Cutting Costs With Post And Beam Structures

When dealing with post and beam structures, there’s an opportunity to cut costs using this method.

Enough housewrights have been building this way in the past two decades to know that it is cheaper than stud-building in many instances.

One reason for this is yet another fascinating aspect of timber framing--the use of local materials.

Before the housewright of the past began to build, he looked at trees on or near the building site.

He preferred a timber taken from the site, cut and shaped there, believing it would last longer than one brought in from a distance.

Today, with on-site timbers rarely available, housewrights go to sawmills to purchase their wood.

The very fact that they are working with green or unseasoned lumber makes the cost considerably lower than for imported lumber that has been dried.

And big timbers can be cut for post and beam structures more quickly than can a lot of 2X4’s.

Some housewrights go a step further when large logs are available by shaping timbers with chainsaw mills that can be moved to the log, reversing the usual process.

Freedom Of Design

Planners like post and beam structures because of the freedom of design possibilities.

Some of them--the gambrel with its two roof slopes is one of them--have been borrowed from our European heritage.

Others, such as the saltbox, are creations of this country, eminently adapted to the harsh New England weather.

This construction method has demonstrated its adaptability to modern trends also. Solar panels, skylights, balconies, and decks are frequently and freely used by designers of timber-framed homes.

The method, too, has been adapted to today’s merchandising techniques.

You can select your building from a catalog and have it shipped--all parts including sheathing and shingles--to your building site.

It’s a technique not unlike that used by New Englanders more than 200 years ago in shipping prefabricated buildings to the Caribbean.

If this method of acquiring post and beam structures doesn’t fit your needs, you can hire an experienced housewright to design and build for you.

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