Timber frame with log walls?

[carver45]

Hello,

I just found this forum and bookmarked it right away. I am a newbie when comes to timber framing terms. But I have been working with wood(mostly fir and cedar). for 13 years. Just enough time to be confident enough to get myself into real trouble .

 I am a chainsaw carver who has worked on everything under the sun. From carvings to furniture to buildings.

Well now it is time to build a house. I have just purchased a mill and am going to start cutting.

But anyways, to the point. I want to build a post and beam house, with soild timbers as the walls like a log house.  The uprights will be 18 by 18 fir timbers(overkill I know but it will be a b&b so I want it to look good) and the walls will be cedar or fir 8 x 8 's.  IT will be two storeys,  with two rooms in thr roof. I got the idea from tne fire hall down the road. It has been their for fiifty years and know one knows a lot about it.

What is the name of this construction type. I have tried numerous searches to find nothing. I need to educate myself on this and I am running into a brick wall. To answer some questions ahead of time. I am using wood because it is more economical for me that standard contructed walls. I have a good suppy of wood.

I look forward to getting to know some of you folks and thanks ahead of time for any answers you may have.

[logman]

piece-en-piece , not sure if I spelled it right

[carver45]

Thank you logman,

Those are the words I have been looking for for 3 months.  So my hat off to you and a very very much thank you..

Now does anyone know of any books or information on  piece-en-piece wood contruction.

I am going to be on this forum everyday probablly. It is informative. And I love wood.

Bye for now guys,
Chris

[Kirk_Allen]

Welcome aboard Carver45.  Pull up a seat and enjoy.  Lots of great info on just about any topic you can imagine.  Got a few on wood too

[Don P]

Welcome Chris.
 One log home company calls it post and beam. Which is what it is, it just has log infill. B.A. Mackie's book Notches of all Kinds talks briefly about it.

Here's a thread that shows some pics and ideas from one I did that was kinda similar,
a little bit,
sort of  
http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=10049.0

There's a good book someone here recommended, "Modular post and beam" or something like that, anyone remember?

[srjones]

Hi Carver45, welcome to the board.
 There's a lot of good info here.  If you could, tell us more about your project.  I was wondering, were your log walls going to on the outside of the exterior posts or inline like the picture in Don P's post?  If they were going on the outside, were you going to do dovetails?  Also, how were you going to do the  roof?

-srj

[Coon]

Welcome aboard carver45.  Glad to see more and more Canadians joining our forum.  Guaranteed you'll be addicted to it before you even know it.

I am fairly new to the Timber Frame/Log homes and what you are planning seems to sound interesting to me also.  There is a school for this type of building located on Gabriola Island, B.C. it might be worth looking into.

Where in B.C. is Parksville?  I am familiar with some of the province and the name sounds familiar.  I do have some family in B.C. and am planning to go see some of them next summer.  If it is in the area maybe I could look you up and see how things are going, maybe even help you a little

[carver45]

Hi  SRJ,

I am thinkind of doing it exactly like the picture linked above.  In the center of the post with each floor having a cap to compinsate for the shrinking that will occur. I have not heard of putting on the ouside of the beam. I have no idea how you would do that.  If you could elaberate that would be appreciated. I am just in the beginning stages. So I am open to ideas

As for the roof I have a few ideas but nothing solid yet.  When I draw up the specs I will post it here for you.

I am new at this. Developed a lot of ideas but I have a lot to learn about building something to this scale. So I am open to any ideas and am willing to learn.  I like the idea of building something that can last for 200 or more years.

I have also been fortunate to do this youger than I thought. I had envisioned taking this on later in life in retirement. But heck no time like the present.

Chris

Welcome aboard carver45. Glad to see more and more Canadians joining our forum. Guaranteed you'll be addicted to it before you even know it.

I am fairly new to the Timber Frame/Log homes and what you are planning seems to sound interesting to me also. There is a school for this type of building located on Gabriola Island, B.C. it might be worth looking into.

Where in B.C. is Parksville? I am familiar with some of the province and the name sounds familiar. I do have some family in B.C. and am planning to go see some of them next summer. If it is in the area maybe I could look you up and see how things are going, maybe even help you a little

[carver45]

Hi  SRJ,

I am thinkind of doing it exactly like the picture linked above.  In the center of the post with each floor having a cap to compinsate for the shrinking that will occur. I have not heard of putting on the ouside of the beam. I have no idea how you would do that.  If you could elaberate that would be appreciated. I am just in the beginning stages. So I am open to ideas

As for the roof I have a few ideas but nothing solid yet.  When I draw up the specs I will post it here for you.

