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House Construction
Walking through the basic steps of residential home construction, this information is intended to provide you with some knowledge of residential home building and what to expect in each phase of the construction process. |
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Setting The Stage
Have you ever wondered how a house is built? What holds up the ceilings and the walls? What keeps the rain out? What parts go into making a house? How many different people are involved when a house goes up? Read on. |
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Home Building Steps
One of the amazing things about American homes is that the huge majority of them are built using completely standardized building practices. One reason for this consistency is a set of uniform building codes that apply across the country. |
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Homesite Preparation
The first crew on the site handles site preparation. Often, this crew and the foundation crew are the same people, but sometimes not (especially if there are a lot of trees on the lot). |
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Foundations
Basements, crawl spaces and slabs are the three main foundation systems used on houses. In wet and coastal areas, it is sometimes common to put houses up on posts as well. |
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Walls
The framing crew next starts on the walls. Walls are assembled on the floor and then raised into place. |
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Roof
This house uses trusses for the roof framing. Trusses are pre-fabricated, triangulated wooden structures used to support the roof. The alternative is to build up the roof's frame with 2x8s and 2x10s. |
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Porch
A porch is generally constructed during the framing process. Porches can be single story, two stories, wrap around, or deck style depending on the layout and design of the home. |
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Windows & Doors
Once the home is farmed and dried in, the windows must be set into the window openings that were precut during the framing process. |
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Roofing
Many homes use standard asphalt shingles for the roof. The first step is to cover the roof with building paper (tar paper). The shingles then go on very quickly, sometimes in less than a day, depending on the size of the home. |
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Siding
Siding is made from thin, flexible sheets of plastic, concrete composite ( Hardi-Plank), or wood. Commonly siding is made of flexible plastic sheets about 2 millimeters thick, pre-colored and bent into shape during manufacturing. |
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Rough Plumbing
Let's say you want to put a toilet in a house. Two-hundred or 300 years ago this was not an option -- everyone used outhouses. If you visit the governor's mansion in Williamsburg, VA, you will see that in the 1700s even England's high colonial governor used a pair of three-holer outhouses located at the back of the formal garden. |
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Rough Electrical
The purpose of the electrical system in a house is to distribute the power safely to all of the different rooms and appliances. |
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Insulation
The purpose of insulation is to lower the heating and cooling costs for the house by limiting heat transfer through the walls and the ceiling. The insulation process starts by installing foam channels in the eaves: |
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Drywall
On the outside, the house now looks complete; but inside, it won't look "like a house" until the drywall goes up. Drywall (also known as "plaster board" and by the trade name "Sheet rock") is a half-inch layer of plaster or gypsum sandwiched between two thick sheets of paper. It is remarkably solid, and also remarkably heavy. |
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Garage Slab
The floor of the garage is a 4-inch-thick concrete slab poured very late in the process. Four inches of gravel were placed on the ground and covered with plastic and reinforcing wire. Around the edges, half-inch thick homosote will allow the slab to contract and expand with temperature changes. |
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Finishing Up
At this point, the steps that remain are all "finishing steps" and are things you can see in your own home by opening doors and removing cover plates. |
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