an edge for the siding to butt up to see the two by fours here this was a tight joint here that was perfectly tight when i built it you do get some shrinkage so you're going to get gaps like that opening up not a big deal but that is sort of the reality now another thing i'm going to show you guys is right here let's have a look at this post and i'll get back up here this post this 4x4 here and if we take a step back you can see what it's used for the 4x4 there it goes from the ground all the way up to support this beam now i probably should have had some sort of bracket here to support the post against the beam i just toenailed it well good enough for now i suppose but regardless of doing that when this post dried it actually twisted a little bit and i don't know if you guys can tell if we get down here and have a look-see you guys see how that is perfectly flush against this board there's no gap there watch as you follow this upwards see how it starts to twist and then ultimately you get up to the top here and you can see a clear twist in the in the post that's going to happen with green wood it's not a big deal to be honest with you as long as the post is underneath the beam it's still providing the support you need in reality a perfect world i would have put some sort of a metal bracket up here maybe i'll get around to it maybe i won't but that's to be expected now you guys may be able to see this you may not be able to see it so you'll have to believe me and i'm a believable guy okay this post right here is attached to the essentially the floor the entire building here this post is held in place with these bolts okay so these bolts go through this board here and then the nuts on the other side if you can imagine here see this joint if you look really closely there's a little bit of a gap there it's not much but when i rock this i can feel it moving slightly that was not the case when i first installed this green as i mentioned in my other video dealing with green lumber you may have to come back in certain circumstances and tighten up bolts especially in that situation because as the wood shrinks obviously what you had tight is no longer perfectly tight so i'm going to come back go underneath and just tighten down those nuts that post to be just good as new now let's hop on down here that's the rain starts we'll try to hide under the overhang let's have a look at these deck boards now these deck boards i think they're five inches wide they're one inches thick i think they're one inch thick anyways i put these down green just like the rest of the lumber and uh one thing to note here have a look down there notice how the gaps have opened up this is gonna be what happens with the sawmill shack the deck i just put down you're gonna see these gaps when i put this wood down it was green i put the gaps complete or i put the boards rather completely tight against each other knowing that as the board dried it was going to shrink and create these gaps don't pre-gap your boards so don't leave these gaps while it's green because then you're going to get an even bigger gap and you're probably not going to be happy with it another thing you're going to notice with this just like the sawmill shack it's sort of worn in here a little bit if you guys have a look down there down there see how i've got one fastener here one fastener there one fastener right in the middle of the board just like i did at the sawmill shack as a result these boards are now perfectly dry there's no cracking and they look pretty good if you ask me all right guys let's have a little look at some deck boards here and as you can tell i've got deck boards laid out all the way across here they are fastened just like i fastened around the edge of the building which we'll have a look at in a minute now i want to talk to you guys not so much about where to place the nails or the screws for fastening more so about which way to put the board now the boards can be placed with essentially the outside part of the board or the bark side facing upwards or conversely facing downwards if you put it the wrong way you're gonna get something called cupping and i'm not afraid to show you where i've made some errors my memory is good but it's pretty short so i probably forgot to do this when i first was installing it i was probably getting excited because i was getting close to done but here's what the result is if we look at this particular board here here is essentially where the center of the tree is going to be somewhere down here this would be the bark side up top if you put bark barkside facing up what look what's gonna happen you're gonna get cupping like this now what can happen if this was maybe not covered by an overhang you could have water sit in here that's not what you want you want this you want cupping but you want it down cupping down is called a crown have a look at this particular board if i were to put my finger right about where the middle of the board is you can tell the bark side would be facing downwards downwards towards the framing bark down you get a crown you want a crown because then it's curved like this any rain water that collects will just bead off in contrast you have bark side up like this here's barkside you're going to end up with a cup and a cup holds water so not most ideal just a little tip if you're building with green lumber do it this way not this way now let's step back out in the rain here i'm not sure why i was already wet today and now i was trying to get dry but regardless we're out here in the rain so that we can get a good look at the tiny house and boy that is a beautiful thing isn't that nice i could practically live out here if i could have just a few more amenities anyways this is a beautiful spot and why i wanted to take a step back is just to uh just to show you a few things and talk about one important thing now many of you guys mentioned when i was building my sawmill shack not this but my sawmill shack that i shouldn't have it sitting or floating on blocks and i agree with you having it set on some concrete piers four feet down beneath the frost line is probably the ideal situation but let's face it time money gets in the way effort i don't want to do it and so i didn't this behind me this tiny house is a prime example of what you can do by putting blocks down on well-drained soil this right here is obviously built on a hill i have blocks here with well-drained soil underneath and nothing more there is no concrete foundation under this and to be honest with you the winters here in central ontario are vicious i've had feet of snow to the point where i walk off the deck and i walk into the snow pile i can practically in the winter time pull the snow machine up behind here and step onto the deck it's brutal so do you always have to have a concrete foundation no should you have one probably i'm not gonna lie it's probably better but you don't always have to let's get a look down here and just see exactly what i did and how it could