House: The Timber Frame

Yes, the house is a timber frame - basically really big pieces of exposed post and beams timbers with mortise and tenon joinery.  If you ever saw the movie 'Witness' with Harrison Ford or lived in Alsace of merry ole England, you know what I'm talking about. 

I probably heard of the concept of a timber framed house when I was in my teens, and I was watching 'This Old House'.  And I had followed the blog of a US builder of new timber frames for years - who was promoting them for their sustainability features (it's a flexible structure that can be repurposed over the centuries).  It seems Patrick had similar experiences, and he brought up the idea of building a timber frame house about 2 years ago - thinking I would poo-pooh it, he was surprised that I actually knew what it was and wanted to do it.

There are basically four variations of a theme if you want to do something with timber frames.

1.  BUY EXISTING AND RENOVATE ON SITE

You can buy a piece of land that already has an old (and probably falling down) timber frame barn on the property already, and then restore it.

   Sounds crazy, but these barns are more common than you think.  At one time they were across the midwest every 40 acres.  Most have been lost (once the roof goes, it's pretty much downhill), but if you drive around the countryside and look for them, you'll still see them.

   We actually thought about buying a piece of property that had a barn on it - for about 5 minutes - but it's pretty hard to find the right size land, right barn, and right price.

2.  MAKE NEW

You can have someone build you a barn to your own specifications out of new timbers (usually Douglas Fir), and they'll even put it up for you.

   We thought about that for about a month, until we realized how incredibly expensive it can be (~$100K for a 30'X40' structure ... I'm talking just the frame ... you still need to put up walls, HVAC, windows, etc.).  Keep in mind, we're talking about something that is strictly aesthetic ... like choosing marble tile over ceramic tile, or putting a painting on your wall ... so $100K is a big chunk of change.

3.  FAKE IT

You could get the timber frame look by buying some timbers from an old barn and then attach them to the walls somehow.

   I've actually seen this done in production homes to make them feel homey.  I personally hate the look, it just looks fake (like the plastic window shutters that are too small for the windows).  And, of course, they aren't structural. 

4.  MOVE ONE

The last option I can think of is to find someone who already has a barn (and doesn't know what to do with it), dismantle it, and then move it to your location.

But be warned, it's not as easy as it sounds - since construction is all about the details and fantasy hitting reality like a hard brick wall.

We actually did option #4 ... despite the risks, we would rather save a barn than have something new - and saving some cash didn't hurt either.  Once we got into it, we realized that these barns are really about our history, and they are rapidly disappearing.  The issue is that their original purpose (raising animals on a small farm) is now essentially gone - so unless we give them a new purpose (in this case, a house), then they will eventually all be gone - those roofs don't last forever.

We originally were thinking of moving a barn of one of our friends, but unfortunately, it didn't work out.  Even if you get the frame itself for free, there are still some significant costs in just dismantling.  And although many have tried to just pull it down with a chain and a truck - they just roll over.

So advice on timber framing ... find one that's already been taken down ... and for that, just do a quick google search.  You'd be amazed at the number of people who have frames sitting in another barn somewhere.

Although an already dismantled barn has distinct advantages over other options - you are also introducing an awful lot of risk - which I look back now on and think what was I thinking.  The main risk is that you have to trust the current owner that the dimensions are correct and that it can be put back together in one piece.  Usually those barns are taken down for a reason - like a rotten timber - so make sure part of the deal is that the guy you're buying from has to put it back up.

We did end up making some alterations to the barn ... we had to increase the slope of the roof in order to make the second floor more liveable ... so that required extra timbers.  One timber in particular that I had to find was a 40' long ridgebeam - not very easy to find, let me tell you.

But all in all, it went very smoothly.  Just be well aware of the risks involved and some of the hidden costs (transportation, crane rental, etc).

So here's the barn in its original location, which was actually the NE corner of Ohio.

Turns out the barn was built sometime between 1840 to 1850, so it was the first in the area.  The timbers are hand hewn and they are significantly larger than barns built just a few decades later when the saw mills were cutting standard sizes - so some beams are 14" square instead of a more typical 8".

We kept the original footprint of the main part of the house ... so that's roughly 30' X 40' ... we had ended up changing the roofline in order to make the second floor more useable.  And we bagged the side section (we need to replace some of the rotten timbers).

So here's the barn up in our property in Indiana.  The 2X4's are just for safety, and temporary stability.  But it also gives you an idea of how big the actual timbers are.

What about the walls?  That's the next post on structural insulated panels ...

1 Year Update:  It was a crazy idea and it could have gone horribly horribly wrong at a couple of key moments, but honestly - the consensus is that it totally makes the house - and it was totally worth it.  It's a good feeling when you're lying on the couch and you look up at a beam that took you a year to find, and realize it would still be rotting in a field somewhere, if you didn't find a use for it.

House: The Power

One of the first lessons in buying a house is figuring out how you're going to power it ... lots of people fall in love with a piece of land, and odds are, if you fell in love with it, it's probably in the boonies with few, if any, utilities.  So you're usually talking propane (which, right now, is super pricey and is only looking to keep being pricey).

