Timber Framing for the Rest of Us: A Guide to Contemporary Post and Beam Construction: 12 (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series, 12)

This has been my bible for designing and building a timber frame garage. 'Timber framing for the rest of us' fills the significant gap between getting a ready-made shed and having a bespoke oak-framed building crafted for you. As this book is written with the perspective of the severe snow-loadings, hurricane winds and earthquakes that are faced in the US, there is a slight tendency to over-engineer. But with a set of UK span tables to hand, this book will help you create a building that will last and last.

Very good, clear instructions.

Having bought this book a few years ago, I have only just read it (Nov 2011)(I built a timber framed house using mortice and tennons etc before reading this. I wish I would have read this earlier, because it would have lead me to the other book by the author "cordwood building" which I have just bought and read. This would have been the route I would have taken to building my house.

Roy brings out new home building books every year, it seems. The last few years have seen major treatments of all his basic building strategies, timber, earth, log ends. The new books are handsomely produced, up to date, and comprehensive.With timber frames there are several major threads. The uber domestic architecture movement, based largely on church architectural norms, very difficult to home build. The modernist post and beam thread, now out of favour; And the domestic level shorter post and beams method designed for home architecture. This book is mostly towards the latter thread, with additions as required. In other words, even a person working alone with modest tools can do these builds. (Other good books in this scale are Sobon's books that cover traditional settler forms for modern makers, and Mitchell's West Coats classic The Craft of Modular Post and Beam. Sobon's diverts from simplicity in favour of some of these older forms, and Mitchell in favour of West coast style, though they are both still practical)Often the glaring omission in timber frame books is the lack of any engineering treatment of how to size beams. This is a major stuff where the fancy frames are concerned, but it is within the realm of possibility for simpler homes. Roy covers this ground simply, and it is essential stuff for anyone who wants to do some design work before talking to the local planing office or a professional architect. This chapter can be skipped, but ads to the comprehensiveness of the text for those in need of the information.One doesn't have to be planing a house to use this book. Timber framing is a practical form for smaller buildings like sheds, workshops, picnic shelters. Due to their scale these structures can often be timber framed within the span of only a few posts and beams of dimensional lumber, saving money with an elegant approach, and increasing interior space.

This book is a good guide to post and beam and is well presented and set out including sizing of beams and posts which was exactly what I was after as we are a construction consultancy based in Kent, SE England. HOWEVER: the book is written for the American market and uses units such as inches, feet, pounds per square inch. There is no metric units and the codes of practice inc timber sizes are based upon American building codes so it is not a practical text for the UK. No reference to this is given on the Amazon.co.uk website - be warned!

Really help me understand and give me confidence to build my own cabin with my own rough sawn timber. There was no way I was going to learn timber framing by traditional methods. With these methods I can do this.

Not a bad book but I was expecting more detail on structural steel connectectors for heavy timbers. Instead it mostly involves light sheet strapping and coach/batten screws. There is a lot of useful information in there but if you're chasing decorative styles of structural steel connectectors for heavy timbers, Pinterest is probably a better bet.

As the title says this book is designed for the average builder. It is not a book of fancy 300 dollar a square foot mega homes. This is the book that will get it done if you want to make anything from a chicken coup to a home. RR has been writing construction books for decades, and he knows just what to pack in.Most of the examples are buldings he has built or that students have built. These are simple buildings, and in some cases a few decades old. But at least he is illustrating with his own work rather than just rounding up a portfolio of unattainable projects.In addition to all the practical and up to date build advice, he is pretty nearly the only writer out there to take you step by step through calculating loads and designing beams, for your home scale project. Timber frame is different in that respect. 2x stud building are vastly overbuilt, and for given local conditions it is easy to track down local structure to copy. Build within the 2x format and your building is going to be strong. Timber frame is different because it makes use of irregular beam and post configurations, and concentrates loads into smaller numbers of posts and beams. One way to get a good feel for it in your local area, is to examine local structures, like park shelter building that often have established details. RR tackles this engineering info. And it is great to have it, however it is just a small part of the book. If you read a bunch of books on the subject, eventually you are going to wonder how the heck to solve some of these simple structuring problems.Readers might also want to consider:For cathedral architecture on a home scale, read one of the various Ted Benson booksFor traditional domestic timber framing, not the church bent like approach, Try Sobon's books I met a guy who had taken one of his workshops and built a house on his own property.Steve Chappel's book is good, harder to pigeon hole for me.For west coast style/home building I recommend James Mitchell's book Modular Post and Beam. For do it yourselfers, but the designs are sophisticated, though he didn't follow through with the plans.

Well written

The author has done a good job of explaining practical Timber Frame construction. There are fewer references to the art of traditional joinery with its demanding craftsmanship to create interlocking structural members. The book focuses of the "Timber Frame Effect" married with the modern imperatives of economy, code compliance, ease-of-use and application of new technologies. The author effectively communicates where and how the old and the new come together to create beautiful and enduring structures.