potentially work for you if you're building a tiny house or maybe even a sawmill shack like i'm in the midst of now let's head on down here and if we have a little look-see you guys are going to notice i got a few things going on here besides some storage for my ladder i've got three main beams here one two and three over there i also end up having a lot of posts i got 12 of these posts you can see them right here 12 of them four four and four in addition to that i got a heck of a lot of bracing because this is built onto a hill and this is a pretty good load here pretty good jag as i like to say i want to make sure the bracing is absolutely solid i gotta brace this way i gotta brace that way okay so on well-drained soil like i've got here i simply have blocks the blocks are holding up the post the post is supporting the beam the beam supports the rest of the building is it ideal well for me yes this has been like this for well for quite a while now definitely gone through some winter and it has definitely gone through some weather this one through the tornado folks let's not uh let's not get carried away here a tornado is a substantial bit of wind if this thing was gonna go anywhere i would imagine it would have gone somewhere during the tornado because the tornado it was blowing and honestly it blew so much it was breaking the top off the trees you know 100 feet over there so the wind that was hitting this thing was substantial all right so this thing is solid is it going to move in the long term probably if you can imagine frost frost does well if there's moisture it does expand and the expansion causes the soil to raise a little bit potentially if this block is on top of that soil well this block's going to move what's gonna happen if it moves well i'm not too concerned what i can do if it moves i'm just gonna let it come back down in the spring as it melts and uh settles if it turns out to be a problem well maybe in a video from uh maybe a few years down the road from now i'll tell my or tell you guys i was i was wrong but at this point i'm feeling pretty good i'm feeling pretty confident i hope i don't eat my words but just so you understand this thing has stood the test of time it's gone through winter it's gone through a tornado it is simply post unblock with well-drained soil all right so that looks pretty slick and just before i leave that topic there for those of you who don't quite understand how frost works maybe you're fortunate and you live somewhere like florida and you're sitting on the beach right now laughing at me it's getting down to freezing right now at night and it's pretty rainy i'm just about ready for snow and anyways if you're on that beach and you're laughing at me how frost works is it will get into the soil underneath of things like these blocks and as the moisture stays there and goes into the freezing cycle it'll expand that expansion which takes up more volume than a liquid will cause that block to move if it moves too much then we got problems obviously if it moves upwards the building which is attached to it is going with it frost will move a heck of a lot of weight it'll move a house so it'll definitely move this that's what frost is anyways i should probably say if this thing does move which i guess it probably will but if it moves too much i'm simply going to shim some of the posts so that they're firmly back on the blocks has that happened no has it come close to happening no have i checked it yes this thing is solid i'm hoping the same thing holds true for my sawmill as i mentioned if it doesn't well i'm gonna eat my words and i'm not too proud i'll definitely tell you if i screwed up but at this point i'm feeling pretty good i'm gonna roll the dice and let's just hope i come out a winner now as i stand here and sort of reminisce that the pain and suffering it took to build this to be honest with you it was kind of fun but as i sit here and reminisce about it i start to think about one additional thing i want to tell you guys about when building with green lumber now building with green lumber is great i definitely do it 99 of the time but i tend to focus in on one type of fastener i tend to focus on a fastener that is going to grip the wood now this wood is going to contract as i mentioned or shrink down when it shrinks down it's going to pull right it's going to be pulling on your fasteners especially if you're dealing with stuff like deck boards right we talked about crown and cup and all that jazz if you have something like a common nail it's going to move a little bit with it if it doesn't have a good grip on that board as the wood moves well it might just pull it with it we don't want that obviously because then you're going to get squeaky boards so what do i do is i use a nail but i don't use any nail i use an ardox nail it's got a little spiral on it that ardox nail is great driver home and it grabs on and holds so those ardox nails are just what the doctor ordered for framing and to be honest i use ardox nails sometimes for decking as is the case at the sawmill sometimes i don't use zardox nails what i use is i use screws now as long as you're putting that screw in the center of the board especially when you're doing deck boards or even siding you're not going to crack it if you start driving home the screws well you can expect to have crack boards for me though if we get back to framing i don't like to frame anything unless i'm using framing nails for me framing nails consists of three and a half inch galvanized ardox nails for you you might be using engineered screws which have a very high shear factor but that's a story for another day anyways that's my two cents dealing with green lumber i can just about feel the water dripping down my back right about now i'm gonna get back into my tractor crank up the tunes and hopefully i still got a little bit of coffee left if you guys have any questions put it down below be sure to check out my build here the tiny house this thing was a joy well most of the time it was a joy to build it's more of a joy now to use so check out that build i'll put the video at the end of this one for you to click on if you haven't seen my other build my sawmill shack sawmill shed version 2.0 the hillbilly hideout i would encourage you to check that out as well guys you all take care stay warm stay dry and i'll see you next time

Channel: Sawing with Sandy

Views: 121,711

Keywords: building a shed without a foundation, prevent deck boards from splitting, bark side down for deck boards, shrinking will damage deck boards, tiny house withstands tornado, green posts split when drying, how to fasten green lumber, fasteners for green lumber, building a tiny house on a hill, tiny house built without a foundation, best tiny house design on the internet, prevent boards from cupping, green post twists when dry, Tiny house built with green lumber, floating foundation

Id: Ks7hd58jArA

Length: 16min 46sec (1006 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020