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Thread: Timber Frame Workshop (and house...)

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
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    Chappell Hill, Texas
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    Timber Frame Workshop (and house...)

    So, this might turn out to be a long thread... long from a time-period standpoint, and long from a lot of posts. (and maybe long from my windedness too! )

    I want to build a timber frame shop and house. I can't afford hiring it out. The house I had quoted was $100K just for the frame and SIPs. No slab, no exterior walls. Ouch.

    My wife and I love the look of a timber frame. We've set our sights on doing it.

    So, what do I need to do it?

    Well, a piece of property would help. We have a piece of property, bought pretty quickly a year ago when we saw it, but the acreage community that it belongs to, unfortunately, has been bestowed with the highest property tax in the county, and, the houses (2 of the 17 lots) that have been built so far, look like typical "subdivision" homes. Not a lot of "country" character. We bought "in the country" for that country "look and feel", but that ain't happening where we bought. The good news is that the property has gone up about 15-20% since we bought it. Just under 3.5 acres in Washington County, Texas.

    Next, some way to move and shape logs. No tractor, but I do have a pickup and a 16' trailer. And an electric winch for it. A couple chainsaws. I bought a Prazi beam saw attachment for my Skil Worm saw here a while back too. I've been eyeing a LOGRITE.com forwarding arch. Not ready to bite that bullet yet - or make one myself. Timber framing tools. Gave the wife a hint and a John Neeman price list. Birthday is November. We'll see if it stuck.

    Bandsaw mill. I actually had the day off from work today, and drove 370 miles round trip to go see a demo of a Logmaster LM1 mill. Nice folks. Nice mill. The one I spec'ed out would be about $10.5K. Note to self: buy a lotto ticket. I've also been eyeing Danny's mill (Hi Danny) that's for sale in the classifieds. No place to store it now. Looks like a good deal.

    Time and help. My dad is retired, 72, and is an ox. He could help. But he's also a freight train when it comes to getting things done. He doesn't stop to necessarily do it right - but that's what I've observed him do on his projects. Love ya dad.

    Plans. I've started them, but I've never designed this type of structure before, but I'm willing to learn. Had I to do it over again, I would go to college and get a mechanical engineering degree, and structural, and civil, and electrical, and business finance. But alas, approaching 50, that ain't going to happen. I'm a high school graduate and proud of it.

    I'll post some sketchup tinkerings later for my shop plans. I'm planning about 1600 square feet and then a loft for storage and maybe temp living quarters upstairs too.

    Here we go.....

    Todd

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Location
    Cedar Park, TX
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    172
    I can't wait to watch this thing develop! We are thinking of doing the same thing. We are lucky and have family property in Leakey, TX. Already have a nice spot picked out. We want a timber frame house and wood shop connected with a dog run. Washington County is a beautiful area. Are you thinking of selling your property now and buying something a little more secluded?

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
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    London, Ont., Canada
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    Have you thought about buying beams from a disassembled barn? that'd save on shaping logs for sure.
    "It's Not About You."

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by jason thigpen View Post
    ... Are you thinking of selling your property now and buying something a little more secluded?
    That's exactly what we are thinking. Been looking for a few months now - just haven't found the right one in the right area yet. Working without a timing pressure is probably prolonging the search.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Art Mulder View Post
    Have you thought about buying beams from a disassembled barn? that'd save on shaping logs for sure.
    Hi Art. I have looked (internet) at several. A lot of the "barns" are more suited as... barns!! Lots of middle posts instead of clear spans. Won't work too well for the shop I want. And, they are still fairly expensive. I'm thinking that purchasing a mill, tractor, logs, and associated tools will cost about the same as these repurposed "kits", if not less, and I'll have new lumber and a design I pick. Yes, more labor will be involved on my part, but that's OK. There are certainly a lot out there to choose from with neat histories though.

  6. #6
    If you are looking for a strong, low cost mill, you might look at the EZ Boardwalk, built in MO. Any chance there are trees with long logs on property you might buy? And forget any other piece of equipment besides a tractor with fel or a skidsteer. The arch might be ok for logs away from your own property, but the tractor or skidsteer is the only way to go when logs are close by. Forks for the loader are a must.

  7. #7
    Buy this book: "The Craft of Modular Post & Beam" by James Mitchell. The guy writes like a total survivalist nut bar, but the book is brilliant and well thought out for those who want to take a go at post and beam themselves.

