Building Brews and BBQ

The House That Wisdom Built - EP 11: Framing: Where Your Home Begins To Take Shape

• Vincent Longo & Nathan Walters

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In this episode of The House That Wisdom Built, we dive into one of the most exciting (and misunderstood) stages of home construction: framing.

This is where months of planning finally take shape—literally. Walls go up, rooms take form, and homeowners start to seetheir home come to life. We break down the difference between stick-built and prefab framing, why engineered lumber matters, and the structural realities of big windows, wind loads, and squeaky floors.

We also talk through real-world tips: when to walk the house, what to look for, where to block (yes, even for your toilet paper holder), and why early planning saves time, money, and headaches down the road.

Plus, we share a favorite tradition: the “Framing Party” — where friends and family leave messages on the studs before the drywall goes up.

If you’re building a home—or dreaming of it—this is the episode that connects the dots between the blueprint and the real thing.

Building Brews & BBQ
Instagram: @buildingbrewsandbbq
YouTube: YouTube.com/@BuildingBrewsandBBQ

Hosts:
Vince Longo
longocustombuilders.com
Instagram: @longocustombuilders

Nathan Walters:
massarossa.com
Instagram: @massarossa

Produced by:
Michael Newman
michaelnewmanfilm.com
Instagram: @michaelnewmanfilm

Vince (00:00)
You can go look at YouTube or Instagram. I'm seeing more and more videos of houses that are doing like what you said in a bit of a wind. They're falling over. Yeah, way. In framing, this way. know, horizontally, not straight down. It's because the openings are getting bigger and bigger and if framers and builders aren't doing it right. That's right. And applying the right shear, following those engineered plans, that's really scary.

Nathan (00:28)
It is.

Vince (00:29)
you

Hey,

Nathan (00:42)
and Nathan.

Vince (01:03)
I know he's got a run of circular. It's a very

Nathan (01:06)
Modern? Okay. Is it fly?

Vince (01:09)
No, we just said it's rounded. Oh. But how's that wisdom built? And today, as we continue along, we're about halfway through our series. And I think this is the most exciting episode. And the challenges, like with the last episode, we could go really technical. Mm-hmm. Or we could leave it, you know, go kind of high level, brevity. Either way you look at it, we could go brevity, keep it at a half hour. Or we could go technical.

and all of a sudden this thing's at six and a half hours and bring a lunch.

Nathan (01:42)
our producer who's behind the scenes, he's really into making sure this can get to four or five hours. So I think that's what he told us.

Vince (01:49)
Okay, and then they'll stream the episode as one large episode. one large And we'll get that one key listener. But anyway, this is the funnest part. I mean, I think you look at it, what's the funnest part? Whether you're a builder, a homeowner, first house, 50th house you've built, this, in my opinion, is the funnest part for everybody. Because it's the part where you see the biggest change. You agree?

Nathan (02:16)
Yeah, that's what I was about to say is they get to visually see it and what's been on the plans and what we've been doing in pre-construction and everything that if people have been following us along since the beginning, so much legwork, right? We've put in in some cases, in some cases we're 12 months in from since the time we first met these people. And it seems like everything is little by little. Then all of sudden when you start framing, it's no longer little by little. Yeah. It is big things happen day.

Vince (02:46)
Yeah, you know when you start to see those studs go up, know, and I'm not just talking about us Yeah, you know about the kind of physical framing goes up in the house They're called studs 2x4 2x6 is your vertical walls are studs, know not to be mistaken by me the 5 foot 6 Italian that You know can't reach anything. Anyway, I digress but you know, we could take this in a million different mile a million different places I think that

For me, I wanna just touch on just the overview so our listeners have an understanding of what they're seeing, what to expect when they're building. I wanna then get into key points and then maybe things, tips for them to think about when they're doing their framing as they're planning their house or looking down the road. You know, we talked about what's, Nathan, the first big thing when people think framing, they don't know what to think. They just say, hey, that was a bunch of concrete foundation. Now,

two weeks later, it's a full house. Yeah, it's a house. But there's different ways to do that, to build that in framing. There is. One of the questions I get asked a lot when we're talking about framing is, what's the difference between stick-built versus prefab panels? Yeah. There's two different ways.

