Cripple studs, headers and sole plates
Buddy travelled up to the Lumby workshop to meet up with the Zero Waste Tiny Home building team to take some pictures of the wall framing of the tiny house and to discuss material choices as the build progresses.
Tiny Homes walls are built like "Mighty Mouse" -small but strong. The strength and the integrity of the load-bearing walls will save the day when snow piles up on roof or as wind whips at the box-like structure.THOW’s (Tiny Homes on Wheels)must deal aggressively with lateral loads that are amplified by the often narrow and tall proportions and the propensity for vibration and wind forces during transportation. The vertical structure of THOW’s are burdened much more by lateral forces and much less from vertical gravity loads because the total square feet of roof space to bearing wall is proportionally very close compared to a normal sized home with trusses spanning upward of 30-40 feet.
In layman's speak "You don't want your house to collapse or buckle".
Exterior walls are almost always load-bearing.A wall is a collection of studs (in our case 2×6) equally spaced (in our case 16 in. on center) and sandwiched between top and bottom plates.
In builder's speak these are the things you are looking at :
Headers (called lintels by architects) run horizontally over the top of door and window rough openings and support the weight of floor joists, ceiling joists, and rafters from above.
Trimmer studs support each end of the header.
Cripple studs are short studs installed above a header or below a window sill or saddle.
The sole plate or sill plate in construction and architecture is the bottom horizontal member of a wall or building to which vertical members are attached.
Now that you can pick out the anatomy of a wall; here are some more pictures of our walls.