A sill plate or sole plate in

construction Construction are processes involved in delivering buildings, infrastructure, industrial facilities, and associated activities through to the end of their life. It typically starts with planning, financing, and design that continues until the a ...

and

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

is the bottom horizontal member of a

wall A wall is a structure and a surface that defines an area; carries a load; provides security, shelter, or soundproofing; or serves a decorative purpose. There are various types of walls, including border barriers between countries, brick wal ...

building A building or edifice is an enclosed Structure#Load-bearing, structure with a roof, walls and window, windows, usually standing permanently in one place, such as a house or factory. Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and functions, a ...

to which vertical members are attached. The word "plate" is typically omitted in America and carpenters speak simply of the "sill". Other names are rat sill, ground plate, ground sill, groundsel, night plate, and midnight sill. Sill plates are usually composed of

lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...

but can be any material. The timber at the top of a wall is often called a top plate, pole plate, mudsill,

wall plate A plate or wall plate is a horizontal, structural, load-bearing member in wooden building framing. Timber framing A plate in timber framing is "A piece of Timber upon which some considerable weight is framed...Hence Ground-Plate...Window-plat ...

or simply "the plate".

Timber sills

Zicht op doorgang van de schuur - Schoonebeek - 20411613 - RCE

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

joist A joist is a horizontal structural member used in Framing (construction), framing to span an open space, often between Beam (structure), beams that subsequently transfer loads to vertical members. When incorporated into a floor framing system, joi ...

s. 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.Sobon, Jack A.. Historic American timber joinery: a graphic guide. Fourth printing. ed. Becket: Timber Framers Guild, 2010. pp 21, 22. 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

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

automobiles A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...

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

Naval architecture

naval architecture Naval architecture, or naval engineering, is an engineering discipline incorporating elements of mechanical, electrical, electronic, software and safety engineering as applied to the engineering design process, shipbuilding, maintenance, and op ...

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

References

* Burrows, John (2005).
Canadian Wood-Frame House Construction
'.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC; , SCHL) is Canada's federal crown corporation responsible for administering the ''National Housing Act'', with the mandate to improve housing and living conditions in the country.McAfee, Ann. 2013 ...

, .

External links

US Coast Guard Load Line Technical Manual
{{Room Building engineering Structural system Woodworking Architectural elements Carpentry