Nathan (04:02)
There's two different ways. for us, and again, for our listeners who have been following so many of our houses are slab houses, right? So we're doing our foundation with a slab. We have our interior footings inside of our slab. We do a lot of stick framing. We do a lot of stick framing all the way even up into the rafters. Our rafters are stick framed down, coming down onto LVLs, laminated beams that are then putting the pressure down where our interior footings are, right? We do, that is,

That is what if you come to Oklahoma, you're going to see 90 % of our house is done that way. Now, when you go over to when we do what you call a foundation, what we call a basement, all roof trusses.

Vince (04:46)
Gotcha, and so stick framing for you is basically what is stick framing? That's the lumber yard, your vendor drops a pile of lumber. Yep. There's like 125 or 500, there's a pile of lumber there. They take each individual piece, which we call a stick, into the house and nail that individually. Yep, that's right. Now, panel, have you guys ever done any prefab panels? No.

So a prefab panel, which we're seeing a lot in Georgia, you see it a lot in more of the economical homes, but I think it makes sense in the luxury homes as well. And that's where it's not the pile of lumber comes out. They actually physically will build this wall, this wall with the window in it, everything, the whole wall system, they will build it in a warehouse, number it. That number corresponds to their Lego set, I call it, plans that have a number on the plan.

and then it all gets piled up on a big flat bed. That flat bed picks it up, comes and slides it off onto your lot, hands you the plans and say, hey, here it is, it's all number-coded. And then your framers, instead of installing each individual piece, they go grab the whole wall panel. That's the studs in the wall, the plywood on the outside, the window openings with the headers all ready to go.

all the way up to, I've seen them now with house wrap on it. And they just stand it up in place, nail it down, move to the next one, super fast.

Nathan (06:17)
Some of those are so big though. got it. I mean, I feel like on some of the, houses on that, they'd have to have a crane on some of them.

Vince (06:23)
Sometimes they'll do a crane or they'll put them in in pieces. You just got to install it and make sure it's straight. Here's what I like. Like you said, you hit the nail on the head, but in...

But it's about the quality, right? And I've always had the mentality of, this is a custom home and it has to be stick built. Each individual piece has to go up and be leveled, which is great. But the truth of the matter is, we've said it before, we're building with wood in the open environment that it gets rained on, hot day, cold day, humid day, dry day, ⁓ wood that absorbs moisture.

and wicks and so that stud that you put in, that stick frame, it might get twisted by the time it comes from the pile till you put it up. yeah. Whereas a prefab panel is done in a controlled environment in a warehouse. It comes off the pile, goes in a jig and each one is put in perfectly and it's nailed. And then the OSB goes on the outside immediately holding it stiff in place. It's done so fast. And so,

I'm starting to see that these panelized walls are more and more ⁓ preferable to stick frame, especially with the lack of labor that knows how to do it properly.

Nathan (07:47)
I

was going to say there's a little more quality control to that because it's inside of the warehouse. You're able to do it rather than fighting the weather, the wind, the rain on whatever day it is, if they were cold. Yeah, I could see that.

Vince (08:01)
The only challenge is they have to be more precise. Your plans better be right, i.e. pre-construction planning, getting everything right, because there's less playing around and changing in the field. That's right. When those panels go up, you know, it takes a little bit more to try to realign them or you figure them out. So you got to do your planning right. we're all about, right? ⁓ Lumber choices. You know, what should our listeners pay attention to when they're having their home frame, their builders doing it or their...

managing it somehow, you know, what are some key things they should pay attention to for lumber? Like, you know, what's dimensional lumber as opposed to ⁓ nominal? What's LVLs, LSLs, these interesting things that they're gonna hear and need to be up to speed on.

