Daily Log 12/1/2011 Toms Creek

While on top of the parking garage I happened to look down Toms Creek and saw a large stick framed building, so I headed there and found a great example of what we were talking about in class most recently. The Tom's Creek Structural Design Build project is a great example of wood framing and structural beams. There was no one on site the day I visited but I did walk around the inside of the building and got a few photos of different things including the safety policies of the company working on the site. Attached is a limited daily log report and some photos from the inside and outside of the building.

12-1-11 Daily Log Report (Reddick Construction) Toms Creek

This photo gives us a shot from the exterior of the building, it allows us to see the progress that has been made up to this point which includes all the exterior walls being stood and the roof rafters installed nearly half way. You can also see that they are using a system in which the wall sheathing includes the house wrap, this saves you a step later in the process and gives you a better seal in order to meet environmental standards today.

In this photo we can see a typical window unit, though a large window, in the building. You can see that the window has a jack stud, a king stud, a header, a rough sill, cripple studs, and it is framed into a typical stud wall. This is what we were talking about in class recently and it is good to see it in the real world.

This third photo shows the interior of the building looking specifically at the rafters of the building. You can see these are all constructed of wood and metal clips to hold the pieces of lumber together, even the load bearing units are constructed of lumber.

This final photo shows the load bearing lvl in the building connecting the roof rafters to the structural column. This column then transfers the load down to the concrete foundation, which is typical in all buildings. This shows that wood can be used the same as steel and is much cheaper as long as the building isn't too large.

This was a good site visit though it would have been much more beneficial if the contractor was actually on site, then i could have asked more questions about the building and the schedule for the future. I plan on making a trip back at some point, whether that is during this semester or next. I do not have any recommendations for this building. I really like this building because I am a big fan of wood framed buildings because that is my favorite type of building to actually construct (I've had a background in wood and metal). I wish we would see more of this type of building but I know we are moving away from it as a country, we are moving more towards the rest of the worlds construction types which is metal framing.