The Owner-Builder's Guide to Frame Stage

If you're an owner-builder about to hit the frame stage, you're about to manage one of the most complex trade sequences of your build. The slab was a milestone, but it was just one trade doing one thing.

The frame stage is different. Your frame and truss supplier, your frame carpenter, your engineer's drawings, the architect's plans, a building inspector, and a full truck of timber all have to come together on a slab that was poured weeks ago.

It goes smoothly when everyone knows their job, and the prep has been done properly. Clear communication and thorough checks help owner-builders feel confident that problems are minimised before frames stand.

This guide walks you through the frame stage from start to finish. Not the engineering, that's your engineer's job. Not the carpentry, that's your frame crew's job. This is about what you need to know as the person running the build.

Before You Order Frames — What Your Supplier Needs From You

A frame and truss supplier doesn't work from a sketch on a napkin. They need a specific set of documents to produce your frames. If anything is missing, the job either gets held up or gets built on incomplete information. Neither is a good outcome.

What your supplier will need:

• Architectural drawings, the plans your architect or building designer produced. These show the building layout, room positions, window and door locations, ceiling heights, and external dimensions. They need to be the current approved revision.
• Structural engineering drawings, produced by your structural engineer, these show the structural system: load-bearing walls, steel locations, member sizes, bracing layout, hold-down locations, and connection details.
• Steel details, if your project includes steel: structural steel shop drawings, or the engineer's steel schedule showing beam sizes, locations, and connection types. The frame fabricator needs to know where the steel is and how timber interfaces with it.
• Window and door schedule, lists every window and door by type, size, and location. Your frame supplier uses it to confirm every opening matches the joinery going into it.
• Consultant reports, geotechnical report, wind classification, bushfire attack level (BAL), or flood planning level. These influence the engineering, which influences the frames.

What Revision Are You On?

This trips up more owner-builders than almost anything else. Every time plans change, the revision number changes with them. Every consultant working downstream, including your frame supplier, needs to be on the same revision.

Before you place your frame order, confirm that the architectural plans, the structural drawings, and the frame fabrication order are all on the same revision number. If they're not, you've got a mismatch that will show up on site.

Choosing a Frame and Truss Supplier — What to Look For

Not all frame and truss suppliers are the same. On a standard project-home build, the differences might not matter much. On a custom home, a renovation, a split-level, or anything with steel and timber working together, the differences matter a lot.

The most important question: Do they review the engineering before fabrication, or do they just run the plans through software and cut?

At Allbuild, Adam (structural engineer) and Michael (45 years of experience as a builder and detailer) go through every project together before anything gets cut. Not a software check, an actual read of the drawings. That's where many of the problems surface.

Other things worth asking:

• Can they handle steel and timber together? If your project includes structural steel alongside timber framing, someone has to coordinate the two systems. Some suppliers model both systems in the same environment and guarantee the coordination.
• What's their communication like? A good supplier tells you what's happening, when it's happening, and what they need from you. If you're chasing them for updates, that's a signal.
• What documentation comes with delivery? You should receive fabrication drawings showing every panel and truss, plus a cutting list and installation notes.

What Happens Between Ordering and Delivery

Once you've placed the order and plans are confirmed, your supplier produces the fabrication drawings, panel by panel, truss by truss. On a straightforward single-storey job, this takes a week or two. On a complex job, it takes longer.

What You Should Be Doing During This Time

Delivery Day — What Arrives and How to Check It

A frame and truss delivery for a standard house is a truck (or two) loaded with pre-fabricated wall panels, roof trusses, loose timber, and hardware.

Wall panels are labelled (P1, P2, etc.) corresponding to the site layout drawing. Trusses are labelled the same way (S1, TS2, GT1, J1).

What to Check on Delivery

• Count panels against the header sheet. If a panel is missing, you want to know while the truck is still there.
• Spot-check panel labels. Pick a few panels at random and check the label against the fabrication drawing. Confirm stud size, opening sizes, and overall panel length.
• Check for transport damage. Look for cracked studs, broken connectors, split plates, and shifted members.
• Confirm trusses match the truss plan. If the plan calls for a double-ply girder truss, you need two plies, not one. A single-ply where a double was specified is a structural issue.
• Check your hardware is on site. Bottom plate anchors, hold-downs, connectors, straps, not there? Your crew either can't start or has to come back.

