Hello,

Spent the day yesterday in Arnhem at, what I have to call here, the round wood auction and came home with some I am very pleased with.

My second entry up there DL was not a sarcastic one, it was genuine and comes from my assumption that a timber framed house is built with consideration to structural integrity in and of itself. But that is maybe, or clearly a limited point of view. But it's a question of labels it seems. You have timber frame and you have timber frame like, structures. I wonder how often that distinction is made clear. By the way, maybe it was a blunt reaction. No offense intended.

Greetings,

Don Wagstaff

Don,

Historically most builders did not have to deal with modern codes, and when the frame is buried in the walls you gain the shear by all that other stuff going on around the frame. I've moved 2 German style barns in Eastern PA that were very stout, and later a huge barn in MD that was surprisingly underbuilt. In both cases code really wasn't around when they went up, and even when they were moved the one that became a house (despite how stout it was) needed the shell for the engineers to sign off on it. The large MD barn went back as a barn... with little review required.

Just the nature of the craft. Some places require some pretty strict standards, others do not. It can be tricky depending on locale, code, size, and loading to get what many view as a traditional wood to wood joined frame to pass mystery without taking into account the balance of the structure.

Hi,

Do you think it is too late to change things there where you are? There where the timber frame revival got started while timber frames over here were being covered up with plastic and asbestos?

Greetings,

Don

I'm not sure what to change.

Building codes are here to stay - for better and worse, in many instances for the better, in some not so much. Wishing away the fact that wood to wood joinery needs special consideration to handle lateral and tension loading and that many contemporary frames are just not designed to handle this loading doesn't change things.

Designing a euro style frame as in DL's other thread may solve some issues - but it would increase costs significantly - and I can't see many typical US customers going for having studs, horizontal timbers, and large diagonal bracing running along their walls. (and I haven't studied these options enough to know if they work under load - while the crow bar effect may be minimized from plate or beam to post - there is still a reaction to be had when something pushes on the building from the side - and those forces need to be resolved somewhere in the structure)


I'm all for sane and common sense practices. Before we moved out of our town house we needed to install hardwired smoke and CO detectors as we were attached to 5 other units. This is tricky to do well after the fact (the units were built in the late 80s). Of course - the updated code said that we needed to have a detector (interlinked to all the others) on each floor. Fair enough, one in the basement / garage level, one on the main living space, and one on the bedroom level. The fine print also called out for 1 in each bedroom. So atop our stairs we had 1 in the landing (to cover the upper 'floor') - and 6' away in each direction were 2 more - 1 in each bedroom. The whole place was 1100 sq. ft. - with approximately 450 sq. ft. on each main living level. So on the upper level we had 3 smoke and CO detectors covering 450 sq. ft. of living area, all within a 6' diameter of one another.

Silly, for sure. But someone in Burlington a few years ago hacked up an old Victorian, rented it out to college kids, and jammed way too many 'apartments' into the thing. When the furnace failed and someone died - city council and the fire chief pushed through some new codes. Since then all 'multi' family units were required to undergo the changes at time of a later sale. Even though our 'unit' was single family - but attached to 5 others (with firewalls and no common hallways or entrances...)

I set off the hard wired alarm system in the house I was remodeling in the other day, with a chain saw. I had on ear muffs, I could still hear the beeping, finished the cut and vented the area, it was in the garage, btw. The beeping started within seconds of the saw starting, all through the house.

I like Mike's point on the difference on framing approaches from the American side and the German side. America was at that time booming, they didn't take the time to go into the extra detail as laid out by DL. It worked, they weren't concerned with dry wall cracks, but we are today.

If the alarm systems will save lives, what is the extra effort cost compared to that? Kind of like the road pickle they use today, the roads are bare tar within the day or next, it is a terror for the car itself, but saves lives I am sure. It all comes with a cost. The gray area which Mike points out are the tougher side to accept.

Hi,

Was that the co2 alarm - never heard of that one - the fire alarm, or the burglar alarm?

Yeah, drywall and timber frame - bad combination. But instead of rethinking that one you change the frame to suit the drywall. Or not?

And I don't buy the safety thing. Not that I'm against safety, but that it has anything do with the character of timber framing, quite the opposite.

Greetings,

Don Wagstaff

Agreed on the issue that if the alarm saves a life, great. But someone should have the presence of mind to say that 3 alarms within 6ft diameter might be a bit.... excessive.

Don, not sure I follow you on the latter part of your comment.

We have a habit of taking an extreme case and acting like it is the norm, and passing laws accordingly. Sometimes things fail, things go wrong, etc. and unfortunately people die without it being an inherent flaw in the whole system. Yet we feel the need to over regulate as a result.

All that does is make us dumber in the end. Sure there is something to be said for being safe, but mandating safety doesn't work. You just make a better idiot.
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Lets talk a little more about lateral bracing. I don't think that this would have to make a building more expensive. I don't really even think it is a guarantee that German framing would be inherently more expensive than American, some forms of it I think have the potential to be more affordable. But this is another discussion altogether.

The long braces aren't lateral bracing, but they do contribute. The primary lateral bracing is the horizontal members between the posts, that tie the posts together into a rigid system. This adaptation could very easily be added to a timber frame without making it much more expensive.

Let's look at Pol barns, a related construction method. Pol builders today are aware of the need for lateral bracing to make their frames rigid. This is accomplished by nailing horizontal 2x4's to the outside of the frame every 2 feet, which conveniently also serve the function of supporting the metal siding. Most builders probably think that siding is the only reason for these, but it's not.

Don has a good point as well, we need to make our frames and our walls compatible with each other. We shouldn't use these that don't work together by virtue of their conflicting natures.
Also we need to be (and I think we usually are) well aware of modern concerns that did not apply to builders of the past.

The solution to this is, either only enclose the frame in ways that are compatible with the way we make our frames, or else adjust the way we make our frames to meet modern concerns. We may have to make the frames in different ways for different situations.

The problem with the typical American frame as I see it is this: Load transfers and bracing occur over only a very small area of any timber, the rest is free to flex and bend all it wants. The flexibility problem does not lie in wooden joinery, but rather in the fact that the posts have no reason not to flex. The major flexing does not occur right at the joint, but gradually along the length of the timbers. By enclosing the frame in a rigid system we make it impossible for the timbers to flex. alternately, if we braced the posts against each other they would be unable to flex, allowing us to enclose the frame in a less rigid shell.

Now here is a thought, what if you flipped your larsen truss-like system to run horizontally, suddenly it would provide bracing to the frame.

Hello,

Just this, to put it in power point terms: Timber frame + regulation = safety

Let me know if that is not clear please.

Wow, the graphics really come across fudged on this forum set-up: That's not helpful.

(Can I just say, as a general observation, that the question of pronoun usage - personal and otherwise - really has a defining influence in this form of media. And I think it sucks, unless, that is, we can all agree that we are pretending to be wizards or something. Ok that was it). (I'm going to bump this down to the end so it isn't out there on the active topics page).

Greetings,

Don Wagstaff

I'm not sure it would work, but I'm open to seeing it proven out...