Traditional Framing:

If you ever have a chance to walk around an old barn or see the bones of a really old homestead shelter you’ll notice that those massive posts and beams don’t land straight on the foundation but on even larger timbers, the sills. Our forebearers built this way based on centuries of practical experience. Those sills lock in the box, as we say, making the entire frame ridged and allowed the frame to ride like a boat on top of the foundation. Today’s timber frame industry has done away with timbered sills and we feel that this is a great loss and will generally shorten the life span of the frames.

This four over four timber frame incorporates fully timbered sills and has the main floor braces in a traditional inverted position. The main frame has a foot print measuring twenty eight feet square with the lean-to taking up fourteen feet square. The total square footage  is 1, 764 square feet.

There are many benefits to this design:

• Increased overall rigidity of the frame.
• Increases the reliance on the dynamic nature of wood rather than forcing reliance on the foundation. The structure supports itself.
• Self supporting structures do not rely on engineered materials to meet building code.
  
• You can do away with toxic plywood, Structural Insulated Panel systems and highly manufactured nominal lumber.
  
• Inverted lower braces improve passive solar options and view lines on main floor.
• A timbered floor system does not need toxic plywood to make it structural.
• Cellars and basements will benefit from a beautiful ceiling.
  
• Our timbers are locally grown and milled, and we replant two trees for every sixteen foot timber we use.

On top of these points we can cut this frame as modeled for significantly less than others can cut the posts and main beams and for nearly what it costs to frame in a conventional house. If you are considering straw baling, cob, slip straw or rammed earth then a traditional timber frame will provide you with an heirloom skeleton that allows these natural walls to do what they do best – insulate you from the elements.

As with all our models full plans are available to the ambitious DIY, plans include full joinery details, construction specifics and permit necessary stuff like wall sections.

To enquire about this or any other frame either comment on this post, (this is the slow response way), or drop us an email — follow the leads on the contact page.

For an explanation of listed costs, click!

Timber Cost: This figure is arrived at by taking the volume of timber, (the board footage) required for the frame and multiplying it against the current mill price. This price fluctuates somewhat as we still treat trees as commodities; we are currently using the price of $1.20/board foot to estimate our frames. White pine is currently $0.90/board foot. Delivery by our local mill is $100/1,000 board feet. Our local miller cuts very true timbers and of high quality, gradable lumber. However, we are sometimes required to re-square a portion of the timbers, and we also have to factor in handling/loading, peg cost, and waste allowance. With all this, the embodied cost per board foot of white pine is around $1.15, we then add on a margin for error and unforeseen market rises in delivery and material. The catch is, you only pay what it costs, we just prefer to be on the high side rather than trying to explain at a later date why we are asking you for more money. All frames assume that the timber species is white pine, other species quotes are available for all frames, we just prefer to check with the mill to get the current rate for beech, oak, poplar, spruce, hemlock, etc.

Cutting Labour: Our in shop/in town rate, (within 45 minutes drive of Marmora, Ontario), is $30 per person per hour. Out of town our rate is $35 per person per hour. We do not require per diem reimbursements, and if camping is readily available to your construction site we do not transfer accommodation costs.

We’ve cut thousands of mortises and tenons and have a good sense of how long each frame will take to cut and assemble and raise, it is based on this experience that we estimate the cutting of our frames. That said, you only pay for what we work and never above our estimated hours; travel time is at half our out of town wage.

Raising Labour: This only covers the estimated person hours involved in assembling and raising a given frame. It assumes the availability of a forklift; on larger frames a crane will be required for one to two days for the actual raising. We’ve done hand raising and would love to do more of it, so if you have lots of gung-ho friends and family we’ll make a party out of getting your frame up and pegged.

Raising a timber frame takes a fair amount of planning. There are many things that are out of our control that can delay and add time to a raising. Specifically, weather, site terrain and conditions, or the failure of a general contractor to provide timely scheduling of needed equipment and materials. Obviously we do everything we can to make the process fluid but we have to bill for hours worked when on site.