    Just to fan the flame, I would go a step further than just buying timbers from a pulled down barn; buy the whole frame, piece mark it, and put it back together on your new site. It may not be exactly what you want, but it will save you thousands of dollars and months of time. You can always tweak the frame to suit your needs.
    Last edited by Richard Shaefer; 09-07-2012 at 10:41 PM.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    New Hill, NC
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    2,568
    Todd, you might want to consider joining the Forestry Forum (www.forestryforum.com). There are quite a few timber framers on there and lots of good info.

    I don't recall there being a lot of large, straight trees in the Brenham, TX area, so you may need to source your logs from Bastrop or East Texas. If you have to go that far for them, you may be better off having them milled at a local mill as opposed to transporting and doing them yourself.

    Lots of great timberframe books around. In addition to James Mitchell's book, look for those by Steve Chappel, Ted Benson, and Steward Elliot. I recall that one of Chappel's books has some technical guidance as well.

    Check with the local permitting folks about codes related to timber frames. Some county's are very supportive - others less so.

    Best of success with your projects! It's a wonderful craft.

    Scott

  9. #9
    Had another thought on this. If you do not have the trees, timber frame is going to be expensive. Have you considered building a Morton building style building? If you have access to look at one of these modern pole type buildings, Morton uses laminated poles, where they jog the ends of the boards, using treated in the ground, and graft framing lumber onto them for the tops. The trusses sit in a notch in the pole, and they have joist hangers fastened onto the trusses for the nailers. For bracing, they X the building with flat steel that is unrolled and nailed in an X pattern in 3 or 4 areas. The trusses are heavy, and are from 10' or 12' on center. Some other brands use poles on 8' centers. My thinking, an improvement would be to put steel anchors in the concrete to set your poles on, so you bury no wood. Some of my neighbors have had treated poles rot off, and they had to dig the pole out, and put concrete in the hole and build an anchor to hold the pole. Be easier if you just built it that way.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
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    Central North Carolina
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    A former neighbor wanted to do this. He bought a portable sawmill and arranged with a local farmer to buy trees. He began by cutting and milling the logs and storing them in a 2 car garage. When he was ready, he moved this timber to his new property and built a 4 car sized timber framed garage from them, with plans to continue milling enough timber to build his new home. Shortly after he completed his garage, the town zoning board passed a law requiring that all framing materials used in new construction had to be inspected, graded, and stamped by a certified inspection agency. He first hired a lawyer to fight the law, since he had already received a permit to build his garage and house, but without success. Then he spent months trying to get his timber inspected and graded to meet the requirements, but in the end he gave up and built a conventional home with materials purchased from the lumber yard. I hope you are successful. That's a major undertaking for someone who is also working a full time job. My neighbor had taken early retirement to follow his dream, worked at it from sun up to sun down 6+ days a week for several years, and still was not able to succeed.

    Charley

  11. #11
    Hi Todd,

    I'm probably one of the few who can say "been there, done that"

    I took a year off and went full time clearing part of an 8 acre lot, harvested logs and had a woodmizer man on site to mill up 10,000 BF of beams and boards.

    I built a modification of Jack Sobon's Hall and Parlor frame and still live in it today.

    It's hard to address your topic without writing a book (and there are several very good ones out there... by Ted Benson (I like his older work), Steve Chapel and as I mentioned Jack Sobon).

    This is a HUGE undertaking.... I started in '96, intending to be living in an unfinished house within a year. I ran out of money in the summer of '97 with the frame up, panels up (no windows) and typar wrapped and the roof shingled.... and had to go back to work. Got married 9 mo. later and didn't move into the "unfinished" house until late winter of '99. I still don't have trim in the upstairs bathroom... but we've had three kids, built a large stick framed addition and a barn and flipped a cottage in the interim.

    Here's some lessons I learned.
    1. Either use a prooven plan... or ... have somebody who Timber Frames for a living review your plan.
    2. DO NOT pour hundreds of hours of your labor into sub-standard materials. You want timbers with straight grain and no reaction wood. If I did it again, I would spec. the timber grades, buy from a local mill, and insist that they pass my personal inspection b4 being delivered and paid for. I would also seriously consider UV KD timbers. Why? You can get HUGE checks in your pretty TF and mourn over them for the rest of your life.
    3. You have to have non-load bearing, studded (preferably with 2x6) interior walls that do NOT have timbers under or above them planned into your design to get cable, water and air up and down.
    4. You must take carpenter ants very seriously and invest in keeping them away from your SIPs.
    5. You need to be extremely fussy about window, door and trim flashing when you side the house, as rotted SIPs are a huge pita and expense to repair. I'm not sure I would use SIPs again.... actually, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't.
    6. If you do go with SIPs, use Urethane and not EPS.
    7. When you have your plan drafted up... consider having Benson quote cutting it for you on their Hundiger (CNC beam cutter).

