On Sunday, March 18, 2012 08:28:11 [email protected] wrote: > I would love to build a metric home, but I would insist with 500 mm spaced > studs (that falls right between 16 & 24 in.), and would have to order dry > wall in meter lengths (but keep it 48 in wide so not to piss them off to > much) from the factory, a truck load of course. > > I have an idea for the outer walls, it's a double wall configuration, > instead of a 140 mm or 190 mm studs, two 90 mm studs alternating spaces > from the inner wall and outer wall, so the two studs are never sided by > side, in order to weave insulation between the studs. Studs are a heat > sink in the walls, a bad thing. But you can still use a single 190 mm top > and bottom plates.
I'm building it of concrete blocks dry-stacked and filled with concrete. The actual length of a block is supposed to be 397 mm, but the actual spacing when laid is 400 mm. I got this both from a site that advocates the method (it gives the dimension in irches, which is quite unround, but converts to a nice round number in metric) and from someone who built like that and measured it for me. The wood parts are interior walls (one is load-bearing, the rest are just partitions), the staircase, and the roof and ceiling structure. Also I'm putting wood siding outside a 100 mm layer of insulation. The inside of the walls is not insulated; they're thermal mass. I'm probably going to use no drywall, but wood paneling, for the walls. I have to redesign the staircase. I originally assumed that the second floor would be 14 mm thick from the joists to the top, which have a rise of 203 mm for 15 rises, but it's more like 30 mm, so the rise is 204 mm, which means I have to lengthen the stairwell slightly to meet the headroom requirement. I have a query out to someone about the thickness of treads. I was using 38 mm softwood planks, but those will be only the temporary steps; permanent steps are hardwood, which is cut to different sizes. The drawings give actual dimensions (e.g. 38×89×4876 is the size of the collar tie braces before cutting). I don't have all the pieces of wood dimensioned, but I'll prepare sheets with all the pieces taken apart and dimensioned. Pieces of which there are only a few (such as stringers) I'll have cut to size at the lumberyard; others I'll buy in stock sizes and cut on site. Pierre -- La sal en el mar es más que en la sangre. Le sel dans la mer est plus que dans le sang.