Nathan (08:47)
They're gonna hear, they need to be up to speed on it for sure because there's a lot of talk that's going on with that. Man, we've been, it's the same thing that I've been telling you. It's crazy for years, and I mean years. Our lumber company or our framer was doing all the takeoffs, right? And doing the takeoffs and you knew we had ⁓ beams here, we should have beams there. Man, everything inside of our municipality is getting

engineered just for us to even get a permit. And what you're talking about on LSLs, we've been getting, we've been getting LSLs on anything over basically 12 foot, anything over 12 foot tall. We've been getting LSLs put into our lumber packs because now, okay, we have an 18 foot room, 18 foot tall room. We're ended up framing them on lot of LSLs and now we have lumber that is structurally straight rather than getting wavy like our normal dimension.

Vince (09:46)
Gotcha, yeah, because the dimensional, they're just basically taking a solid piece of wood, put together, not finger-jointed together. It's a straight piece of wood out of the heart of the tree or the part of the tree, and they're saying, here you go. And whereas the LSL or LVLs are made, they're chewed up wood that are compressed and glued together, but they're structural, or they're layers of wood with fibers in different directions.

that make them so strong, but since they're made like that and glued together, they stay straighter. There's more human control on it, you're saying. So when you get into those really tall areas, that lumber, if it was out of a big piece of wood, has more of a tendency to twist and split and turn. They stay straighter, making sure that your interior finishes at the end will be prettier.

Nathan (10:36)
Right, that's exactly right. it's, look, that lumber is going to a two by eight that you're making go 16 feet tall. Listen, there's a good chance it twists. Not only is there a good chance it twists, there's a good chance it's twisted by the time it gets to you. Yeah. All right. And then you're exactly right. When the house is framed, it's something that you may not even really notice. You don't notice it until you run your baseboard across that wall or until you're paneling that wall. You're like, ⁓ what's this here?

And as you were saying, those LSLs now we're in these rooms where we go ahead and we dry wall them and we have less of an opportunity for there to be deflection points in the wall when we're paneling them out.

Vince (11:18)
And since they're a solid piece, they're stronger. There's no point where there's a break and it could be a scissor. more importantly, all of our houses are getting more and more windows. yes. Which is great, right? Because it really lifts and fills people up with that energy that we all need more vitamin D, right? ⁓ But what that does is it casts more sunlight into that space, which

when it goes across the wall, see more imperfections. Yeah. You see more challenges. So it makes it's important to use good lumber frame.

Nathan (11:56)
and something to get technical due to the amount of windows. All right, everybody's going to get a little technical. I don't know if you if you're seeing this, but due to the amount of windows and the size of windows, our main municipality in Edmond has gotten very concerned with sheer wall. So with the wind loads and the thing.

Vince (12:16)
Wind is

Nathan (12:20)
And you have these big windows and now on a wall that's 12 foot wide We have eight foot wide by eight foot tall window now We don't hardly have any lumber on this wall and it's flexing We've been getting to where we're having to put LSL's but we're having to King's stud on two to three times and putting Simpson strong tie Straps on these walls again all engineered. Yeah, this isn't us sitting in a this isn't like me sitting in a room being like

Vince (12:49)
Noooo

Nathan (12:49)
Two

straps. Right. These are getting engineered, but all of a sudden we realized when these windows keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and now we have walls that when the wind blows, you can see them.

Vince (13:00)
You can see him move, yeah.

Especially in Oklahoma with the high winds. And that's the big thing is yeah, you need the better lumber to keep it stronger. the metal straps that tie the floors to the walls, throw the nails in them to hold them tighter and from left to right. That's exactly right.

Nathan (13:18)
That's what we were getting down.

That's what we were getting a lot on the sheer is we were, we were essentially creating houses that were like tops where we were getting them to move this way. And so now with all the metal and everything that we're strapping to them, we're creating a much more structurally sound house. Again, what's great about it definitely is the builder man. It's, it's engineered and we do it, but what we do want to tell the customer about this.