Standing the Frames — What Your Frame Crew Does

Unless you're a qualified carpenter or builder yourself, you're not setting the frames. You're managing the process and ensuring it's done according to the drawings.

General Sequence

1. Bottom plates go down first. Set out on the slab, checked for position and alignment, fixed with anchors as specified on the structural drawings.
2. Wall panels go up. Stood in sequence, plumbed, braced temporarily, and connected to the bottom plates. Load-bearing walls typically go up first.
3. Bracing and straightening. Panels plumbed and straightened, temporary bracing installed, plate heights checked.
4. Top plate connections. Where panels meet, top plates are connected. Double top plates need joints staggered.
5. Roof trusses go on. Craned into position, plumbed, braced, set at specified spacing. Temporary bracing stays until permanent bracing and roof cladding are installed. AS4440 sets out minimum requirements for safe erection.
6. Permanent bracing and battens. After trusses are set, permanent bracing goes in, then roof battens. The structure is then ready for the roof plumber.

What You Should Be Watching For

• Are panels in the right positions? Check the site layout. On a busy site with 30+ panels, mistakes happen.
• Are the frames plumb? Check with a spirit level. Your frame crew will have done it, but it's your build, verify.
• Is the bracing nailed to spec? Structural plywood bracing has a specific nailing pattern. Bracing nailed at the wrong spacing doesn't achieve its rated capacity.
• Is the hold-down hardware installed? Every location specified on the structural drawings needs its bracket, anchor, or strap in place at the frame stage.
• Do opening sizes match your schedule? Wrong rough openings are much easier to fix in a bare frame than after lining is on.

Inspections at Frame Stage

The frame stage requires an inspection before you can proceed. Depending on your approval pathway, this is done by a private building certifier or local council.

What the Inspector Checks

• Compliance with approved plans. The frames as built should match the construction certificate (CC) drawings.
• Structural adequacy. Stud sizes, bracing, hold-downs, connections, lintel sizes, and top plate configurations checked against the engineer's drawings.
• Termite protection. Correct installation of the termite management system at the frame stage.
• Wet area framing. Correct treated timber in bathrooms and laundries (H2 minimum), with nogging at correct heights.
• Fire-rated walls. Common in townhouses and duplexes, the inspector checks the frame configuration matches the fire-rated wall spec.

How to Prepare for the Inspection

Get the paperwork to the site before you call the inspector: approved CC drawings, engineering drawings, and fabrication drawings. The frame crew needs to be finished, an inspection of a half-completed frame is a failed inspection.

Walk it yourself first. Take the structural drawings, go panel by panel, and check everything you can see. Far better for you to find a missing hold-down than for the inspector to find it.

Common Owner-Builder Mistakes at Frame Stage

After Frame Stage — What Comes Next

Once the frame inspection is passed, you're clear to move forward:

• Roof cladding. Get the roof plumber on promptly. Standing frames with no roof are exposed to the weather.
• External cladding and wrapping. Wall wrap goes on, then external cladding. This weatherproofs the frame.
• Rough-in trades. Electrician, plumber, and mechanical trades run cables, pipes, and ducts through the frame. There are limits on what you can cut out of a structural member, see AS1684.
• Insulation and lining. Once the lining is on, the frame is hidden. Everything that was wrong is now buried. This is why getting it right at the frame stage matters.

A Note on Steel and Timber Together

If your project includes structural steel alongside timber framing, coordinating the two systems is one of the most important things to get right, and one of the hardest for owner-builders to manage.

If your steel fabricator and frame supplier aren't talking to each other, you find out on delivery day. The beam is 15mm higher than the frame was designed for. Bolt holes don't line up.

At Allbuild, we model the steel and the timber in the same environment, one model, one file. Our sister company, 1Stop Building Group, handles steel fabrication, so both systems are built from the same model. Clashes get caught on screen instead of on your slab.

The Owner-Builder's Frame Stage Checklist