Installing a New Window Video 2 of 4 

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I use a tape measure instead of a stick rule.

You are so welcome! If you read lots of comments on my other videos, many feel the OPPOSITE of you. They say, "SHUT UP OLD MAN and just show us what to do!" I've always felt it's important to know WHY something needs to be done and WHAT HAPPENS if you don't do it. You'd do very well to sign up for my free newsletter at www.AsktheBuilder.com

Agreed! Knowing the "why" can help you figure out if something needs to be adjusted in your own build (the bit about the header calculation, for example!). If you just mindlessly follow somebody else's video. you might do things you don't need to, or miss something that you should do, and later it'll bite you in the butt. If I was better about reading newsletters I would sign up, but I'm drowning in email and these days can barely get myself to open my inbox. Better to subscribe to the channel, for me!

+Cynthia Standley In a single story structure with a roof truss system, only two of the walls support the weight of the roof. The remaining two walls, at least in theory would not be load bearing. They are however sheer walls, basically transfers lateral forces to the foundation preventing the structure from folding in on itself.

+Cynthia Standley Not all exterior walls are load bearing. As seephor says in his comment, houses that have standard gable roofs, two sloping simple planes, have a non-bearing wall at each gable end. Look at this column of mine to see my own shed I built using common framing. The wall that has the garage door doesn't have any weight of the roof on it at all. shop.askthebuilder.com/shed-building-videos/

+Ask the Builder, Seephor Thanks. I did not realize that.

+Cynthia Standley I'll add this to totally confuse and combobulate you. I said that the gable ends of a standard roof are not load bearing because the rafters rest on the other two walls. Guess what? HALF of the roof weight CAN BE on two gable end walls IF there are no collar ties in the roof and the ridge board is a giant beam that's supported by a huge column at the center of each gable end! In other words, if you don't know how to look at, and understand, what's going on in a building's structure, don't guess. Hire a structural engineer to come in and tell you what to do.

Ask the Builder o

Truth. I've Cc:d my videographer on this. Watch my NEW live stream videos! Subscribe to get my FREE newsletter here: www.AsktheBuilder.com

That gable end wall in this video is NOT a bearing wall. The slanted rafters are not bearing on the wall at all. If the wall were bearing, then yes, you'd need to support the load. There are all sorts of creative ways to do that.

@@askthebuilder then y r u putting a header on a wall that isn’t load bearing to begin with?

She does. She's the kite string in my life. A great great woman. Watch my NEW live stream videos! Subscribe to get my FREE newsletter here: www.AsktheBuilder.com

It's a gable-end wall. Virtually no weight is above the window.

Because it's not a load-bearing wall.

Oh, that's easy. I'd just use a measuring tape. And applying a little bit of geometry helps too!

If you're CLOSING up a window to make the wall solid, you don't have to remove the header. Just add in the additional jack studs as you have envisioned.

The commenter above is most likely guilty of the most typical flaw of many commenters. That is, he didn't watch the first video in the series and he most surely didn't pay attention to the first 17 seconds of audio where I tell you exactly what's going on.

