Welcome once again to the CLT Core House blog. When we last left you, we had just finished pouring our slab, and were preparing the cores for their final moves! We have had some exhausting weeks, but finally seeing the pieces come together makes it all worth it.

The Pieces

Early in our design, we envisioned the day where all of our careful planning in pre-fabrication would pay off. Our prefabricated pieces were the walls, the cores, and the trusses. We wanted to see how having these pieces would change a typical construction process. How would it potentially help or hinder a small team of four?

The Walls

Since our project was about exploring prefabrication in a rural context, we wanted to apply that logic to our walls. The core is the star of the show, but if we had to frame an entire house after they were placed, they wouldn’t shine for very long.

We built 16-foot sections of the wall on our slab, sheathed them, and put on as many battens as we could. We then tilted them up onto a pressure treated 2×6 that had been nailed into the concrete, and we nailed them into place once plumb.

Then we framed the only interior walls for our house: the bedroom and closet walls that, together, form the bedrooms. The only walls we didn’t place were along the length of the front porch. We needed that space open to place the cores. But, we still built them and had them ready to be craned into place by the same crane that would move the cores.

The Cores

The heart of the home. With our slab ready, all we needed to do to complete the cores was to finish tiling. As we prepared the site, whenever it would rain we would go and tile. It was a nice change of pace from hauling wood around! The cores were then prepped to be picked up by our good friend Shane and his crane.

The cores were then prepped to be picked up by our good friend Shane and his crane.

Finally moving the cores was so exciting. If there was any big moment for the project, it was this. Things went as smoothly as they could. The cores are resting perfectly level, and they are aligned with each other. With those components in place, we placed the final walls.

After the kitchen core was placed into the slab depression, the green room walls quickly went up, just in time for the arrival of the bathroom core.

With those cores in place, we placed the final walls, enclosing our finally assembled house.

The Trusses

Most of the trusses were not altered. However, a question was raised. Could we finish the gable end truss with the proper sheathing and framing before it was craned up? So that’s what we did, making the assembly much easier and helping minimize time spent working on scaffolding which is always a good thing.

We learned a lot from this process. Many elements went to plan, and some didn’t, but everything was very informative. If anything, it was amazing to see these pieces assemble over three days and immediately have them present such clear image of the house. You can feel the spaces now as you walk through the house. Of course, now that we can see them, we are already altering the designs. That’s the beauty of design-build.