Commercial Construction Process

I traced a commercial building since last summer. The building will be Holiday inn in Christansburg. After slab on grade was done, the framing and exterior sheathing process was fast. It is 5th tall building. I wanted to see the inside of the building, but it was hard for me to go inside of the building. The following pictures are in chronological order of the construction.

Residential Construction Processes

The following pictures are the residential construction site that I visited from July 2010 to December 2010.
I was able to see from the F.D. to roofing system. The construction process was pretty fast during summer. After they completed F.D. walls, joist was installed. After joist, they started installing floor sheathing with sheathing material which is called Advantech. Framing was followed. And then, pre-fabricated Trusses were installed like other residential buildings. For the roof system, it was separated two roofs as behind and  front-side.  The back-side of the roof is shingles and the front roof is metal.

Cellulose Insulation Production

Blow-in insulation was used for exterior walls of my residential construction site. It is more efficient than any other insulation materials because of its small gaps. In addition to that, it is environmental friendly due to the fact that it is made out of recycled paper. Here is the pictures of the residential construction site, and a video explaining the production processes with the advantages.

Thermax Sheathing

Dow PIR Thermax Sheathing - This is thermal sheathing that was used in residential construction site. This was installed where there is a high chances of fire such as the wall that an electric box is set up. 

The core which is the glass-fiber reinforce PIR foam will not melt when exposed to fire. It will form a strong char which will prevent severe degradation to its core. It will also prevent flame spread.

The aluminum on each side will act as effective moisture vapor retarders.

H-clip usage (20 Gauge Galvanized Steel Clip)

This is an image of galvanized H-clip. As we learned in class, it was used in construction site to hold the sheathing materials and make 1/8" gaps all edges to allow for expansion and contraction. When I researched the price of this material,  mostly it costs        $17.00 / 250pack.
Link : http://www.capitolsupply.com/catalog/pc716-250-pack-7-16-steel-cs718233.html?cid=AFFSAS&SSAID=204502

 

Below picture shows the real example of H-clip's usage. This is a part of exterior wall. As you could see, 

installing H-clips allows OSBs to have approximately 1/8" gaps between two sheathings. 

This is an picture of roof sheathing from inside of the residential house. Along the blue lines, there are clips.

Pump jack scaffolding details

I was pretty interested in pump jack that was used in the residential construction site. It was safe and easy to use in small construction site. A plank is simply raised by using workers' foot to pump the jack. Here is the detailed description from a website. It is mostly composed of aluminum poles, pump jacks, wall braces, and work benches.

-Maximum Capacity : 500 lbs
-Maximum height : Wood poles: 30' height
                             Metal poles: 50' height.
From <http://www.wernerladder.com/catalog/files/rc154.pdf>

 

Residential Construction Site - Cladding _10/22/2010

Siding Installation using pump jack

1)They mark on the walls to make sure every siding is plumb.

(Trying to make sure the line is plumb-  The line is already on the long stick, so he simply plots dots on the walls)

2) After they are done with  marking on the wall, the draw a line using a string.

3) Then, they install the sidings using air compressor nail guns.