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Post subject: WildBill... About the building materials...
PostPosted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 12:11 am 
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Location: South Florida
Hey, Bill The Builder. :) I was just wondering about the flake board. Does that absorb water as much as partical board does? If so it must blow up like a 2 day old dead opossum in a river.

I know or think that it would not be allowed in florida although I have seen it used. But
the inspectors force feed us the fact that plywood is the only answer. I say block all the way is the answer where these hurrucanes hit hard. :( So what is code like up there? Strict?
Are they picky about B.F.F / A.F.F heights for electrical switches and outlets? I think I failed like one inspection before and it was due to the slacky low voltage sub... :(


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Post subject: Re: WildBill... About the building materials...
PostPosted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 2:15 am 
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Location: Virginia
I have been a CD-X 4-ply buff my whole building career, especially CCA-treated in wet locations, but this 4X8 OSB holds up a ton better than the old, original particle board junk did, and it doesn't warp and de-laminate like CD-X can do. The glues and mastic compounds - possibly with silicon added - applied during the manufacturing process, not only seem to repel water better but reduces the old problem with the crappy disintegrating materials. The real secret may be the house wrap that breathes air but repels water. I've known DIY people to go four years between OSB, house wrap, and finished siding, with no problems. (See photo of east elevation - the hurricane side - taken just a few minutes ago as the sun was going down.) BTW, the siding materials and subs are coming this week, I hope. My OSB has held up with the house wrap since last August, a year ago. As for blocking, I am over-built all the way. I have 2x10s in all horizontal and angular structures and even added 1/2" OSB sheathing under my 60-year steel Fabral roof system. My other two houses I built nearby in this same subdivision are less solid, and they withstood Hurricanes Gloria and Isabel with nary a scratch! (My sole insurance claim was for spoiled food in the freezer pre-generator days!)

Oh, and the new CD-X plywood treated with copper compounds (any modern osmosis wood material copper-treated) should be fastened with stainless steel products (or electrolysis will eat them up eventually). Heed this: why use a 15-year fastener in a 30-year treated wood product? Plus, I'm located RIGHT on the Chesapeake Bay system with all of its its corrosive salt air. Knowing where you live, you probably have similar concerns about corrosion.

My inspectors are very good here. They use common sense and give me a lot of leeway. But some local codes elsewhere must be written by idiots, like requiring a builder to force R38 insulation into a 2X10 rafter or joist for a climate-controlled attic, when 9-1/2 inch R30 is all that will fit without compressing the batts, a practice that eliminates the R-factor, exponentially, especially when a builder installs baffles to allow roofs to vent between the soffit and ridge vents, as I designed.

My convenience electrical raceways are drilled through the studs at the 24" line off the sub-floor, and the outlet boxes are centered at 18" - metal boxes only for good grounding - along with CATV and phone boxes. I protect every wire that can be penetrated by drywall screws with metal plates, and I place a lot of my phone, LAN, and CATV wires inside plastic conduits. I'll be watching the siding sub's work very closely before I close up the interior walls. My only low voltage application will probably be my doorbell, so I believe I will place the transformer in the crawl space. My switches go at 48" inches off the sub-floor, my fire alarm boxes center 12" down from the ceiling joists (so all of us can all reach the darn things to press the test buttons) or directly on the ceilings. The wall phone boxes I need to research and measure, again.

We've had rain out the yin-yang this past year, since my wall sheathing was finished last August (2009), but my OSB is good-to-go for siding, so I guess this house-wrap thing really works. In the old days I would have used CD-X and covered it with #15 felt, but it would have wrinkled up like the skin on that exploding 'possum during rain storms and cold weather!

So, I've been lucky and never failed an inspection.

BTW, look at how they made me put the buried 200 Amp SEC and meter on the east elevation, directly into the dad-gum family room - following the six foot rule with no exterior disconnect. I wanted it to enter my rear elevation into the workshop., but to place my load center in the workshop would have required about $500 worth of additional parts and materials! Also, with an external disconnect, what's to stop some deranged yay-hoo from creeping up in the night and yanking the main to my whole "castle", a direct invitation to a "Smith and Wesson Party" with this wild and crazy cowboy!!? Any-hoo, this is a code change in Virginia - sometime during the past 30 years or so. Idiots! I even stopped my back porch roof and deck short so I could have the meter hub in the open, otherwise, I would have extended the deck four more feet west. Lesson: READ THE WHOLE, ENTIRE UPDATED BLUE BOOK NEXT TIME, WILDBILL!!!

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Bongo` wrote:
Hey, Bill The Builder. :) I was just wondering about the flake board. Does that absorb water as much as partical board does? If so it must blow up like a 2 day old dead opossum in a river.