    Charlie makes good points about dealing with the code enforcement crowd. TF construction is not cook book UBC type stuff. Unless you live in a rural (free) state, you will need an engineers stamp on your plans and some type of certification of the materials. Even if your CE let's you build it, realize that you may have a difficult time if (heaven forbid) you ever have to sell it, as most home inspectors won't have any idea what they're looking at.

    I am very proud of my house, and building it was one of the highlights of my life. But it is not for the faint of heart.

    Good luck with yours. Feel free to pm me with any questions.
    Last edited by Matt McColley; 09-13-2012 at 3:39 PM.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
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    Well, I'm back on this project. I decided 1600 sf was not big enough. This is 2400sf (40 X 60), plus a 2nd floor (~1100 sf). (See here for background on this comment: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...m-out-of-space)

    I decided that designing from the outside in might be faster / easier. This is a look I like. The shape is what I'm after - the window placement/style, cupola size, overhangs, etc. are all details that I may leave to others more knowledgeable, or might have to move based on framing placement.

    This will give me a second floor for storage / lumber, a possibly a living area to use while the house is being built.

    SketchUp010.jpg SketchUp012.jpg

    In the second pic, the horizontal dotted lines show my interpretation of where an 18" truss (or glulam, or??) thick floor for the second floor will be. Might not require that thickness, and if not, i would lower the center raised portion so that the window heights would be similar to what I show now.

    I show one side roof extended 12'+ that will be outside storage. Under that, I will park my trailer, and, possibly also park a portable bandmill. 60' should be long enough for that. That open side would face west. I don't show any entrance door yet. I would probably have a rollup insulated door inside the 10' x 10' sliding door opens on the south and north sides too.

    I guess it looks a bit like a barn. Bottom story has a 12' ceiling. Doing hammer beam trusses on the second floor would be awesome.

    I'm thinking of just using wood horizontal lap siding. It should last 50 years+.
    Last edited by Todd Burch; 12-02-2012 at 8:42 PM. Reason: typo

  13. #13
    I like your plan. Always thought a barn would make a cool shop. By the time you build that thing, and finish the upstairs for living quarters, I'd probably quit as I'd have spent enough money.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    the Berkshires, MA
    Posts
    10
    I'm not sure if you're still planning on going timber frame with your current plan. My shop is similar in general form (I attached some pics from last year). I'm a professional timber framer and GC, and I design them as well. I'd have to say that you could perhaps make what you drew work, but it would be difficult. There are 2 easy solutions to maintain the overall form, but it make it work structurally. One is to extend posts from the main, high part of the shop down to the floor. The sheds then would sit on ledgers attached to the posts. That's how my shop is built, with a 30' wide timber frame core, and 11' wide sheds on either side. The other way is make it more like a monitor barn, and have that high part of the shop be only maybe 8' wide. Also I have part of my shop that is clear span (for cutting timbers) and part that is an old barn frame with interior posts. There's a lot of room between those posts for machinery and moving wood around. Forty foot clear span is no joke for a very simple frame, nevermind using the upstairs for storage, and having a second roof system sit on top.
    Attached Images Attached Images

  15. #15
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    Hi Brad - thanks for the information. How do I see more of your work?

    If I understand you correctly, a 40 foot span is more difficult with a timer frame, and putting a second floor on top of that, with a heavy live load requirement, is even more difficult. Correct?

    The span for the 2nd floor would be 20' or so. Perhaps I could use TF trusses up there? I think a hybrid approach could be fine - might even save me some $$ too. ??

    Could I do TF posts for the first floor, glulams (or site built) beams across the posts, then typical I-beam style trusses for the first floor ceiling / second floor floor, then TF posts for the second floor and finally TF trusses? Is this too much a kludge? Would I get more clear span and spend less? My current shop (with is a sub-area of a 1200 sf garage, is just under 600 sf laid out in 20' x 30'. A 20' x 30' clear span is plenty in my current setup - no need to improve on this. I supposed ~20' x ~20' sections would work well enough too.

    I'm considering using a perimeter beam foundation, plus piers or additional beams where needed. (Being able to store lumber underneath the first floor, on a (dare I say this...) slab basement/crawl space floor) would be nice, and then the live load for the second floor would be significantly reduced.

    Todd

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