Delivery: This is a rate for delivery from our shop in Marmora, Ontario to any site within 150 km. We also take care of the unloading labour at your site. Larger frames may require a forklift on the receiving end. Delivery for sites out of this area are quoted on a by-the-job basis and may require a site visit to ensure clean orchestration of delivery.

Total Cost: Simply the sum of all of the above.

For information on design costs, follow me —->

Also do not forget to consider the chance at starting a revolution —->

On Demand: All Timber Frames are cut on a demand basis. We just don’t think it is a good practice to cut and store frames. Nor do we feel that mass producing anything, even beautiful handcrafted timber frames, is a sustainable or responsible practice. If you need it quick, we will work with you.

Models: All our frames are developed in a 3-D computer drafting program, Google’s SketchUp Pro 7. Everyone can download a freeware version of this software and we suggest you do, it’s awesome. If you want to view our models in 3-D, drop us a line and we’ll send you the SketchUp info and the basic file of the frame you’re interested in. You’ll then be able to virtually walk through and around these buildings, even place furniture and figures to scale.

Cost: The figures you see displayed on each model frame page are high-end estimates. Though we build for a living, we do not build for profit. Thus, we prefer to do all of our work aboveboard; you pay for the materials in your project and the hours we work. Our list prices reflect the absolute maximum cost of the frame based on market cost of materials and our labour rate factored against the volume of timbers required and the estimated cutting time. That said, you would never pay a dime over the price listed. Please read through the Cost Break Down for clarification of each listed cost.

Finish: We highly recommend natural oil finishes for all interior timbers — they slow the drying and protect the wood from stains. We do not however include this in our cost estimate. Our Labour Cost reflects the hours required to plane all exposed timbers, four sides smooth, but the wood is still raw. Oiling is additional — labour and material. If your timbers are exposed on the exterior, we recommend letting them grey out.

Embellishments: Carving of pendants, dates, inscriptions, or images are not included in any estimates. Edging of timbers, chamfers, rounded edge, beading, or custom work of any decorative nature is not included in any estimates. All of these features and anything else you can dream up we will happily do at our stated rates. However, if a frame shows arching of knee braces or if other elements are visually crafted these have been factored into the specific frame’s estimate.

Wood: The wood we cut our frames from is locally sourced, it can be certified for sustainable harvesting but this incurs additional costs which we will happily explore upon request. We are Plant-a-Tree timber framers, for every 16 foot timber we have come through our shop we plant or pay out of pocket to have two trees of the same species planted. We have on order or germinating over 350 trees for planting in central Ontario this year.

Wood II: Your new timber frame is wood. This is good for a lot of reasons. But wood came from a living thing and as such it continues, even in death, to display characteristics of life. It moves, it ages, it breathes, it is imperfect. Timber framing and hewn log construction evolved to work with and even benefit from these lively attributes. The techniques we use to join timber to timber to construct self supporting structures are perfectly suited to this dynamic material.

Wood III: These are all going to happen to any timber no matter how it is treated, or where it is located, in a heated home or in a barn: checks (cracks in the timbers running parallel to the grain), wane or live edges (visible portions of the former tree’s trunk), rounding of milled-to-flat faces (tangential distortion, as the deep cells lose moisture they contract and cause a re-rounding of the timber), discolouration when exposed to UV rays in conjunction with humidity, shrinkage, and general fluctuation of size.  None of the above natural processes of wood curing are detrimental to the structural integrity of a frame or cabin. They provide character, distinction and an appearance that is exclusive to heavy timber construction.

