Post And Beam House: Timber Framing versus Standard Stud Construction

Most residential post and beam house framing in North America today is done with stud construction — a light "stick frame" — often referred to as a platform frame, conventional frame or western frame.

A "balloon frame," popular about 100 years ago, is a special type in which the vertical members, now known as studs, were quite long, spanning from first story right through the second story.

This is uncommon now, with most stories built independently using the ubiquitous eight-foot stud.

Conventional stick-frame construction is typically fabricated with framing lumber having a thickness of just il/2 inches (3.8 centimeters).

Vertical support studs are placed around the perimeter either 16 or 24 inches (40 or 61 centimeters) from the center of one stud to the center of the next one.

Prior to 1924, frames were constructed with full "two-by" material.

A two-by-four actually measured by two inches by lour inches.

Much of this material came from small local sawmills, and, in truth, the dimensions of a two-by could vary by up to a quarter inch. The local sawmills I work with today are almost always within an eighth of an inch of the true dimension, and, very often, they are spot on.

A nominal "two-by-four" today is actually 5 inches by 31/2 inches. All two-bys bought at large lumber suppliers such as Lowe's and Home Depot are l/2 inches thick. The actual depth of a two-by-four is 3 1/2 inches.

(8.9 centimeters), and the depth of a two-by-six is 51/2 inches (14.0 centimeters).

After that, the true depth is three-quarters inch (2 centimeters) less than the nominal dimension, so that a two-by-eight is inches (18.4 centimeters) deep and a two-by-ten is 23.5 centimeters deep.

Sometimes, you can buy "heavy timbers" for a post and beam house at large building suppliers, such as six-by-sixes, but these, too, lose one-half inch in the planer and have a true dimension of 5^2 inches square.

It is important to know the difference between "rough-cut" (full dimensional) timber and "finished" lumber, more commonly available.

People building heavy timber-frame structures do not normally buy much lumber at the large national lumber chain stores.

Far more commonly, they will purchase their timbers from a local sawmill, make their own timbers with a chainsaw mill, or have a local sawyer visit their wooded property with a portable band saw, to have the standing trees converted to full-dimensional timbers.

If lumber dimensions for a post and beam housewere the only consideration, it could be fairly argued that a full-sized 2-by-8-inch floor joist or roof rafter (16 square inches or 103.2 square centimeters) would be 47.12 percent stronger on shear strength than its store-bought equivalent that measures 1.5 inches by 7.25 inches, or 10.875 square inches (70.16 square centimeters).

That sounds pretty good, and is true as far as it goes, but there are other considerations that contribute to a timber's strength.

Look at these post and beam homes from Granby.com.

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