Look, we go through an architectural set of plans, right? And we get our design and it's very pretty, okay? We then send them to our engineer because guess what? Sometimes, sometimes those windows they want, we can't do. They won't work. And we're getting this now. And so it's just wanting to teach the customer, hey, we're gonna draw it. Hopefully it'll work. Sometimes it doesn't work. And we have to make those, we have to be able to introduce that to them.

Vince (14:01)
Yeah, they won't work.

Nathan (14:16)
early on. Hey, this isn't good.

Vince (14:18)
Yeah, you know, there's been some believe it not. There've been some situations, you know, one of the big rage items over the past several years is these big openings. That's right. That's always the rage, right? The huge openings. And, you know, I think if you, you can go look at YouTube or Instagram, I'm seeing more and more videos of houses that are doing like what you said in a bit of a wind. They're falling over. Yeah, way. And framing this way, you know, horizontally, not straight down. It's because the...

the openings are getting bigger and bigger, and if framers and builders aren't doing it right, and applying the right shear, following those engineered plans, that's really scary. I mean, you're gonna have houses falling down because these windows are either vinyl or metal clad or wood units that also do not have the shear. What we've had to do in a few where we couldn't meet the shear value,

Nathan (14:58)
It is.

Vince (15:16)
we've moved to steel windows. Yeah, everybody likes them, but they're unbelievably expensive, i.e. plus or minus $200 a square foot installed. But those things, because they're solid welded steel, we can use those to help support the shear, because what we'll do is we'll bolt the windows to the framing. So, you know, I know we're getting a little bit technical here, but I think the big takeaway, when you're talking framing for our listener,

that doesn't know much, just, you know, what I would say is there's a big difference in quality ⁓ of lumber. You know, the bigger the openings, you're going to have to spend more on, like you would think, hey, that's less wood. No, it's actually more because you got to buy more expensive wood, more engineering, more metal strapping, labor becomes more because it takes more to do those, those sheer load and to strengthen it. That's exactly right. And so that would be the one thing I'd say it'd be.

be cognizant in the framing process. ⁓

Nathan (16:19)
If

you're a listener that's in areas that aren't requiring permits or maybe requiring engineering, listen, ask for it. Ask your builder to do the engineering. I knew in my market, the sheer wall engineer report that I gets $450. yeah. Nothing about it is expensive and all it does is it protects me as your builder, but also protects my...

consumer, right? them and I'm letting them know they're getting a house that's going to be built. Well, it's not on me trying to do my own load calcs. No, I have an engineer that is telling us how to do.

Vince (16:58)
That's right. So with framing rely on the engineer. That's a cheap. It's what even if you, yeah, that might be 850 or 450, but even, you you can even spend as much as six, 7,000 on a surf engine, you need a plan. But then you got that stamp. Yeah. Someone's thought about it. Someone's looked at it. And as long as the builder follows those directions, you're going to have success or at least as a homeowner, the peace of mind knowing, Hey, they followed the plans. was inspected. We've done the best to our ability. And then it's kind of up.

to the errors and omissions or the insurance of their engineer, cause he stamped it. Yeah. You know, but I would say this comes back to one thing I wanted to talk about that I try to tell everybody. We talked a little bit in another episode about time-lapse cameras. This is one of those times when it's framed is to get picture, picture, picture. You know, if you're the homeowner, don't only rely on your builder to get pictures and videos. We do, and I know you do this too.

We do 360 cameras or sometimes we'll do a Matterport walkthrough in framing and give that to the homeowner if they wanna pay the ongoing maintenance to that, cause they charge for that to hold those files. But that's a 3D walkthrough every room image file of your studs and everything and where it is. So how cool is that, that someday down the road, you got an issue, you can go through and look.

We like to do it after mechanicals are in so you can see where pipes are and everything. I always tell my customers, we're gonna take as many pictures as we can, but I encourage you to do so as well, to document, document, document. One of the big things when it comes to framing that I like to tell my customers, obviously we plan, plan, plan, plan, is we like to have walkthroughs.

Do you do walkthroughs with your customer? And if so, what does that look like a framing walkthrough that they should be prepared for and to ask good questions of their builder?