I know or think that it would not be allowed in florida although I have seen it used. But
the inspectors force feed us the fact that plywood is the only answer. I say block all the way is the answer where these hurrucanes hit hard. :( So what is code like up there? Strict?
Are they picky about B.F.F / A.F.F heights for electrical switches and outlets? I think I failed like one inspection before and it was due to the slacky low voltage sub... :(


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Post subject: Re: WildBill... About the building materials...
PostPosted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 3:44 am 
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Bat poop! The meter can at that location seems a bit 'open'. If that is a requirement then that
is a tough install. I am wrong to assume that the Interior panel is placed directly behing the service feed in.

As for your low voltage, I do have a few questions / suggestions. I see you take pride in protecting your wire by installing raceways for Low voltage. Do you do the same for the High voltage? Or are you only required to run romex? I know if different parts of town, some areas require 'smurf' conduit from swith / receptacle to the attic access with metal studs are used instead of wood studs. I wonder if the same applies there.

Back to the low voltage. I see you are using kickplates to protect the wire from the drywallers
and that is a biggie. Nothing is harder to do then chase down a broken wire when the wall is up...
Do you install smart / network panels? for all the CATV ( coax ) and CAT5(e)/6? Nothing makes an entertainment installation go smoother than have CATV and CAT5 in the same wallplate come install time. The smart panel is a nice touch too.

Since you bring up insulation, that is some thing that needs to be done here because
our energy cost are getting out of hand. So I have been thinking about our options and wanted to run them by you...

1) Spray foam
2) Blown in
3) Good R-value batts

Which would you suggest?

As I think about that meter can's placement, it makes me uneasy thinking about
the possibility of a possible intruder. Well, at least the service feed from the power
company is buried and not on a service pole. Besides, you would have to be nuts
to try and tamper with such high voltage AND amps.


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Post subject: Re: WildBill... About the building materials...
PostPosted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 4:43 am 
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Bongo` wrote:
Bat poop! The meter can at that location seems a bit 'open'. If that is a requirement then that
is a tough install. I am wrong to assume that the Interior panel is placed directly behing the service feed in.


It IS directly behind the hub, but I will place a picture frame with some artwork over it.

Bongo` wrote:
As for your low voltage, I do have a few questions / suggestions. I see you take pride in protecting your wire by installing raceways for Low voltage. Do you do the same for the High voltage? Or are you only required to run romex? I know if different parts of town, some areas require 'smurf' conduit from swith / receptacle to the attic access with metal studs are used instead of wood studs. I wonder if the same applies there.


I can run high voltage cable in a sheath through drilled holes, but I cannot run triplex or quadplex (plus or minus the bond-to-neutral wire, if required), if the service ground is bare metal. Black, flexible polypropylene pipe works well and passes for runs containing a bare ground. I'm talking 50 AMP or greater here, as I can run 10-2 Romex for 30 AMP dryers, HVAC, water pumps, and the like. I'm not using any metal studs and have no experience regarding them, so my raw wood serves as a good extra insulator and buffer against chaffing. I imagine UF-rated romex might work fine in metal members - if it passes code. I'm not really up on the latest NEC guidelines for these more esoteric applications.

Bongo` wrote:
Back to the low voltage. I see you are using kickplates to protect the wire from the drywallers
and that is a biggie. Nothing is harder to do then chase down a broken wire when the wall is up...
Do you install smart / network panels? for all the CATV ( coax ) and CAT5(e)/6? Nothing makes an entertainment installation go smoother than have CATV and CAT5 in the same wallplate come install time. The smart panel is a nice touch too.


Do you have a link on these smart panels? I usually have dedicated boxes for CATV and CAT5e, and I separate these from nearby 120VAC outlets at least 12" to avoid possible RF interference.


Bongo` wrote:
Since you bring up insulation, that is some thing that needs to be done here because
our energy cost are getting out of hand. So I have been thinking about our options and wanted to run them by you...

1) Spray foam
2) Blown in
3) Good R-value batts

Which would you suggest?


I prefer batts. I distrust blown-in because of potential respiratory issues. Foam, I need to research more. If it's dry blue styrene, I believe that may be a good solution for damp locations such as between crawl space joists. If it's the kind applied as wet foam, I'd make sure it contains no formaldehyde agents or other irritants. If batts are used in an attic with open joists or a trussed roof (without decking applied for storage purposes), the homeowner can always apply a second layer on top (above the joists). I believe the best way to install the second layer is perpendicular to the original batts underneath.

Bongo` wrote:
As I think about that meter can's placement, it makes me uneasy thinking about
the possibility of a possible intruder. Well, at least the service feed from the power
company is buried and not on a service pole. Besides, you would have to be nuts
to try and tamper with such high voltage AND amps.


Yeah, especially if I were to bury land mines in around the approaches, hee-hee... (Settle down W/B... You're no longer in the active service!) Woe to poor Fido if he scents a dinosaur bone in the general area!


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