Sheathing

Once the walls are standing, OSB is added as the wall sheathing.  The nailing in the sheathing creates hundreds of little triangles which give the wall tremendous strength.  Our house is in a small, very high wind zone that occurs immediately east of the Rocky Mountains.  The nailing in our sheathing is modified to give the house additional wind resistance.  Normally we would place 8d nails every 6 inches on the edge of the OSB sheets, and 12 inches apart on all other parts of the sheet. 

Our nailing is engineered for the added strength we need:

North/South walls: 8d nails 4 inches apart on the edges and 6 inches apart for the rest of the sheet.

East/West walls: 10d nails 3 inches apart on the edges and 6 inches for the rest!

The nail gun spits nails all day!

Welcome to the students in the Boulder Continuing Education Basic Carpentry class.  If you would like to schedule an additional tour during a future phase of the project, just email Mitch.