Nathan (19:01)
So we're actually changing hours. We used to do our walkthrough after mechanicals. Okay, we would do our customer walkthrough after mechanicals and go through with the designer, with our team. Okay, how's it looking? Is everything in the right spot? Actually, due to RB out of Columbia, South Carolina, also in our Builder 20, loved what he was doing. As soon as the house is framed, roof on, windows in.

They're going through with their team and the designer walking the house and laying everything out, marking door swings, putting up all the appliances, putting up the plumbing fixtures, laying out the electrical, doing all of that because what was the point of that year's worth of work that we just did designing all of this? If we did not go out and prepare our trades for success and be able to show our customers, this is what we're doing. So now what we're doing is we're getting this all set up.

then we're walking with the customer and kind of walking them through with the designer because what we really want to know for you customers, I cannot just emphasize more about how much planning matters. And I mean down to curtains because something that I know we'll talk about is blocking. Yeah. Guys, the framers there, we have framed your house. You guys have been around houses that have been framed. There's lumber everywhere.

cut lumber everywhere. Blocking cost zero dollars. It is there. The lumber is on site. It keeps wood out of the landfill. It keeps it from blowing around the job site. It keeps it from all kinds of stuff. And what it does is it allows us to go through and block. If we have everything designed, we can block. For curtains, we can block with where your free-floating vanities are gonna go.

Vince (20:35)
keeps what are the land...

And you

know that goals are your pre-planning because now you're executing.

Nathan (20:58)
which makes, makes deciding things in pre-construction and not leaving things for TBD. Hey, you got to do this. You got to turn Instagram and pinch your stuff. You've got to say yes. And then let us go in there and do these things for you because man, it makes a world of difference when you're coming in and we're doing bath hardware. Look, the little sheetrock anchors work well because they hold 70 pounds. Okay. So you can hang some bath hardware. It's still better to screw it into blocks.

Vince (21:24)
That's right. You know, I always say, listen, what's the biggest thing that annoys you as a homeowner when you go into any bathroom? And that's typically the toilet paper holder is coming off the wall. off the wall. And that's because the builder did not take a little extra time during those walkthroughs or in pre-planning and say, hey, if you sit on your toilet like this, where do you want to reach? Is it on the vanity or on the wall? If it's on the wall,

It's two foot up from the floor. measure out, we'll actually bring a bucket and sit on it. Like it's the toilet. And we're gonna solid block it there with wood inside the wall. So no matter where you put your toilet paper holder in that area, you're gonna be screwing into solid woods and you're never gonna have that situation where your kids rip it.

Nathan (22:15)
wall. That's right or in my situation my leg rips.

Vince (22:17)
Yeah, because you're, you know, six foot six. I mean, there's not much that you don't rip off the wall.

Nathan (22:25)
we on the demo? Or, ⁓ me, forgot which one we're on.

Vince (22:28)
Hey, speaking of that, speaking of sitting on a toilet, how about ⁓ blocking now for ⁓ wall hanging toilets? Yeah, wall hanging That's like coming into speed. Hey, if you're figuring, and it goes back to like what you said, pre-planning, and you re-talked about this before the episode, ⁓ talk about plumbing and blocking as it comes to plumbing and framing, whether it's a toilet, faucet.

Nathan (22:53)
faucets

out of the wall, out of his wall faucets. Yeah. The amount of the amount of stuff it just seems like we know that, okay, hey, we're asking you as a homeowner to make selections on plumbing fixtures. Well, why do I need to know about plumbing fixtures? We haven't even broken ground yet. That's so far down the road. We don't install those till the end. You're right. We don't install the fixtures until the end, but we install the valves early. We, if they're coming out of the wall, we need to block for them so that we can, we can screw into them. All of these things about it just

It's crazy how even we're saying, Hey, we want 85 % really want a hundred percent of the house designed 85 gets us a gets us at least started. yeah, it just, like I said, it gets all the way down to curtains. Hey, if you know you're doing curtains here and you know what link they're going to be, we put blocks in here. And when you come in and got to hang the rod.

