How can a half-built house be left in the weather with no issues? I’m talking about a wood frame with plastic in the rain type of thing.
In: Engineering
All building materials arrive on site with a specific moisture content. They can get wet until the building is ‘dried in’. Once the building is dried in, you have to wait for the moisture content in the framing to return to the proper level before sealing everything up with drywall and insulation from the inside. Framing getting wet isn’t a problem, it only becomes a problem if you seal that moisture in before it has had a chance to return to proper levels.
I use to help frame houses and once you nail the boards into place they resist warping well in the rain for a while. I threw away so many boards that were left out when someone didn’t cover the boards back up with a tarp when leaving on a Friday. Also normally the day after it rains you spend a lot of time cleaning up water. Normally you can push broom rainwater off somewhere, but sometimes you may even need a squeegee. Also the wind will blow stuff over a lot. Once the roof is on water will mostly be diverted from going anywhere important. They wrap the houses in plastic and shingle the roofs to give time for everything else. Then they come back later and put decorative stuff like brick, rock, stucko, siding etc.
I’m a home builder here in Portland Oregon where it rains half the year. We build all year round. We frame it and don’t care if it gets wet. Then once the roof is on I bring in specialty crews who use moisture meters and see where the water is accumulated. We use fans, heaters and dehumidifiers to suck all the water out of the wood framing to the appropriate moisture content and then they certify it.
It needs to stay wet awhile for molds and such to start growing. We pull the water out way before that happens.
In fact we do this even in the summer sometimes if we don’t use kiln dried wood and we do get water out. That’s because the framing lumber comes to us green and “pond cured” as we call it where it’s basically been floating in water till recently and is still real heavy.
Spend the extra money to get the roof sheathing on and papered (water proofed). The sun and rain will combine to degrade spruce/pine/fir framing lumber, and composite timbers. Once the frame is “dried in” it will tolerate a fair amount of rain. Sun is also bad for wood’s stability.
Washington Electrician here: while most of the time they are, they’re not always! Conduction materials are made to be able to withstand a certain amount of moisture and then dry out and be OK, however, D.R. Horton and few builders had a whole slew of problems one year and had to rent a bunch of the newly framed houses because of mold!
There are issues if its left to long. One jobsite is using a new chipboard that lasts a few days longer in the elements.
I frame in Ontario canada and it’s cool but can’t imagine how crazy of a cost it would be: builders are renting portable domes for bad weather conditions.
Are trees damaged by the rain?
Another lil bit of info I’ve gathered since my work is next to a new housing development. They do the most of their building in summer. Parts are often fabricated off-site to allow the roof and other weather proofing materials to go on sooner (I assume)
Ever see a wooden deck or staircase outside? They last years. Few days of rain never ruined a house frame. Think trees in the forest
Latest Answers