I am in the process of buying 7.5 acres of beautiful woods, that hasn't been logged in over 50 years. There are many very large trees, and it is quite crowded. From what I can tell, there is Redwood, Sugar Pine, and Douglas Fir (one just fell in a storm about 2 weeks ago, about a 60 footer) among other species. This gave me the idea of building a timber frame instead of a typical home. I intend to build it myself. I have been reading up on it a little for the last few weeks, and while I understand the concepts of design, I am obviously going to need some engineering done. Some questions I had:

Do most counties require that timber cut from the site, be graded by an engineer? Is this expensive?

It seems that design can get caught in a catch 22. Before I can cut (or have cut) the logs, I need to know the design and the cut list, but before the design can be done, the engineer will need to know the wood I intend to use, correct? Is there a time tested process to get from here to there?

Please recommend any books you suggest as well.

No big hurry, it will take me probably more than a year to save up for the house. (now that I paid everything I had for the land) So, I figure I have about 9 months or so to get my plans together.

Thanks
Jim

I found these two books to be really helpful: "Build a Classic Timber-Framed House : Planning & Design/Traditional Materials/Affordable Methods" by Sobon and "Building the Timber Frame House, The Revival of a Forgotten Craft" by Benson.

There's nothing like learning by doing, so the next step would probably be to enroll in a timber frame workshop that culminates in raising the frame... then go back and read the books, because they'll make a lot more sense after that! (I think I've read those books at least 3 times, and I learn something new each time.)

And before you get your hopes too high, you might want to go to your courthouse or contact a local builder to see whether (or to what degree) your local government trusts you to build your own house.

It is a lot of hard work, but you can build you own timberframe house - it can be done. Some things are not easily (and certainly not safely) done by one person, so you might want to start thinking about who can help you with the labor - especially during the felling of the trees and the raising of the frame.

-Thomas

hopefully raising a bent #7 today!
blog about our frame... 2 years into this project.

Thanks, those books were in my wishlist, so I just ordered them. I am in the middle of the TFG's Timber Frame Joinery & Design Workbook now, should be done in a couple days.

I am a program manager by trade, so I tend to break everything down into tasks. (ID the trees, cut them down, haul them to site, dry them, mill them, etc.) But of course to do that ya gotta know the tasks first, and the relative order, so that is my challenge for the next few months. I've read that cutting in the winter is best, so I hope to be ready to do that (or have it done, some of these guys are over 100 feet tall!) this coming winter. Been up at the property a few times, and it's kinda funny how many folks stop to offer their services if you want to cut some trees.

Great blog! Reading it makes we anxious to get started. Beautiful hammer beams! I better not show my wife, or she'll want them in our design too. I already talked her out of dormers, after thinking about the complexity of putting them in. Reading the section in this book on hip and valley framing reafirmed my decision. Simplify, simplify I tell her.

Yeah, I realize I will need a class (or three) if I plan to cut these joints myself. But I figure I will cross that bridge when I get to it. Right now, I am focusing on design. (as funds will allow)

Any software recomendations? I see you had some autocad LT drawings. That runs about $2k doesn't it? I was looking at Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Pro 7.0. I have a Punch Pro, but it is more of a toy, and while it can illustrate to my wife what I am thinking, it can't generate plans. BHG Home Design Pro on the other hand, is from the guys who make Chief Architect which is a professional tool. The BHG Pro version is a simplified version that says it can still generate plans, shares the same file structure as Autocad, and can support custom framing (most important)