Vince (23:43)
Yeah. Or what about automate? I know we'll get into this in electrical episode, but automated curtains, you got to put power up there unless they're lithium battery based. ⁓ Back to like what you were saying, hanging toilets, that weight, there's a structure that needs to go into place for that, that the plumbing contractor or the manufacturer will supply. That needs to be brazed in there. Yes. Some other things, you mentioned not only

the plumbing fixtures that come out of the wall, but the heights. You know, there's plumbing fixtures that come out of the wall that have different shapes. one, rough-ins might have to come out higher and lower, and then you need the backer for that. Yep, that's right. You know, and so I think that's huge. And doing those walkthroughs with the homeowner, you can get that peace of mind. Listen, I made a major mistake.

Nathan (24:34)
Have you ever done that before?

Vince (24:36)
I let it, I just let that linger for a minute. But you know, I just assumed, cause it was poor planning on my part, I assumed that I would just, that when the plumber asks, what do you want? You want your plumbing heads at normal height? sure. Cause I was, I didn't write down notes. I didn't do a pre-plan. My homeowner, he is six foot six. Yeah. You know? Once a little taller. Yeah.

It has to be taller. It was like hitting him in the head. Yeah. When he, I was like, ⁓ that was an epic fail. Yeah. And so that's cause I rushed plea planning and didn't do a good walkthrough and framing to mark out where these things would go.

Nathan (25:18)
and I know plumbing's coming in a different episode, but same thing. Used to, in the easier days of construction, your plumbing valves went directly under your shower head, right? Not the case anymore, right? These showers are getting so big, your shower head's over here, but your plumbing valves are over here to turn them on, right? And so all of this pre-planning matters, and it just allows us to...

really set things up and what we've really are trying to do, cause we're realizing, Hey, our customer's putting in a lot of time. They're giving us all this information. So what we used to do though, is we would then go walk with the customer and they would kind of feel like we already gave you all this information. Why are we rewalking this? So again, taking that ID, that idea from RB, Hey, they did give us this information and we're making, not making, we're having their designer, their interior designer come with us, us and the construction team.

We're laying it all out. We're marking it all up. Then we're telling them, Hey, you're not coming out here to tell us what to do. We've done it. We just want you to approve. Is this good? Shower head height. Good. We talked about it. You're six, six. We're raising the shower head a little bit. This is where we're going to have it. Is that good? And now makes what used to be a two, two and a half hour walk an hour. Yeah. You know, and it's more approval. And then also hopefully allowing them to have confidence in us that we listened.

Vince (26:21)
That's right. Okay.

Nathan (26:42)
for that entire 12 months.

Vince (26:43)
That's right. And what it does is it gives them the opportunity. know it's getting, it's fairly new around the country, but the franchise walk your plans. know, we have one here in Atlanta, North Atlanta, and they are spectacular. And we now take our customers there in pre-planning and pre-construction, and they actually do a one-to-one scale where they, it's in a big warehouse, and they project their floor plan onto the floor and walls, and you physically walk through. Well, that's all great.

but there's still something about being able to walk into a room and still have the ability before all the mechanicals are in and you can't move, you still have the ability to be able to change things. Oh, I want this door to be moved. Or you look at it and say, yeah, that looked good on the plan, but this is a little small. Let's take a little. So you still have that ability to make a change.

Nathan (27:32)
Which is why we're doing it early. So we're actually trying to, I know that a lot of this, ⁓ is for our end in mind customer, but I'm also trying to help our trades. And when you do the walk after mechanicals and then, Hey, can we move this? Hey, can we do this? And then you end up having a five item list for your HVAC guys, six item list for your plumber and a six item list for your electrician. They don't want to come back, you know, and, and not because they don't want to come back because

We've already talked about this. The labor force is under supplied. They're busy. They're too busy. Don't have enough work and they don't want to come back to move one can right or whatever it is. And so we're trying to get this done before they ever.

Vince (28:08)
That's right.