Deposits and Payment: We require full deposit on estimated material costs for each frame. You are issued an invoice indicating the the receipt of this payment. It typically takes between two and four weeks for our mill to produce and deliver the timbers. When we begin cutting on your frame you are invoiced bi-monthly for the duration of cutting, not to exceed our estimated cutting labour — if we take too long we finish it off the clock. Payment for in-area delivery of the finished frame is due upon delivery — COD or per prearranged terms. A deposit of 20% of the estimated raising labour must be made two weeks prior to the scheduled raising date. The remainder of our logged raising labour is due upon delivery of a raised, fully pegged, plumb and level timber frame. We accept personal checks, bank drafts, and electronic transfers. Also check out Price Sticker Info.

By making a deal!

The deal is this: that we build healthy shelters using natural resources that nature can replenish in less time than the service life of these shelters and that we do this without regard for any factor other than that every human has the basic right to shelter. We can do the first two right now, it’s rather simple. It’s that equitably part that I have not figured out yet. Hence the ’s in, Let’s Make A Deal!

Shelter, like food and water, is a necessity for human life. The requirements for shelter in a northern climate, such as we build in, here in Ontario, Canada, consume vast resources in order to function in both extreme cold and hot. But they don’t have to. The building industry in North America continues, by and large, to pursue conventional approaches to the construction, material sourcing and financing of this, one of our most basic needs, shelter. There is a lot to be said about where and how we get our food, water and clothing – the remaining basics – but I am going to try to stick with my area of expertise.

There is no intention here other than to open a dialogue between myself and anyone who is building a home/shelter. I can’t promise that we can find a workable situation. I am not in a position to act as a shelter philanthropist, though I dream of such a thing, I’m not wealthy. I am willing to be straight forward with my clients about why I build and what mine and my families needs are, (which is why I get paid to build, to support our needs), and what the needs of those I work with are. I want to talk over other ways to finance shelter building. I want to be a part of forwarding the equitably built home.

As the owner of a company that builds using mostly raw materials, close to their natural state, I have seen first hand that our effects on the planet are immense. I’ve personally worked timbers that where cut out of virgin forests over 250 years ago, trees that began growing 450 years ago and can tell you that oak or pine or any species of tree that remains today is a pale shadow of what our ancestors had to work with. The maddening pace at which we plant trees for economic harvesting to build inferior toxic shelters is not thought out from a sustainable approach, but for economic profit. I know that in order to pass over a functional ecosystem to our children and grandchildren, an ecosystem that we have put in peril, that we will need to establish a new model for doing business. Today more than at any other point in human history there is a need to reinvent our personal and collective goals. We will always need shelter. And now, after decades of warning, we are becoming conscious of the impact that 120 years of fast, cheap construction is having on our planets health, on our personal health and on our general enjoyment of life.

I am not an economist. As a business owner I have operated my company only from a sustaining perspective. Meaning that though we take money for our services I do not spend my time paying employees, working estimates, reselling materials all with the end goal of banking money for the company, a.k.a. profit. An accountant might say that all our profit is reinvested in the company, I would say we manage to have the tools we need when we need them and keep the lights on. This will be how I always operate my business. Until we can find a better, dare I say, more natural way to finance our shelters.

And now comes the pitch: I want there to be a different way. I want to be able to build efficient, healthy, long lasting (and I mean hundreds of years, real heirloom structures, not this building code bulls__t that relies on manufactured pieces being stuck together like so many Lego blocks), beautiful shelters not just for those who have flourished in our economic system but for any who make the choice to build well, to build for keeps, to build a better footprint.

So come at me with any and all ideas.

If all this sounds Hippy-Dippy then so be it. I know that not everyone can build their own home. I know that I can build and well. So what I have to work with and offer is that knowledge and skill set. What I want to do with what I have is, at the very least stop hurting the environment, become neutral — my three boys deserve it. You and yours deserve it. At best, we can, together, lay the ground work of a system of building that means that everyone can have healthy, sustainable shelter that is unconstrained by economics.

I am trying to forward the chance for us to come up with the answer to the third question — How can we build equitably? Follow future posts under this portion of the Timber Wall for philosophical, practical and attempted solutions to the question of building economically neutral shelter.