Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Stacked 2x4 construction

I've never seen it here in the NC mountains, and I love to inspect old houses. It would be easy to build that way, and pretty well insulated.

Saw a new home circa 2001 built near Greensboro NC. Evidently the "builders framer " could not differentiate between an 8 ' and 9' high wall on the blueprints so he used built up 2x4s to go from 8 to 9 foot to cover his mistake . My dad would call that class of individual a shoemaker, Looked like crap but the Bldg Inspector passed it .

And cribbing is temporary...

A 747 in Prudhoe Bay taxied off the runway apron. Cribbing to almost touch the wing then airbags to lift. Water and let freeze to build a ramp... out in no time...

A crib will hold corn cobs. Grain? Not a chance. It will flow like fine sand. That will be empty in no time. It takes a strong solid wall to hold grain.

This is a grain elevator showing some of the x-bracing for strength

tide,

cool stuff.

I searched but cannot find a picture of the construction method used in a house I rented a room in while attending school in NorCal. Old mill town, redwood was abundant and cheap. That house existed by 1904 or so as I saw it, and other mill worker housing , on historic pics at the local museum.

Wish i could find pics. I found out how it was built after 3 earthquakes above 5.0 hit in 24 hrs and cracked the doorframe. Landlady's insurance paid for the fix, dude came out and pulled out the door and frame. NO STUDS! as in zero, not for the door frame or anywhere in the original section of the house.

3 layers of 10 or 12 inch wide, 1 inch old growth redwood boards, run diagonally in opposite direction every layer. They just cut a hole where they wanted to put a window or door and nailed the frames into the butt ends of the cut.

Very active earthquake area and that method must have worked well as the house was standing some 90 years after it was built and the landlady had been there for decades and said that's the first damage since she'd been there.

Would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. Repair guy said it was like that in the houses along that street and other mill towns from when lumber was cheap and available. Wish I'd have been smart enough to take pictures.

The elevators were built like a log cabin, no gaps.

There are quite a few line shacks and cabins out in central Nevada built on the same principle...only out of railroad ties, easy to heat, in many cases just a wood fired cook stove, short on windows though, either by design for heat retention or difficulty cutting ties. Nothing quite like a dirt saturated tie to ruin a sharp saw.

that stewing in creosote vapors probably killed off the crabs from the monthly visits to the bawdy houses in town too.

In 1972 the wife and I lived in Zig Zag, the neighbor behind our place was building a stack framed house, with 2x10 outside walls and stud framed inside walls. The builder worked at a mill and got all the outside wall trim wood free!

Pretty cool. Can't say I've ever ran across a house or building like the OP posted.

Looks like rough cut lumber or as was done in the old days, a true 2x4. Wonder if it's something like chestnut or locust? Can't imagine most other woods would hold up untreated. Surely there is others, but those 2 hold up to the elements and chestnut would've been around yet in all likely hood when that old place was constructed.

The OP said it's in NE Oregon. Most of that country is pretty dry. As long as it's sitting on rocks or cement to avoid contact with the soil, pine or fir can last a long time. I've seen many abandoned shacks here in so. Idaho where it's dry and some have the wood in pretty good shape for being 100+.

Just saw a show on I think First Alaskans, where they did this with local trees. Looks like they cut to 6X6 and just stacked them up. Course this was a small cabin (guess 10X10) but it went up fast and was plenty sturdy. Gives a good overview of how it was done.

Never seen it in Colorado and I've seen most of the old ghost towns and some 19th century towns still occupied. I think you are right. Makes a lot of sense when 2x4 materials were cheap and abundant. Easy to build, structurally sound and good insulation.

I wonder if they are actually 2"x 4".

With that type of design, I wouldn't think there would be much need of a king stud.

I wonder, how they finished the inside of the building.

When I lived in Montana, I had a person ask me and the fellows I worked with, if we would build him a garage like this. I asked him, why would you prefer a building built like that over conventional way of building.
His reason: Because he didn't know how to build anything the conventional way. He didn't know how to frame for a window or a door, or layout for studs in a wall.

I tried to get him to relax. This is why you hire some professional for the job.

We built him a nice garage.

Take care.

Near all similar structures I've seen were old granaries.

That’s pretty cool. Cant say I’ve seen it before.

Might start hoarding some scrap lumber😁

I just (November) bought 40k BF of White Pine logs...

It will be hitting the mill in January, if anyone wants/needs some please drop me a PM (I need about half of the job).

The wood will be in Brandywine, WV (25 minutes from Harrisonburg VA). I will be very cost effective. It will be green when you get it.

I think the affordability of the method died when OSB gained momentum in the mid 80's.

Prior to the demand for OSB, slab wood and various lengths of 'mill ends' were in abundance at the local mills near me.

I bought slab wood to cut up and sell as firewood in my campground. I paid $10 a bundle which would be a heavy pickup load at 8 to 12 ft in length.

That's when I took notice of the available 'mill ends' which included every size of dimensional lumber. Most all of it had some 'live edge' which appeared to be why it was culled out and cut off.
That was also $10 a truck load.

After they started making OSB, everything went in the chipper.

The last of the cheap wood I could get from the mills for firewood was 'spin offs'. Those were big fat logs they used for cutting veneer. They'd stick those logs in a machine that spun them up against long blades to cut the thin layers of wood for the manufacturering of ply wood.

If the logs didn't hold in the machine and 'spun out' and couldn't turn they were scrapped.

They upped the price to $20 a bundle for those but in short time they got a chipper strong enough to handle them and that was the end of that.

Quite a few older grain elevators in Minnesota were constructed like that. Hell for stout...never seen a tornado take one down.

I have built 8 log cabins. The key to long-term survival of an all-wooden structure is to have massive roof overhangs. I go with at least a 4 foot roof overhang on all sides. Let the metal roof take the beating, of the rain and snow, and the sunshine.

The cabin in the OP has one foot roof overhangs. Better than no overhang but not good enough.