Hi. First, to be clear, I thought you gave a lovely presentation. And lets state the obvious that my comment did not insult or minimize any aspect of you or your work. Also to be clear, I knew then exactly what was going on because my first words were I EASILY FOLLOWED AND UNDERSTOOD EVERYTHING. That being the installation of a new window opening and window in a gable wall space. You forced me to dig up your 1st video of the series to listen to the 17 seconds just to say you were putting in a new window opening. (While there I perused the whole 1st video.) That was obvious. That was a little silly on your part to make such a silly misinterpretation of what I wrote. I appreciated your response to my comment but felt it wasn't germane because you misinterpreted my use of the phrase "overview of the entire project" thinking it to mean what was the entire subject/purpose of the video. But I specifically prefaced and pinpointed the VISUAL ASPECT OF ALL CLOSE-UP FILMING and NO LONG SHOT TO ZOOM OUT to give "overview of the entire project". Really, there is no way you should have misinterpreted that. I used ALL CAPITAL LETTERS in my response to highlight them because you appear to be a very casual reader and need some help to focus on the point of a given sentence. Nevertheless. There was at least one other (Jason Bryant) who posted the same issue. A single long shot and not a close-up of your entire completed framing project showing all the studs(King/Jack/Trimmer/Cripple with or without the opening cutout would be helpful. That was my one criticism of your video. Many people would call that a picture. You know, the thing that is worth a 1000 words? Others might call it a full diagram. Don't you really secretly agree that a long shot of the framing-project via a long shot would be immensely helpful???? I appreciate that you are dealing with a wide audience and your style is very helpful and comforting to most and I could see your a very nice guy. I, too, found the presentation very nice but a bit long-winded and verbose for me and not nearly as technical a treatise as you seem to think it is. You did skip certain areas in you step by step approach and at times you mentioned them but then did not show anything or just glanced over them. I still standby one and only comment: That "Its easy to Know what you already know!", and because of that you assume without even realizing it that everyone will have the same visual context or overview for the project and knows what it looks like. You should apply this one constructive criticism to ALL your videos. Everyone should. Now I have a second comment: Please put a little more attention and effort into your reading comprehension.

You can frame it that way if you want to, but any structural engineer will school you that your method is overkill and a waste of lumber and an energy-loss vampire.

That's fine if the existing stud is in the correct location. You need a king stud at each opening - period.

You're so welcome! If I were you, I'd go to my www.AsktheBuilder.com website and *READ* all of my past rough carpentry columns. I've got hundreds of *TIPS* there for you that aren't in my videos.

Thanks. Some folks who comment think I talk too much. I feel it's important to try to tell you what's going on in my head as I think about the job.

I believe I said in the video I got a little ahead of myself. It's pretty intuitive when you just pause the video and look at the framing, right? You know the rough opening you need to create, you know the dimensions of the framing lumber so you just cut existing studs at the right heights so when you add the header, trimmers, sill etc. it all works out. What don't you understand about that process? Keep in mind I do these videos for free. If you were paying money to discover the exact step-by-step process, you bet I'd be remiss by skipping over steps like that.

Yes, you can do this.

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It really is! Now, go click the text *THANKS* link under the video and perhaps buy me a beer or a hot fudge sundae. :-)

It's nailed through the king studs. Enough old siding was removed outside to nail the OSB around the perimeter of the opening. Engage your critical-thinking skills!

@@askthebuilder THANKS ! Good Videos....thanks

+seephor You can do it that way. I prefer to have bearing on the ends of the rough sill instead of toenailing it into the trimmer. You can adjust the height of the rough sill in my method at a later date. Just cut it and put in a new sill higher or lower.

@@askthebuilder I don't think you read seephor's post " then another jack stud sistered to the first jack stud to support the still plate" Seephor's description is the correct way to do it and maintain structural integrity.

I did read his comment. What *structural integrity* are you speaking to? What about the king stud? The method you and seephor propose calls for two more pieces of unneeded lumber, there's less insulation in the wall, and my guess is 99.999 percent of all the structural engineers in the USA would probably disagree with you. If your method was the best practice, then you'd see it done your way in thousands of wall details in plans. Guess what? That's not what you see. You see one king stud that runs plate to plate then the jack stud inboard supporting the header. The bottom line is seephor is making a statement ("I would think that's a better method...") with no hard engineering data to back up his hypothesis. Bring that data to the table and let's all have a spirited discussion about it.

@@askthebuilder While there is no absolute "ruling", "split jacks do introduce another hinge point in the wall, which could be problematic in high-wind and high-seismic-risk zones." your wall looks like it was not true load bearing so I might not be worried either, it's just good practice and some DIY youtubers who live in risk zones should at least know before building... www.finehomebuilding.com/2017/09/13/split-jacks-framing-window-opening Think about it from a common sense point of view the king is only supporting one point (16'') the jacks support a header that could be supporting several feet, do we really want to split the jacks... Thanks for the reply.

If your house collapses because you took out a couple studs then you got some real problems. You don't need a temp anything, everything is tied in together

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