Hello, I'm new to the forums and to timber frame design. My wife and i are wanting to build a timber frame home in about 2 or 3 years and will be doing alot of it ourselves with the help of a family member who is a builder. He has never built a timber frame home and has serious concerns with the CIP panels having no ventiltion in the severe temp swings of michigan where we live. The concern is that the roof would heat up and cause large ice buildup and possibly moisture backup and leakage after that. Can anyone lend some advice or information regarding this. More than likely we will not be able to affored CIP panels and i'm wondering if this type of house can be built without. (How do CIP Panels work in regards to regular ventilated roofs?)

We have thought about a few options to do wihtout:
1. Building the timber frame and building stick walls and possibly doing 2 roof decks to allow for ventilation.
2. Build a normal stick house with regular trusses and see if we could have trusses and beams made to retrofit and give the look of a true timber frame house.

Are these common practices in timber framing and/or could anyone give me any insight or advice on this or better ideas.
Thanks in advance...any help would be greatly appreciated.
Wes

I doubt you would have any ice dam problems with SIPs(structurally insulated panels). Ice damming usually occurs with under insulated roof systems, or poorly insulated roofs, not an issue with SIPs.

Try to avoid the redundancy of the stick build building around the timber frame, not necessary.

Check on line for SIP suppliers and read their info, call and talk to them in person.

I did call and talk to a timber framer a few months back and he gave the impression that the timber framing isn't what makes the process so expensive, its the SIP panels. He suggested that we could do just SIP panels on the roof and do stick built walls to keep costs down. I was going to look into that but i started thinking about doing the 2 roof decks instead of panels there as well. Do you think this would make the process considerably cheaper and/or do you think it would work fine...even though it might be redundant? Ideally i would just like to go all out and do the timber framing the normal way with SIP panels but the ball park figures i'm hearing, i just don't think we can afford it and still get the size house we want.

Try this thread from frwrinks.
http://www.tfguild.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=3557&Number=24616#Post24616

barkerw, I was in the same situation... the SIPS would've ballooned the cost of our project into kazzillions...
I agree with Tim, anything structural on the outside of the TF is redundant...and with SIPS you're paying a hefty premium for redundancy. I found the REMOTE to be the most cost effective way of enclosing our frame. It could be made even more attractive by framing the 2x walls 24"oc (our PEng wanted 16"oc) and if you have a mill, you could mill the 2x material on site. Foam is cheap if you go to the manufacturer or their direct distributor. It only gets expensive on retail level.

BTW Tim, how is the plank house coming along? I remember you had THE best way of enclosing with foam using planks, foam strapping...no nonsense

It's like the carpenter who hasn't the time to work on his own house. I got tin on the roof, later this winter the foam will go on top of the planks. Weekends, if nothing else is crunching and the weather is good I make a little headway, today a cold drizzle that started out as snow. I will post a picture or two as it progresses.

thanks for the post

There are a lot of alternatives to SIPs out there. Folks with different backgrounds will debate about whether the SIPs or the timber frame are the redundent "layer." You can build a SIP house without a timber frame inside it, or you can build a timber frame without SIPs around it, or you can use both. Search the forum for "built up" roofs. Also, some of the classic timber frame books have chapters about ways to build walls and roofs, without SIPs. You've got two years to research it. Good luck.