Fortunately we are out in the middle of nowhere, but we did have natural gas at the street - and right now the monthly costs are extremely cheap (thanks to fracking that's messing up our ground water - but I digress) - but that would be a short-term perspective.  First, the installation of a pipe was going to be about $1000 (in all fairness, the house is 800' from the street), so that was going to take awhile to recoup.  Second, once prices on natural gas go back up (and they will), we will be at the mercy of those rate increases.  Third, I just don't like the idea of getting something from fracking - whether you're a "drill baby drill" sort of guy or a birkenstock wearing flower child, the idea of pumping chemicals into the ground intentionally next to water wells we drink out of just sounds incredibly stupid, and really no study or industry 'expert' is going to convince me otherwise.  Finally, the only reason we'd want gas over anything else was originally because of the ability to cook with natural gas was so much faster than electric - but we solved that issue ... I'm getting there ...

So we ended up with a 100% electric house.  Yes, we're in Indiana, which means 99.9% of electricity comes from coal - not good for climate change.  We're in the boonies, so electricity ain't cheap (~8 cents a kilowatt).  And electricity is not the most efficient way to heat a house, and cooking is a lot slower (well, no, it's not, but I'm still getting to that) .  So, we still went with electricity.

First, a little design moment ... we buried the electrical line (instead of having them on poles) ... pay the extra cash to get that done - it was like $300 more for a 400' stretch.  I know we never notice lines anymore, but once they took the old lines down (there was already power to the property - just not the new house site), it just opened up the whole property.  Plus, we NEVER have to worry about the lines being blown down (at least on our property, the street is a totally different issue).

Second, we did not go with solar PV panels.  I know we're totally eco-green-ness house, but it still makes no financial sense for us yet (and I wonder if it ever will).  So we might be green, but we're not stupid.  Rough numbers ... assuming an average electric bill of $100, we'd need to invest $15K to cut our bill in half per a couple of solar calculators we found online.  It would make more sense for us to spend another $2K in super efficient appliances, or $2K in LED lightbulbs before we did the solar PV thing.  Another big reason we didn't do solar PV right away is because we don't really know how much power we'll need ... we've learned this is not an average house, so average usage wouldn't really make any sense.  So we'll probably see PV panels in our future, but they have to do better than a 19 year payback period.

Third, our house doesn't really use a lot of energy (relative to others).  The house needs 55K Btu's/Hr in order to heat it in the dead of winter (typical house of the same size is 220K+) ... that works out to be smaller than the smallest wood stoves, hence why we couldn't do a wood stove (we'd overheat the house).  So using a (tiny) electric boiler is not hurting our electric bill too much.  If it did start to get out of control, we'd probably do a passive solar hot water system for the radiant floor - but that'll have to wait.

Fourth, we solved the gas vs electric cooktop issue - specifically, gas heats up so much faster than electric and is so much more responsive.  That is if you're not talking about induction electric cooktops ... LOVE them ... one more thing that's big in Europe, but few know about here in the US.  Basically instead of using electricity to heat up a heating coil, an induction cooktop powers a magnet, that then heats up cooking pan by exciting the molecules in the pan directly.

   I really can't write about this accurately - instead you really need to see it for yourself ... oooh, future YouTube video ... but I'll try.  Basically, I can put a pot of water on the stove, turn on the cooktop, and the water will boil at least 2 times faster than my gas cooktop from my old house (and it's a nice KitchenAid).  It's amazing.  And it's incredibly responsive, there are 20 heating levels on the cooktop, and I can take a pot of super boiling water at work down each level and instantly see a change in the boil and it stabilize in literally two seconds.  And since the magnet inside the cooktop is actually agitating the pot itself (not the surface of the cooktop that then transfers to the pot), the cooktop is not burning hot when the pan is removed (it's still hot to the touch, but not even close to what a turned off gas or traditional cooktop would be.  I just saw a video where someone fries bacon on the stove and puts a towel between the cooktop and the pan to ease grease cleanup - it takes a second to realize that it's not a fire hazard.  And they are also energy efficient ... since they're heating the pan directly, the energy consumption is significantly less than a traditional electric stove or the energy requires for a gas burner.

   Of course, it's not all honey and roses.  These bad boys aren't cheap - I spent $800 for a Bosch top of the line, but retail is $2500 (it was a return (most people buy them in error) and I had to drive to Illinois to pick it up.  It also requires a specific pan - namely one that has enough metal content to be 'turned on' - fortunately, most high end pans (e.g. All-Clad) are induction capable (you just never cared before) and the trusty old iron skillet is perfect for this.  Unfortunately, the beloved french copper pans are a no go - so my Mom made out like a bandit last week.

So that's about it on the power side - a lot of decisions and options that you might not have thought about.  Hopefully if you follow this blog, you'll start to realize that a simple decision can have ripple effects downstream - like, I bought a house 800' from the street, so I need an induction cooktop.

1 Year Update: Electrical power in the country is EXPENSIVE.  Holy crap !  I was paying 4 cents a KwH in the city, it's more like 12 cents in the country.  Since our major electrical expense is heating water in the winter, it's a no brainer to have some solar panels do it.  Still don't think solar PVs make sense yet, but it's closer at 12 cents than 4 cents.  After the solar hot water panels, I'll probably replace all lightbulbs to LED - there are a couple of pretty good ones out now.  And then I'll see if PV makes sense.