The Wonders of Carpentry: Framing in Carpentry

Framing in Carpentry

Posted in

In building construction a framer is a carpenter who assembles the major structural elements of a wood-framed building called the framing. Framers build walls out of studs, sills, and headers, build floors from joists and beams, frame roofs using ridge poles and rafters.

The most common method of light-frame construction is platform framing. Platform framing might also nowadays be called (only partly correctly) 'stick framing' or 'stick construction' as each element is built up stick by stick, which was also true in the other stick framing method, in the obsolete and labor-intensive, but previously fashionable, balloon framing method, wherein the outside walls were erected, headers hung, then floor joists were inserted into a box made of walls. In contrast, in platform framing a floor box and joists making up the platform is built and placed on a supporting under structure (sill plates, headers, or beams) where it sits flat and gets fastened down against wind lifting with galvanized metal tie straps. Generally, the flooring ('platform') is constructed then the walls built on top of that layer, then another atop that, and so forth making for quick efficient labor saving construction methodologies and those have quickened further as technologies such as joist hangers have been developed to speed and enhance the technology. The methods and techniques have become so common and pervasive that even Skyscrapers use a modified form of platform framing techniques and indeed the same tools and technologies once construction builds the initial structural skeleton. Once the platform floor is laid down, the builder's crew can with chalk line, rule and pencil directly transfer an outline of the exterior and interior walls, their openings and relative locations with ease and precision from the plans or builders blue prints.

Balloon framing is a method of wood construction also known as "Chicago construction" used primarily in Scandinavia, Canada and the United States (up until the mid-1950s). It uses long continuous framing members (studs) that run from the sill plate to the top plate, with intermediate floor structures let into and nailed to them. Here the heights of window sills, headers and next floor height would be marked out on the studs with a storey pole. Once popular when long lumber was plentiful, balloon framing has been largely replaced by platform framing. It has been said that balloon framing

populated the western United States and the western provinces of Canada. Without it, western boomtowns certainly could not have blossomed overnight. It is also a fair certainty that, by radically reducing construction costs, balloon framing improved the shelter options of poorer North Americans.

The main difference between platform and balloon framing is at the floor lines. The balloon wall studs extend from the sill of the first story all the way to the top plate or end rafter of the second story.