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Laying Tongue and Groove Plywood Decking for the Subfloor

Bob confers with carpenter Bob Ryley and general contractor Kevin Kalman as they lay down the subflooring at the Mt. Pleasant house in Charleston, South Carolina.

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Hurricane, Flood, and Earthquake Resistant Building Now Playing

Hurricane, Flood, and Earthquake Resistant Building

Sheathing the Roof to be Hurricane Resistant Now Playing

Sheathing the Roof to be Hurricane Resistant

Laying Tongue and Groove Plywood Decking for the Subfloor Now Playing

Laying Tongue and Groove Plywood Decking for the Subfloor

Discussing the Engineered Wood Building Materials and the Wall Layout Now Playing

Discussing the Engineered Wood Building Materials and the Wall Layout

Clip Transcript For:

Laying Tongue and Groove Plywood Decking for the Subfloor

computer-generated transcript - may not be 100% accurate

" -These plans for the house we're building include this large columned porch on two sides of the house. If you remember last week we got the foundation finished. We used engineered wood for the girth and I-joists. Now let's get together with Bob Ryley and our general contractor Kevin Kalman and get to work on the first floor deck."

" -Okay, well, Ryley is putting down adhesive on the tops of the I-joist. What we're working on right now is what we call the decking and that doesn't really referred to building and outside deck. It refers to putting sub-flooring down over the joist. The sub-flooring of course will receive either carpeting or vinyl floors or hardwood floors. And you can see that this is a tongue-and-groove plywood, it's southern yellow pine and surely taken over the industry because it used to be twenty years ago, we used CDX fir plywood and it delaminate a little bit. This is still in the mid-twenty dollar range per sheet and it still does a very good job. It holds the water."

" -Why is it so important Ryley to put down the panel adhesive uniformly before you put down a sheet of plywood? "

" -Well, it's really significant to adhere the plywood to the joist and it's going to take all that bounce out of it, stiffen up the floor."

" -Right."

" -Eliminating any squeaks that you might have in it."

" -Right."

" -So when you will nail it off right away because the stuff sets up fast."

" -Yeah."

" -And what happens is when you put down the sheet of plywood and it goes on top of the adhesive, you're kind of the squishing the adhesive and almost creating a gasketing effect on the whole thing."

" -Let me get down here."

" -What's that?"

" -Good."

" -Hey, one more up over here."

" -Good, good."

" -Alright."

" -And then Kevin just nailed it off."

" -And what kind of nails are you using?"

" -We're using ring shank 8-D nail."

" -Now, are those the nails that have adhesive on them?"

" -Now these are paslode nails, they are gun nail, they're an 8 penny."

" -[unk] we go for 6 to 8 inches [unk]."

" -Right, but that's eliminating the possibility of squeaks, which I'm told is the one, like the number one call back for a contractor's life."

" -Squeaks, leaks, and drywall pops are nightmare."

" -Squeaks, leaks, and pops."

" -Right."

" -They're nightmare."

" -Okay, well, anytime that we are laying out the plywood deck. Is that where we want it go."

" -Yeah, sir."

" -You'll have some overhanging plywood like you have here."

" -Now Kevin, when laying out to bring the plywood down, sometimes it makes sense to over hang, you know whatever it is for reasons of lay out. Can you explain that?"

" -We wanna stagger the joints of our plywood by 4 feet on the center so when we lay a full 8-foot sheet, the next sheet to comes out, we gonna lay that at 4 feet come with the per sheet style. In the situation like this, I'm starting out with a 4-foot piece here. Our 8-foot piece actually hang overs at the end of the deck."

" -It's a lot easy just strike a line all around the perimeter of building and just saw off the excess piece and recall those measurements out to the cut guy in the field."

" -Exactly and that's where you did a little waste, but it makes the job go more quickly and then we got another one to cut over here."

" -And we call it a little waste, but somebody will make a doghouse out of it. So, at this point, we really have almost two-thirds of the decking complete."

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