Yeah, and if I could also add in here that it allows the homeowner to start adding in things that, to make use of space that we didn't know where, it was dead space on the plan. know, under this window, we could add a little bench or here, this dead space under the stairs, we did that at a house in Sarenby, our model home, the Rue Magazine model home, where under the stairs was just gonna be dead space. We reclaimed that for a hidden...

area with a beautiful arch top, because we had the angle of the stairs going up. So we arched it and it was just this little nook where you could take your shoes off and a mud nook, which was out of the way. So you could get it a little dirty and it wasn't in front of everybody. I sat there. Yeah, you did sit there. And it was a great use of space. It's this cool little alcove. So those are the fun things. Here's the big thing is if we don't do the pre-planning and we get into framing and we have to spend two

too much time trying to do this with the homeowner during the framing walk, it's leaving us less time to make sure corners are square. Yes. know, plates are level, walls are level, things are screwed down properly, there's not squeaks, things were glued. And so that's where we need to be spending our time and not, ⁓ okay, we never went over this. Where do you want this right here? I think that's a pretty big thing.

Anything else that you can think of before we kind of bring this thing home? Because I know I want to end on a cool tip for them when it comes to framing ⁓ Anything that you think is essential, you know, I know there's builders that don't screw down floors. Do you think that's essential? like

Nathan (29:57)
I wouldn't, okay, so I'll put it to you this way. Do I think it's essential? No, it's not essential. Do I think it's something that should be done? Yeah. Is it something, look, some people don't want to pay for that, but yeah, it helps with the squeaking. So we actually purchased a screw gun that you don't have to like bend over on your hands and knees. You can walk and do it. We do it more probably on our basement houses.

⁓ to where we're because you know, it's main floor is up and it's like a second story. And so we'll try to get those. We like to do it because it tries to minimize the squeaks. Like you talk about, like I said, is your house gonna blow over or fall over if you don't do it? No, but we like to

Vince (30:42)
It's an insurance policy. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I agree. And I always try to tell the framer, screw down the floors while the glue is not dried. Yes. Yes. Because they love to just throw the plywood down on the glue, nail it down and keep moving. Yeah. And they say, we'll come back and screw it later. Well, no, the glue's already set up. Yeah. I need you to screw it the day you put it down. Yeah, that's right. And get under the walls. Yeah. And so that's a big pro tip is make sure it gets screwed down when the glue is wet.

The other big thing that why I love to do those framing walks and it's really critical for homeowners is it allows us to see and map out for them where lights are gonna go. hand lights are huge. Yes. It's inevitably the framing plan that when they design the framing plan, they do it based off of things are on center. is what's called nominal. everything is 16 inch on center. That means the center of this piece of wood

to the center of the next piece of wood is 16 inch. Why is that? Because three of those equals 48 inches and all plywood and sheetrock and everything is 48 inches. And so everything falls and hits on the center of a piece of wood. another sheet good can go on the other half of that piece of wood and keep going. So there's a method to the madness of building and all materials are made nominally to go together seamlessly.

So there's consistency. And what we try to tell them is, hey, that's important, but what that could lead to is a ⁓ ceiling joist being in the center of this hallway where you wanted your can lights centered down the hallway. And so by being able to do those walks, we can catch it early before the electrician comes in to put in lights and say, you know what? We understand that it's not nominal, but we can move this stud. We can move this floor joist.

We can move this roof rafter or ceiling joist. We can move it over three inches. We know we're doing it, but it's more important to get those lights centered on the room as opposed to the sheet rock hitting dead on.

Nathan (32:52)
Not only cans what happens a lot too. Toilets. Yeah, you can't. Hitting a joist. Hitting a joist and now you're like. But the joist can't cut the joist and now I can't push it back. I'm up against the wall now. The toilet won't set it if I pull it forward. Now my toilet sitting this far off.

Vince (32:56)
hitting a joy.

Can't cut the joys. Can't the

That's right. Or left to right on two courses of vanity. Two courses of vanity.

Nathan (33:14)
It doesn't mean code. Yeah. Yep. It's all very important to have those walks to try to stay ahead of those things.

