There is a good thought here...

We build houses today that by a generous estimate will be totally unattractive to investors in 50 years. After 30 years, investors are not going to be willing to put forth anywhere near what they would have done at 20 years, same thing from twenty to 15, and 15 to ten.

Here an investor doesn't necessarily mean a lifetime real estate investor, but just about anyone who is going to buy a home, especially if that person seriously considers moving to a new house in ten or fifteen years, as so many people seem to do these days. 20 years in the same house is a good run it seems!

From a purely economical standpoint, wouldn't it make far more sense to make a house that is still going to be an attractive investment in twenty years? Especially if you indeed plan on moving in that time period. Wouldn't it be appealing to people to know that they are going to be able to get out of their house a significant portion of what they put into it?

From an environmental standpoint, this is a win-win scenario. The prevalence of a permanent house (instead of modern houses that I would qualify as semi-permanent) in our culture would mean less waste. IT would be an economic win, because modern houses are a terrible investment. The money you put into them will simply dissolve over time.

The key here as I see it is to make timber framing available to everyone, not just the wealthy or those who pretend they are wealthy. To me this means we need to totally rethink everything we are doing right now. We need to look at all the things before us, and decide what will move us toward this goal. SIP's are a terrible inefficiency from an economic standpoint. They inflate the cost of a frame by tens of thousands of dollars, and their prevalence severely limits the availability of timber framing.

Another thing to note, not every timber frame needs to be a grand, open hall. For the purposes of economy, they can be largely indistinguishable from other forms of buildings. Not every frame has to be a show of the fact that it is indeed a timber frame. Not that there is anything wrong with beautiful frames.

I had better stop now, my post is fast turning into a rant! But this is my vision, it is a major goal for me right now and I have put quite a bit of thought into opening up timber framing to everyone, like it used to be 200 years ago.

Maybe I will have to construct a detailed proposition and post it up on the forums some time!