Timber Framers Guild Forums General General Forum Questions northern red oak

Any experience for house construction with this species? We have many large second growth trees on our property we would like to incorporate into the home.

Not meant to be a commercial but the ref link will take you to a website of a company with lots of experience in red oak. See the pretty pix.
http://www.sunsetstructures.com/featured.htm
If you choose to communicate with them tell them I sent you there.
Deralte

Hello lisalong,

Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra) is an excellent timber for framing. I believe it is the strongest of the red oak species and it is beautiful as well. I wish we had more of it here in North Georgia -- we are at the southernmost extent of its range and other oak species predominate.

Good luck,

Gabel

I am in the middle of joining 16,000 bd' of Northern Red Oak. I have enjoyed working with it greatly. It is quite heavy when "green" so material handling can be difficult to impossible without the proper equipment.
The first truck load of 8,000 bd' weighed 40,000 pounds.
Overall I feel blessed to be working with such a magnificent tree.

-Collin

Red oak as we know it in New Hampshire is extremely expensive, and perhaps better put to other uses than timbers. Makes a frame eat up the budget pretty fast.

Okay to work with while green, but takes literally years to season. Owners report hearing the frame crack and pop, waking them in the night months after moving in.

My experience is that careful and precise joinery can be somewhat wasted as the timbers move a LOT while seasoning, making large checks and opening joints.

Timbers rarely remain straight, and tend to warp and bend as they dry, especially if not center-heart.

An "oak frame" seems to be a status symbol, but I feel white pine is more stable and lovable.

Just my personal bias. Many oak frames have been built by better framers than I.

Good Luck.

Pete

I built my own house from a mix of locally harvested trees--mostly lots of white pine and red oak. There's no reason you can't use it--though i can second all the comments about wet weight, shrinkage, and popping. It's main virtues over pine, in my opinion, are that you can use smaller timbers, and you don't risk bluestain. OTOH, it is a darker wood, and you might want to visit a couple homes to see if you like it all that dark. Sanding and oiling or poyurethaning could give you a luster that would offset some of that darkness. Finally, if you are going to cut the frame yourself, be sure to keep your chisels very sharp.