Vince (33:19)
Yeah.

And you can catch things that save you money on time and the build because of rework. you know, one of our big pet peeves is, you know, air conditioning vents. You know, the way that works, we can get that into that in the air conditioning episode is the supply, means the vent that pushes air out into the room has to be in front of a window. Why? Because believe it or not, outside air actually can get through a window. That's right. And so they're pushing the heat and cooling in that room and it makes a big circle.

Nathan (33:43)
Also where the heat transfer is.

Vince (33:49)
Well, it's a real pet peeve of ours, because we care about things being terrific. Yeah. That if it's off center of the window. So we'll box frame those things out, but you need to be able to catch that during framing while the frame is there, then it doesn't cost a return trip and things like that. So I think that's really good. ⁓ Do you have any final tips for... Tip. ⁓ is it, you're gonna... Okay, so we started doing this many years ago.

Nathan (34:11)
No, I've been waiting for the cult. I know, I need to hear it.

Vince (34:18)
And I think it's starting to catch on Instagram, but my biggest to do for a homeowner in the framing stage is have a friend party.

Nathan (34:31)
A friend party? Yeah.

Vince (34:32)
friend and family party. And what does that mean? You invite

Nathan (34:36)
They come over to your house and fall down the stairs?

Vince (34:38)
That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That is a good point. You know, make sure you make sure you make sure all your friends and family make sure there's a building representative there and make sure you have hard hats and all your secure devices, you know, the OSHA standards, read your guidelines. ⁓ But I usually say and we'll be there because we like to be part of that is we invite them and we provide the drinks and all that and the fun and we in the food will do a cool barbecue, you know, and

We have them and it's just, we hand out Sharpies and we say, hey, leave important messages, whether they're Bible verses, uplifting things, anything you want to tell this family. And we tell the family too, hey, you write on it as well. You know, if you want to bless a certain room or whatever, you go through and you just have a writing fest. And then after it, document it all.

take pictures and we have ours, even we did that on our own home and we have this unbelievable coffee table book and it's all the things that people wrote on the studs that are in, on the framing that's in our home. And it just adds, and you don't have to be a Christian to do this, you just do uplifting things, but it adds a whole layer of personal thought and it just feels, the house feels different after you do that. And so I encourage them, have a writing party.

invite all your friends and family, bring them over, give them Sharpies and write cool things on the walls for them. Yeah, it's awesome. But don't do it at the end because then you just ruin the wall. Then it's a callback for the builder. Thanks. But that's my big- No, I love it. So land this plane because we could go on for hours about framing. We're here to answer all your questions. know this is one of those biggest topics where there's a lot of questions and we're here to answer them.

Nathan (36:13)
Yeah, cause then you'd be

paint touch up.

Yeah, I love it. I mean, yeah.

Vince (36:33)
If you would, please feel free to DM us, leave your comments. If you don't follow us, please follow us, hit the like button and share this with your friends. ⁓ We'd love to have more followers, that would be awesome. And if you have any topics you want us to talk about, you can leave that in the DM as well. And please stay tuned for our next episode where we're gonna extend this and learn more about the construction process. And thank you so much. Please like.

Nathan (37:03)
and subscribe I think you said that.

Vince (37:04)
And what else am I missing? I always feel like there's this long list of things that I miss.

Nathan (37:08)
I don't know the only thing I'm gonna say I know we're in Dean here guys what we're in right now is the Construction of your home when it starts with the foundation all the way through drywall. This is construction So this is going to be a little tedious It's gonna be there but it matters when we get to drywall after we drywall We're putting the jewelry on guys the construction parts over for the most part but so Hang with us but understand that this is important and can be fun

Vince (37:35)
Yep. And as was written on the wall of my house by a good friend, it was, laughter echo here forever.

Nathan (37:47)
on the five-year.

Vince (37:47)
Until next time.


People on this episode

Head Shot

Vincent Longo

Host
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Nathan Walters

Co-host
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Michael Newman

Producer