I am new at this. Developed a lot of ideas but I have a lot to learn about building something to this scale. So I am open to any ideas and am willing to learn.  I like the idea of building something that can last for 200 or more years.

I have also been fortunate to do this youger than I thought. I had envisioned taking this on later in life in retirement. But heck no time like the present.

Chris

Hi Coon Thanks for the info. Gabriola is just up the road about an hour from Parksville and yes I could see this place being addictive. In a good way

[srjones]

Since you were using cedar, I was thinking you were going to do something like this:

http://www.moonstonetimberframe.com/dovetail.htm

But using traditional timber framing on the inside.

When you get to thinking about the roof, you might consider SIPs if you have the $$.  As you probably know, there's a major manufacturer near your location.

[TW]

That building method was common in southern Sweden in the old days. Here in Finlans it is unusual but can sometimes be found in old outbuildings. They made the tennons at the top of the post is such a way that the log infills carried the loads and were free to settle like a log wall. We call it "skiftesverk" in Swedish.

[Coon]

Hey Chris....  I forgot to mention the name of the school is:  The Island school of Building Arts.  I have read the info I could find on their courses but could not afford to take it as I could not take out a student loan because the course was too short.  Student loans state that they could only be taken if the course was 16 weeks or longer and it's only 12 weeks if I remember right.

[Don P]

I googled skiftesverk and found tons of pictures. Thanks TW! If I spoke the language there was tons of info.

This was one of the better sets of pictures;
http://www.byggnadsvard.skansen.se/vandring1.htm

I kept coming across a book on it too, might be worth it for the pictures.
http://www.formas.se/asp/shop_detail.asp?id=345

It looks like the top left picture on this site is showing the settlement joint, I'd like to see better pictures of that area if anyone sees some.
http://hem.passagen.se/kulturarv/skiftesverk.html

[FrontierLogWorks]

Here is a book title for you the author is James Mitchell title: The Vraft of Modular post & beam or : the short log &timber building book.  Both books are the same one is just newer, great reerence books.  I have them both.  You can get them threw amazon.com..good luck post pictures as you progress.....Bob

[Jim_Rogers]

Here is a link to a free translation site: http://www.freetranslation.com/free/web.htm but unfortunately it doesn't carry Swedish to English.
There was another site,,,,,,,
something like babblefish? or something like that where you could get free translations.

Jim Rogers

[thurlow]

RE: Swedish to English..........

http://www.translation-guide.com/free_online_translators.php?from=Swedish&to=English

[carver45]

Hi guys,

I sure appreciate all the input. In two days on this forum I have recieved more information than 2 months of googling. I can not express enough how useful this inforamtion is. So thanks and keep it coming. Anything I find that is of interrest I will pass on. And thanks for the translator, The ones I found were not working.

Bye for now,
Chris

[pep]

Carver45

Welcome to the forum.  What kind of mill do you have and since your a carver do you know Glen Greensides.  His father has shown me pictures of some of his carvings.  They are quite spectacular.

Cheers Pep

[TW]

I tried to translate the descripton of the book Skiftesverk i Sverige. It was written in a very academic language that I cannot translate perfectly:

In the book is described the different development of skiftesverk in different parts of southern Sweden, according to different wood sources, restrictions by the government, and different terms of life in general. The book also describes the properties of the building method with different methods to solve the stabilisation and and assemly of the frame as well as after precautins taken  to improve the durability of the houses.

I saw the book cheaper from another sourse.

In other internet sourses I read that the log infills were often trunneled together to give shear strenght to the panels. Then there was no need for diagonal braces in the walls.
Skiftesverk was usually built from oak except on Gotland where they used pine. In those pats of Sweden are few pines long enough to be made to loghouses.

I have no experience of the method because here all heated buildings were loghouses until the stud walls took over and that was long before I was born. I have only once had a chanse to look closer at a skiftesverk building.

[carver45]

Carver45

Welcome to the forum.  What kind of mill do you have and since your a carver do you know Glen Greensides.  His father has shown me pictures of some of his carvings.  They are quite spectacular.

Cheers Pep

Hi pep,

Glen greensides is one of the more famous carvers in BC. He has a bunch of really big pieces. And yes he very good.
I will show some pictures when I figure out how to do that. Not use to .pdf. I always have used jpg.s

I have a woodcraft 20 -30a. Not a very common mill.

Chris