Timber Frame Design

[Agalia Valcin]

Timberhomes are complete structures made of heavy timber vertical posts supporting horizontal beams. These form cross-sections called bents, and multiple bents create bays. Other members such as knee braces and struts provide support to the frame.

Log homes are built of logs stacked horizontally, which structurally form the walls. Log homes tend to have a horizontal profile formed by these stacked elements. Log homes are easily identifiable from the outside because the logs are left exposed.

Post and beam construction uses heavy timbers much like timber framing. The timbers may be round logs or milled square timber. What makes the different from timber framing is they use metal fasteners, which are either hidden or exposed on the face of the beams.

Thank you. We include the floor system in a couple of our plans but most people that purchase the plans are not looking for the floor framing and wall purlins. As I mentioned we do have a couple of plans that have them and are happy to share any info about them that you need to be successful with your project.

Hello;

I want to build a timber frame structure to support a 2 or 3-car shelter roof.

I think a timber framed structure would be to superior to the usual metal tube construction.

The metal tubes are not real sturdy & timber framing should be much better.

Not having timber-framing experience I need someone that knows or some plans & instructions.

Is that something you could do?

Thank you in advance for your kind assistance.

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So, the e-mail comes through and it shows the walls I expected but it is missing one I was planning on using as a support. They have instead used a dwarf wall and are spanning the beams in that section the other way around. No worries I think, I can add a Beam to support the joists. I respond telling them, I would have liked an additional loadbearing wall but we should be able to make do without. I advise that they slow down and await the engineering results etc. and say I will chase the Architect for the latest drawings and quickly rush out a setting out plan, for the end of the week.

A quick call to the Architect informs me they were only employed to do the planning drawings and there are no building regulation drawings. But he will send them through right away. Ping! They come into my inbox while I am still on the phone. I hang up the phone and open the CAD drawings.

Now time for the metal web joists. Without an engineer looking at the beams I can calc them myself when designing the floor. I will try with metal web trimmers first; this will make it easier for services. Unfortunately, not so lucky, so I will try softwood trimmers, nope still too high in deflection, Glulam? Brilliant it works.

Plates printed and issued, Panels printed, stacking sheets created, labels printed, joists printed and issued, labels, CE/UKCA information issued. Truss paperwork issued, girder fixings issued, spandrels, ladders, noggins. Did I miss anything? So much for just pressing a button.

The life of a timber frame designer is a lot less, timber frame design and a lot more of everything else. This is a generic project and sometimes it is worse, sometimes it is better. It is also not a complete comprehensive list, we may have had to deal with site safe and fire safety issues, part L and Psi-value junctions. Then again, some designers may just design panels and the rest is left to someone else. I myself also do the STA audits, I use power automate to streamline a repetitive processes and spend a lot of time doing R & D.

Is there a Forum For this subject? Is anyone out there using Fusion 360 For mortise and tenon cutting? I make tables and benches all with wood joinery and cut the joints with a 16'x7' CNC machine I built 5 years ago. Would like to connect with others doing this. I use fusion 360 and Mach3 on a laptop to run CNC stepper motors. Below is an attachment of a pegged table stretcher tenon.

I don't think I've seen someone employ CNC in timber frame building, that's awesome! My brother does timber frame the "old fashioned" way and I've helped him put up a couple structures in the last few years. Truly a beautiful building, even when it's just the frame.

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I have been intrigued with timber-frame building since reading a Ted Benson book many years ago, so when the opportunity to build a new house presented itself, I decided that it was time to give it a try.

I am not a professional builder, so in preparation I took a course at Gibson Timber Frames in Perth, Ontario, and then a second course at Fox Maple School of Traditional Building in Maine. (Both courses are highly recommended.) I then spent the next year and a half designing the timber frame itself and choosing the building systems that would be used. My main goal was to learn a bit, enjoy the process, and have fun.

A timber frame is built with longevity in mind and I felt that the other systems selected should be consistent with this goal. I live in Climate Zone 6 (bordering on 7), so obviously airtightness and good thermal performance are important. But I also feel that a house is not a series of abstract specifications and numbers, but rather a place that you live in. It is a balance between functionality, beauty, and heart. In this particular build, I was leaning more to the heart side.

The footprint of the frame is about 1,250 square feet and the cathedral ceiling height is about 19 1/2 feet. This blog describes the solution I found for a very specific problem: how to enclose the timber frame with an energy-efficient shell (without breaking the bank).

There are a number of good design approaches for walls and roofs that achieve excellent energy performance. This made choosing the enclosure one of the most difficult and time-consuming aspects of the design.

I first had to decide whether to use an infill system (where the walls are built between the timber posts) or an external shell that enclosed the complete frame. Infill is fussy work, difficult to air-seal, and difficult to add services to, and since I also wanted to fully expose the frame on the inside of the building, the best choice for me was an external shell.

For the shell, I looked at a number of different wall construction systems before narrowing the choice to four different approaches (for four quite different reasons): SIPs, wood chip/clay, standard 26 with exterior foam, and Larsen trusses with dense-packed cellulose.

Initially, my first choice was to use SIPs: They have a history of use on timber frames and many people in the field told me that this was the easiest system to use, which is probably true. The construction is very fast and it is possible to get panels that have drywall already installed.

However, as I worked through the design there were several things that I found problematic. The material cost is high and it is necessary to hire a crew and a crane to erect the panels. It is of course possible to do the work yourself, but you then lose the primary advantage, which is speed. I also did not like the idea of a system that depended on absolutely perfect installation technique, especially since many seams are blocked by timbers, making it fairly difficult to achieve this level of perfection.

I consider the REMOTE system to be one of the most elegant solutions to building a robust, high-performance structure in a very cold climate. There are several very good references for REMOTE building, most of which were published by Thorsten Chlupp and The Cold Climate Research Center in Alaska.

In many respects, there is now little difference between a REMOTE wall and an advanced 26 wall with exterior insulation: the two systems seem to have converged. I think that when the same solution is arrived at from two different directions, then it is probably a good solution.

I am not an expert, but to me the main difference between these two systems is the placement of the air/water control layer and the amount of outer insulation used. In a REMOTE wall, the air control layer is placed in the middle of the wall, and although this seems like a minor change, it makes a big difference in terms of ease of construction and the future integrity of the building system. In my view, one of the major advantages of the REMOTE system is that you can easily air-seal the shell. And once you are finished there is no danger that future work (such as plumbing, electrical, or drywall work) will undo all of the careful air sealing.

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