Building the Timber Frame House: The Revival of a Forgotten Craft

For centuries, post-and-beam construction has proved to be one of the most durable building techniques. It is being enthusiastically revived today not only for its sturdiness but because it can be easily insulated, it is attractive, and it offers the builder the unique satisfaction of working with timbers.Building the Timber Frame Houseis the most comprehensive manual available on the technique. In it you will find a short history, of timber framing and a fully illustrated discussion of more >>

For centuries, post-and-beam construction has proved to be one of the most durable building techniques. It is being enthusiastically revived today not only for its sturdiness but because it can be easily insulated, it is attractive, and it offers the builder the unique satisfaction of working with timbers.Building the Timber Frame Houseis the most comprehensive manual available on the technique. In it you will find a short history, of timber framing and a fully illustrated discussion of the different kinds of joinery, assembly of timbers, and raising of the frame. There are also detailed sections on present-day design and materials, house plans, site development, foundation laying, insulation, tools, and methods.Boston GlobeIf you've been in an old barn and marveled at the great beams and posts, then you know what a timber frame is....Building the Timber Frame House...is a brilliant book on two levels, as a history and philosophical raison d'etre of timber-frame construction...and [as] a no-nonsense, how-to guide.Building and RemodelingInstructions are so complete that if you have (or can command) basic carpentry skills, this could be your sole house-building source.Popular ScienceA delightful handbook.CHAPTER ONE

WITH BROADAXE AND ADZE

A LOOK BACK

This carries us back to the time of the building of our old home, now more than fifty-five years ago; though only a lad we remember the time the trees were being felled in the forest and, after a long wait for the timbers to be squared, they were hauled to the building site, and, after a time for them to season, the carpenters came and, as though but yesterday, we see them under the old apple trees astride the timbers with auger, chisel and mallet working away from morn till night....Those were days of toil, days of contentment and peace.

Radford:Audels Carpenters and Builders Guide, 1923

According to Jacob Bronowski, a turning point for man began when he developed the capacity and summoned the will to cut and to split materials to form his structures. It was the difference between aggressively probing the structure of elements and passively submitting to their raw forms. In this difference was a seed of curiosity and adventure that burst, and with it, the mind of man expanded, for the growth of the intellect and the constructive work of the hands are the stalk and root of civilization. Before the Iron Age, homes were merely crude shelter; only slightly removed from other species, man was resigned to digging into the earth or fashioning huts with woven twigs and branches. He lived in burrows and nests, not homes. But when iron was finally wrested from stone and tools were formed, man was able to step out of his primitive past, out of the nests and pits, and into structures that would begin to reflect and to support his bold destiny.

The first sharpened tools were probably directed toward the shaping of a most fundamental building material -- wood. It was readily available, easily worked, and had already proven itself to be strong in earlier kinds of structures. So, timbers -- the building unit closest to the tree itself -- were the immediate choice for buildings that would now rise above the ground and start to show signs of permanence. What were built with those early tools and crudely shaped timbers were no longer just shelters but homes. They were now durable enough and functional enough to keep people settled in one area. This, in Kenneth Clark's definition, was the beginning of civilization. It was also the beginning of a building system so primal and basic that it would find its way into the development of many cultures in all parts of the world, yet so formidable and subtle that it would avoid mastery for many centuries.

If we mark the start of timber-frame construction with the fashioning of the first joints, it began around 200 B.C. Archaeological stud << less