Lets get floored

Now that I have a completed block wall and sill attached, it's time to start framing up the floor. I did get most of the ledger board attached last time but ran out of daylight before getting attached to the chimney. After that it takes a doubled up rim joist, then a center joist before hanging all of the floor joists between the rim/sill and center. That's going to take a lot of hangers and pressure treated lumber.

Tapcon screws held the last piece of the ledger board to the brick chimney

Double rim joists going around the outside edge

Rim is complete

installed the flashing below the door and hung the center span

Floor joists starting to go in!

Code requires ledger lock bolts anchoring the ledger board to the house every 12", so I put those in. The block wall is freestanding (not attached to the house), so I didn't really need to follow code, but it is always a good idea to meet code when you can. I also put 4 tapcon bolts into the brick to anchor a 34" piece of the ledger board. All of the floor framing is 2x8 treated pine, including the sill. I put flashing under the door, over the ledger board. Then I used a double 2x8 joist hanger for the center span. The rim is doubled, with shorter boards on the inside perpendicular to the house. Then the front long inner rim attached to that, then the outer perpendicular board. This pattern continues, it creates a zig-zag pattern in the corners and creates something really strong and sturdy. I then used metal joist hangers on both the center span and the side rim joists (even though they were attached to the sill as well - the block wall carries the weight and the hanger is really useless) and ran the floor joists parallel to the house. This way I can run the floorboards perpendicular to the house, which I really wanted to do.

Then the kids got involved

Meet Mr Bones

Kelley saying goodbye to Mr Bones

With a vapor barrier

The kids were pretty insistent on burying a skeleton under there. So whenever this floor has to be replaced, someone else is in for a big surprise!

There is a hole in the foundation that provides air access to the crawl space. Now since there is a block foundation wall up to protect that, it means that under the porch is also considered crawl space. That means I had to put in foundation vents and a vapor barrier under the framing to keep everything protected.

This whole thing started with a story stick, where I drew out the height of everything so I would know how deep to dig the trench for the foundation. This framing is the last element to give me a 3/4" gap below the door or the original floor height to know if I actually built it to the story stick.