Timber Framing

Why You Should Visit Your Timber Frame Company

June 3, 2021

“A truly invaluable experience.”

“I hope you encourage all your future clients to come to your shop.”

In Their Words

The trip to visit the Carolina Timberworks shop was the highlight of our project thus far! We were simply blown away by the whole experience. Even just driving to your beautiful shop through the gorgeous mountain environment with the leaves changing and stunning vistas around every corner.

Driving up to the shop for the first time, quite impressive, understated and perfectly done to create the right environment exuding the extraordinary craftsmanship inside. First Impressions: Safe, Clean, Orderly and filled with incredibly focused craftsmen working busily inside and out shaping our beautiful South Carolina Southern Yellow Pine Beams, custom cut from trees on our land, years before. They are now coming to life right before our eyes! Every one of your customers must take advantage of a visit like to this to see this happen. To see and feel the emotion and even the smell of the wood, while these talented men create extremely difficult precision joinery. Unreal experience!

Each one of your craftsmen were so polite and engaging as we communicated with them. Obviously very proud of what they are doing and eager to share the particular things they were doing.

A truly invaluable experience for us all.

How to interview a timber frame company

Ask someone who builds timber frames for a living what makes their company different, and you’re likely to hear some variation on the theme of high quality, responsive service and talented people. Their answer may be truthful, but if you want an enjoyable experience, you haven’t learned what you need to know to make an informed decision. So how exactly do you do that?

While You’re Here

With 5 peaks over 5,000′, 10 acres per inhabitant, a jet-capable airport, the North and South Forks of the New River, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and the picture postcard perfect town of West Jefferson, you’ll want to leave some extra time to explore the area. Here’s a list of some of our favorite things to do while you’re in town.

Learn More

Timber Frame Solar Panel Carport

February 17, 2021

Solar panels that don’t ruin the view

The idea for a timber frame solar panel carport arose from something on our wishlist: solar panels for our timber frame shop. Our roof has plenty of space for PV, but doesn’t face south, so that leaves us with only one option, a ground-mounted array. On the positive side, ground-mounted arrays, versus roof-mounted solar panels, are easier to clean (yes, solar panels need to be cleaned periodically), can be angled at the optimum angle for efficiency, and don’t have to accommodate plumbing vents. Downsides? Well, let’s just say they’re not particularly aesthetically pleasing. Oh, and that’s before the local building official requires a fence.

(There are two rules to remember about building officials: 1. The inspector is right. 2. The inspector is always right.)

That got us thinking. Could a ground-mounted solar panel array be made to look beautiful? To a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail, so it’s probably understandable that our minds would turn first to timber framing.

The problem? Any timber frame or post and beam solar panel mounting solution is going to be more expensive than an off-the-shelf ground rack or pole mount system.

But what if the supporting structure for the PV panels was a dual-use structure? Suddenly the economics change. A timber frame solar panel carport anyone?

Is Timber Framing Sustainable Building?

May 15, 2015

Timber frame and post and beam homes are wonderful spaces.

So, is timber framing sustainable?

Buildings that are loved get maintained, and well-maintained buildings last far longer. Timber framing may be one of the best ways to conserve our resources because post and beam homes are special places that people love, and because they are loved, they are maintained over the years, and because of that care, post and beam homes last for centuries rather than decades.

Wood is one of our only renewable resources. Think about this sometimes overlooked and obvious fact.

Timber is a natural product. It is recyclable, biodegradable, and renewable. It does not off-gas toxins because there are none.

Timber, unlike 2×4 and 2×6 lumber, upon the end of the useful life of the timber frame or post and beam home, will be carefully dismantled and reused. Used 2x4s may one day be reused, but today are going into landfills, rotting, and releasing their stored carbon into the atmosphere.

Wood is a carbon sink. If kept dry, wood lasts indefinitely. If you leave a tree in the forest to die a natural death, it will rot and release its stored carbon. If you cut down a tree at the end of its natural life, it has spent years storing carbon and producing oxygen. If you then fabricate it into a timber frame, and keep it dry for centuries, the post and beam home is acting as a long-term carbon storage unit.

Post and beam homes can, and often do, use less wood than stick-built homes.

The figure we’ve heard is around 30% less. There are some caveats here, and it may seem counter-intuitive at first, but take a look at the photo (at left) from Stewart Elliot of Riverbend Timber framing.

Timber frame homes use big timbers which come from big trees. Here’s another counter-intuitive one. Big timbers come from big trees–sometimes old-growth trees. Big trees have spent many, many years storing carbon and producing oxygen. Today’s 2x4s are manufactured from young, small trees–trees that have not lived long enough to store much carbon or to have produced much oxygen. What we’re doing to make 2x4s cheaply is to grow genetically-engineered super fast-growing trees, cutting them down in 10 years, and then replanting. By the way, when we replant these crop trees, we’re not doing it by hand. We’re burning diesel fuel. Is it a cheaper way to produce a 2×4? Undoubtedly. Is it greener wood? We’re not so sure.

Timber frames or post and beam homes are the best use of old trees. Related to (7) above: in our view, it is far greener to cut down a majestic old-growth Douglas Fir tree at the end of its life, and fabricate it into a functional and gorgeous timber frame that will be treasured and maintained for centuries, than to cut it down and saw it into 2x4s that will eventually go into a landfill and rot, or produce window sashes which will rot, or make paper. Better to revere these fantastic trees by turning them into an architectural solution to a structural problem that is so stunning and useful that generations of people will benefit from, and take care of the building.

Some post and beam homes are built without cutting down a single tree by using reclaimed wood and beams from old buildings and factories. Adaptive reuse is growing in popularity across the timber frame and construction industries.

Is timber framing suistanable, like in this great room? — A working cattle farm on the New River, rich in flora and fauna…a marriage of modern amenities cloaked in old reclaimed wood…while inside fine art and fine craft engage in dialogue and soliloquy.

Nearby is a photograph of one of our timber homes that utilized reclaimed wood. We love putting old wood back to work, and the timber in this project is structural and is holding up the roof.

Timber framing is a darker shade of green. Having spent a week in a photovoltaic solar class, we’d note that no building material or technology is without consequences to the environment–not even solar panels. We contend that timber frame and post and beam homes, while not an environmentally perfect building solution, are demonstrably and quantifiably greener than most other conventional building methods.

Is there progress to be made? Sure! Yet, even so, timber framing, teamed with structural insulated panels and solar photovoltaic panels, is the most beautiful, green, and energy-efficient method of building we know of.

Want to know where Carolina Timberworks is heading? Carolina Timberworks 2.0

Read More: Why Do Timbers Cracks and Split?