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What is a timber sill?

Timber sills The sill typically carries the wall framing (posts and studs) and floor joists. There are rare examples of historic buildings in the U.S. where the floor joists land on the foundation and a plank sill or timber sill sit on top of the joists.

en.wikipedia.org - Sill plate - Wikipedia

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Unusual sill framing in a granary of half-timber construction. Long tenons project through the sill plate. Timber sills can span gaps in a foundation. A sill plate or sole plate in construction and architecture is the bottom horizontal member of a wall or building to which vertical members are attached. The word "plate" is typically omitted in America and carpenters speak simply of the "sill". Other names are ground plate, ground sill, groundsel, night plate, and midnight sill.[1][2][3] Sill plates are usually composed of lumber but can be any material. The timber at the top of a wall is often called a top plate, pole plate, mudsill, wall plate or simply "the plate".

Timber sills [ edit ]

An unusual barn in Schoonebeek , Netherlands with interrupted sills, the posts land directly on the padstone foundation

Norwegian style framing, Kravik Mellom, Norway

In historic buildings the sills were almost always large, solid timbers framed together at the corners, carry the bents, and are set on the stone or brick foundation walls, piers, or piles (wood posts driven or set into the ground). The sill typically carries the wall framing (posts and studs) and floor joists. There are rare examples of historic buildings in the U.S. where the floor joists land on the foundation and a plank sill or timber sill sit on top of the joists.[4] Another rare, historic building technique is for the posts of a timber-frame building to land directly on a foundation or in the ground and the sills fit between the posts and are called interrupted sills.

Stick framing [ edit ]

In modern wood construction, sills usually come in sizes of 2×4, 2×6, 2×8, and 2×10. In stick framing, the sill is made of treated lumber, and is anchored to the foundation wall, often with J-bolts, to keep the building from coming off the foundation during a severe storm or earthquake. Building codes require that the bottom of the sill plate be kept 6 to 8 inches above the finished grade, to hinder termites, and to prevent the sill plate from rotting.

Automobiles [ edit ]

In automobiles, the sill plate is located underneath the door and sometimes displays the make or model of the vehicle.

Naval architecture [ edit ]

In naval architecture, sill also refers to the lower horizontal plate (frame) height, above which doors and access opening are fixed.

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What does D mean in nails?

penny Understanding “d” sizes The “d” stands for penny, so 8d refers to an 8-penny nail, 16d to a 16-penny nail and so on. It's a way to indicate nail length, as you can see in the table below.

familyhandyman.com - The Letter 'd' in Nail Sizes - The Family Handyman

The Letter ‘d’ in Nail Sizes

The shocking truth about nail sizes! What they don't want you to know Carpenters always talk about 16d common nails or 8d finish nails or 10d sinkers, but nobody ever explains what the heck ‘d’ means. This article does. You might also like: TBD

Understanding “d” sizes

Nails For historical reasons, nails are sold both by a number followed by d and (less confusingly) by length. The “d” stands for penny, so 8d refers to an 8-penny nail, 16d to a 16-penny nail and so on. It’s a way to indicate nail length, as you can see in the table below. Now for the obvious question: Where does the sizing system come from and why does “d” stand for penny? The “d” goes way back to the time when the Romans occupied what is now England. The “d” is associated with a Roman coin called the denarius, which was also the name for an English penny. So what’s that got to do with nails? It was associated with nails when they were hand-forged, one at a time. Some say a hundred 3-1/2 inch nails would have cost 16 pennies and thus became known as 16-penny nails. Others say that the number and the “d” indicate that one 16d (3-1/2 inch) hand-forged nail cost 16 pennies. Who knows which version is true, or why the “d” designation persists even in the building codes today, but fortunately, retail boxes of nails are marked with the penny size as well as the length in inches. As you can see in the photo, length is only one factor of many in choosing a nail.