Thanks
Jim

Jim:
First of all being in CA you'll probably need your design checked by a structural engineer for beam sizing and to comply with your earthquake zone requirements.
An experienced timber frame engineer can do this for you.
To find one, use the resource guide, select the icon on the guild home page, and follow the links to the search page, do a search and get a list of engineers for your area. They should be familiar with the requirements you'll have to meet.
If you select one, and establish a relationship, soon, then he can help you with your design as well.
Once you have the design done based on your needs and the types of trees you hope to harvest, from you own land, you could find a logger who can help you to harvest your trees.
Once harvested and milled into timbers, hopefully grade 2 or better, these timbers can be inspected by a traveling grader from the lumberman's association for your area. Unless the mill that cuts them for you has a grader on staff.
It is this lumber grader who will inspect your timbers not an engineer. An engineer will verify that the sizes of the timbers selected will meet the needs of the plan.
You'll need to do a lot of research and figure everything out first.
If your timbers don't meet up to the standards needed then you'll have to buy replacement timbers of the same size and type from a local mill yard or lumber company. And have your timbers milled into other products you can use for your home. Such as flooring, siding or decking materials.
I believe the Western Wood Producers Association covers your area. You'll have to do a Goggle search and find there website and get some info.

I've had a traveling grader come here to my sawmill site before and inspect and stamp timbers for a barn. And he rejected some timbers that were low grade also. You might need to have some extras on hand the day your inspector comes. We only paid a one day inspectors fee for this service. Under $500. But it was well worth it and it made these timbers comply with the local building inspectors requirements.

About software, Home Designer Pro V7, is a good program for laying out your floor plan and such.
With this info you can then, with the help of a structural engineer work on the plans for the frame to fit inside this shell you've created.
I use Chief Architect for creating models of the shells, and doing other basic drawings that people will need to see and use to construct buildings.

Good luck with your project.

Jim Rogers

You are very wise to seek to simplify the design. Timberframing the hip rafters and jack rafters brought my project to a slow crawl for several weeks. I was so gun-shy that when I got to the valleys, I simplified them considerably, so that purlins rest on (intersect) purlins, and dispensed with valley rafters (for the most part). If you are new to timberframing and drawing up your own plans, I would avoid compound joinery like the plague. (unless you like running in molasses) The layout and planning can really bog you down.

Hammer beams are not as difficult to implement as are hip rafters. Other than the fact that it should be housed, the joinery is not very out-of-the ordinary for hammer beams. On the other hand, the engineering is unique, and you would definitely want to enlist the help of an engineer and experienced timberframer, because intuition could get you in trouble.

You might not want to rule out dormers just yet. I came up with a design (it has probably been done before, I don't know) where a pair of collar ties extend beyond their rafters. This "collar tie extensions" form the top plate for the dormers. I plan to use (gasp) nails to frame the roofs of these dormers. Alternatively, you could just stick frame the whole dormer. I like dormers - they make the top floor livable. My wife wants an eyebrow dormer too, and I've no clue how I'm going to frame it (not with timber frame joinery!), so I told her to buy the window and I'll build something around it. I made sure to leave enough room between two purlins. Whether you use common-purlins or common rafters, timberframing makes it easy to leave large, but structurally sound, holes in the main frame for things like skylights, chimneys, and dormers.

I used a 6yr. old educational version of AutoCAD LT. In retrospect, it would have been worth my time and money to buy and learn a professional 3D CAD program like solidworks. Depending on how complicated your design is, the amount of time you spend on the design could range from nearly zero (no timber drawings, go with one simple bent design, layout joinery for each bent as you go - the old builders didn't use CAD!) to... over a thousand hours (400+ timbers, each one with its own drawing, each drawing with 2 to 6 views and 10 to 50 critical dimensions). You would be way ahead of the game if you could find a complete set of (stamped, built, and guaranteed) drawings that fit your needs.

Good luck. What ever you do, have fun with it!

-Thomas

I don't think it overly conservative to stress the importance of engineering hammer beam trusses, especially when used on a gable. Remember that the traditional use for a hammer beam truss was in cathedrals and they were constrained by massive external stone buttresses. These buttresses were there for a reason. You don't see cathedrals with hammer beams and no buttresses, perhaps at one time they existed but were gradually replaced by a large piles of big broken sticks...