A Building Appears

[glenn bradley]

Glenn, I was curious as to what kind of sheathing is under the exterior siding? Some type of insulation board?

It's funny. You hear folks complain about the building requirements in California. I'm a native but have worked all over the country and worked with people from all over. The general consensus is that a garage built to California code would not survive one Arkansas winter.

Having set the tone . . . The siding is 3/8" Smartside by LP Corp. This is nailed directly to Tyvek wrapped 2x6, 16" O.C. framing. The siding is nominally 4' x 8' and you can see the 2' add-on at the top of the walls in the pics. The 10' wall sections come pre-sided to 8'. The remainder of the wall siding is placed on site to assure things align well. Of the few downsides to the panel-look (think T1-11) siding is that if you aren't careful lining things up, the poor work will be super obvious. The roof decking is foil faced which gives us good performance here in SoCal. A layer of "FeltBUSTER" (syntho felt) goes over the decking and then shingles suitable for decades under our 100+ degree summers.

[Jim Becker]

Glenn, I was curious as to what kind of sheathing is under the exterior siding? Some type of insulation board?

That's LP SilverTech Radiant Barrier sheathing that provides more efficiency through its inherent reflective properties.

[Tom Bain]

Glenn — Curious if there are there any special seismic code items you have to deal with, or does that not apply to “accessory buildings? Looks a nice shop coming together ... quickly.

[Alan Lightstone]

I was mentioning your shop construction timeline to a friend of mine over breakfast today, who's at the tail end of his house construction. I was noting that watching all these Building Alaska shows, it takes at least 8 episodes and months of work to build one of those small buildings, and yours shot up seemingly overnight.

Truly impressive. And looks great.

[Kris Cook]

Well, you are a couple of years ahead of my progress already. Looking good.

[julian abram]

That's LP SilverTech Radiant Barrier sheathing that provides more efficiency through its inherent reflective properties.

Jim & Glenn, thanks for the info. I didn't see any diagonal wall bracing and thought the sheathing looked like non-structural foam board. I looked this product up on the LP site and see that it is osb laminated with a radiant barrier. I built a few spec houses in the 90's and these type of sheathing products did not exist.
The last house I built was in 2001 but have recently started a 16'x22' garage addition. We use to pay $7-8/ sheet for plain old 1/2" osb, quite shocking to see it for $41/sheet at Home Depot this week. No wonder home prices are climbing so fast.
Very nice building Glenn, 10' walls definitely a bonus.

[Rick Potter]

Hi Glen, We recently finished a garage/apartment building next to the house. Garage for me, apartment for the grand daughter. We used the LP 3/8" siding because it meets code as sheathing. Along the way the city was a bit concerned about the garage wall that was 3' away from our property line, next to a block wall. They required it to have drywall on the outside of the studs, so here is what that 32' wall is made of.........

2x4 stud 16 o/c, with 5/8" drywall on interior (I got a smokin' deal on 4x12' 5/8 drywall). The exterior was structural OSB sheeting, with a 1/2" layer of drywall, followed up by the LP structural siding. So, drywall in and out, and two layers of structural sheeting over the studs.

Quite a wall, considering the neighbors house is 75' away from the property line. Funny thing though, when I asked the city what thickness of drywall on the outside, they said 'whatever you want, 1/4" will be enough'. I did the same thing on the wall between the apartment and a carport also. Without them asking. 5/8" on both sides of that.

I have a garage dad built in the middle of all this 40 years ago that has the same type siding. It is still in good shape, and we kept it.

You will love the siding, it takes paint great and lasts a looong time. Just don't bring the dirt level up to the bottom of it.

[Jim Becker]

I was mentioning your shop construction timeline to a friend of mine over breakfast today, who's at the tail end of his house construction. I was noting that watching all these Building Alaska shows, it takes at least 8 episodes and months of work to build one of those small buildings, and yours shot up seemingly overnight.

Truly impressive. And looks great.

The speed comes from buildings like this being "factory" configured. The wall panels, etc., come out pre-built and just have to be set upright and plumbed. When you combine that with modern trusses, you can set a building really, really quickly. These are not quite as fast as some metal buildings, but still...they do go up lickety-split and with reduced labor cost. I'm likely going to use this type of construction for my next shop and will likely seek a quote from the same company that Glenn used as one option.

[Brian Tymchak]

Congrats on the new shop Glenn. 1200 sf. Totally envious... Gotta ask, why no windows?

[Roger Feeley]

A little advice from an old retired electrician. Run a empty conduit up into the attic for future access.

+1 on empty conduit. When we built our house, we had them run several conduits and they have come in very handy already. We even had pipe run under the driveway.

[Curt Harms]

I was mentioning your shop construction timeline to a friend of mine over breakfast today, who's at the tail end of his house construction. I was noting that watching all these Building Alaska shows, it takes at least 8 episodes and months of work to build one of those small buildings, and yours shot up seemingly overnight.

Truly impressive. And looks great.

Glenn doesn't have to fill 8 episodes.

[glenn bradley]

I just figured we'd break for commercial and when we got back the paint would be going on .

And so the next phase begins:

New Shop (96).jpg

[Jim Becker]

Yea, that's going to be a very handy tool to have for this little project, Glenn. That and a lift for whatever you decide to clad the ceiling with!

[glenn bradley]

Tried my first attempt at sealing the control joints.
New Shop (97).jpg
Came out OK.
New Shop (98).jpg
I have a bit more to do.
New Shop (99).jpg
Probably won't finish tonight . . . I'm gettin' old.

[Jim Becker]

That's one of those "little things" that folks sometimes forget. My current shop has the older style expansion joints and they are maddening about how they catch debris because they are so wide. Fine for a garage; not so good for a woodworking shop! It's good you're taking care of these kinds of important tasks early on for sure.