As stated in the site I linked to, if you are going for insulation, then studs on 2 ft centers are BETTER than stud on 16" centers due to the poor insulating qualities of the wood. And it is very easy and cost neutral to put foam on the outside of the sheathing. 2x4 vs 2x6 is usually determined based on local costs of material, as insulation wise, they don’t differ much.
And using 2x6’s does NOT make a structure that will stay square any more than 2x4’s. For sure, 2x6’s in the wall provide additional vertical load resistance (which is not needed unless you are building more than 2 stories or you are building an upstairs weightroom). But to keep things square, the keys are the sheathing, the joists, and the foundation. 2x6’s add no more resistance to racking than 2x4’s do.
I will grant you that 2x6’s have some benefits. Mainly they are more tolerant of screw-ups in the construction. If your electrician cuts a 2" deep notch out of your 2x6 you still havea full 2x4 left which is all you need, but if he gouges that out of yor 2x4, your wall is compromised.
This is exactly right. The ability for a board to stay perpendicular to the ground has nothing to do with how wide it is, it depends on what it is attached to (the foundation, the roof) is moving or not.
It might be easier to imagine a sideways capital letter H. Where the crossing portion is the stud on the wall, and the two side parts are the roof and the foundation. It doesn’t make any difference how thick or wide the middle part is, if the two sides are moving around, the stud will stay off of square. If they never move, it doesn’t either.
I read somewhere that you don’t get much by overinsulating much past the recommended R value, but I can’t find a site for that. Does anyone here have a better Googling ability?
What is recommended has certainly changed in the 25 years I’ve been in my house. And it changed many times in the 75 years before that since it was built.
About 20 years ago, I had insulation added to my attic. I over-did it, even the contractor tried to tell me I was wasting money by insulating so much – I the decreased fuel cost would never amount to enough to pay back the increased cost. Ha! – Given current energy prices, I expect I save that much every single heating season!
My family’s house in the Chicago suburds was built in 1927. It too has 2 x 4’s which are really more like 1.75 by 3.5’s, so this scam has been going back at least until then
I found an old “2x4” at a yard sale today. It is 2.125" x 4.125" I suspect that it is one of the early “2x4s” that allowed for an extra 1/8th inch for finishing! I am not sure yet how I will use it. But i hope I will incorporate it into one of my Steam Punk buildings.
When we went metric, timber could no longer be sold as ‘nominal’ 2 by 4 or whatever. Metric timber is actually the size it is described as, so 50mm by 100mm would be just that.
You can expect a lot of lumber to be dried to some minimum standard to save money. And you can expect to see it continue to shrink as it dries over time.
As an aside: You sometimes see people saying how back in the day, they built things to last, but nowadays, things fall apart quickly. But this is an illusion. In every age, there have been some things built to high quality, and some shoddy things, and the proportion that’s quality has actually been increasing. But as time goes on, the shoddy ones fall apart and get torn down or thrown away, so that all that’s left is the high-quality ones. It’s not true that all of the houses built 200 years ago lasted 200 years, but it is true that all 200-year-old houses have lasted 200 years.
That was what I was going to ask / point out. Other than grumpy types bitching because they’re getting 1.5x3.5 instead of 2x4, there’s no real need for an exact 2x4 board- 1.5x3.5 is plenty strong.