The large roof span thread made me think of this. You know the large timber houses in American films (.e.g Steve Martin's in father of the bride - no comments on film taste please !). The houses I'm thinking of often have openings rather than doors between rooms, and rooms can be up to, say 10 metres width. In the light of my recent forays into joists etc, these houses would need huge joists to support the upstairs without too much deflection etc. Anyone know what type of beams would be used (e.g. a whole tree !) and what type of building regs they have in the US regarding this. Thanks, Simon.
regs are not that different - apart from using imperial units. At the end of the day if you apply a load of x to a particular piece of timber it will deflect by y and no code can change this.
That is fair comment: changing the code doesn't make anything weaker or stronger, but different jurisdictions may, and sometimes do, have different ideas about what factors of safety and deflections are acceptable.
They are most probably (99%) TJI "I" beams. 500mm deep can go 42 foot. They are used to minimise foundations with greater spans and all internal walls partitions walls that can easily be moved as the house changes its function. They are 100% straight.
"Fine Homebuilding" which is published by Taunton Press
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is a wonderful source of information and inspiration on US houses. There was an article a few years back on beams which you might be able to locate in their archives, yes, "Engineered Lumber + The engineers' job site: inventing a better glulam" was very informative on the geometry and composition of these timber-based beams.
The downside of course is that their timber framed houses aren't as strong as our masonry buildings - as my then very young son said on watching scenes of devastation from some hurricane in Florida, "Haven't they heard of the three little pigs?"
They build timber frame in hurricane areas because it is cheaper for insurance companies to rebuild. They use the existing slab, and all the services are still there. A largely pre-fabbed house comes along and is erected quite quickly on the existing slab There is method to the madness.
Houses using SIP panels are highly resistant to Hurricane and earthquakes. SIP panelled houses in the Kobe earthquake all survived intact while those around, masonry and timber frame, fell down. Timber homes can be as strong and far better insulated than masonry.
I'm sure that's true for earthquake zones - though I remember reading somewhere that traditional Japanese construction was lightweight to minimise damage to people when it collapsed. I still think that masonry buildings would survive "lesser" hurricanes far better than standard American timber frames. Do they use pre-fab to any great extent? I thought - though I may be out of date here - that they still were very much into framing on site?
SIP panels is recent innovation from the USA. The only way to build a house.
The typical modern British brick and block would fare no better. Most brick and block are flimsy and consist of Paramount walls upstairs. Take away the wood content of a British home and there is little left.
A lot of it in the USA. SIP panels are gaining ground, as it is ion the UK by smaller builders. The large British builders don't have much a clue on how to build still sticking to brick and block outer walls.
That is still common still today. Called stick built.
UK housebuilding is technologically backward in comparison with other similar countries. Off-site pre-fab has been successful in other countries. The Scandinavians pioneered, the Germans very good and the Japanese have taken it to new levels. Paradoxically, It's widely used in Britain in commercial building (the 10 acre Crystal Palace in 1951 was a pre-fabbed building).
There is a huge financial incentive for the few large residential construction companies to leave things as they are in residential housebuilding. The real money is made on the land deals and the planning gains (approx 2/3 of the house price is the land value in a country with a land surplus and only 7.5% of the land settled). While off-site construction can deliver houses quicker, it doesn't actually make them much cheaper (although elsewhere they can) and UK housebuilders don't really want quicker homes. They just want a steady drip feed of new houses onto the market so they can sell them at inflated prices to buyers who have little choice available to them.
Relax the planning so houses can be built almost anywhere. Make the building regs tighter, so quality and energy efficiency is the highest and we all benefit with lower house prices and larger homes to boot.
Isn't the UK problem with timber frame more down to a) the average British weather, b) the average British builder? I would trust b) as far as I could throw him when it came to wrapping up a timber frame dwelling as tightly as a) requires. Traditional masonry seems a lot more forgiving of inferior techniques. As to weight, I agree that modern UK mass produced housing is pretty flimsy, especially upstairs, but I guess local code requirements in FL could be written for masonry buildings to require far greater density of construction material on all stories. US roofs seem to lift off fairly easily too, in a way that UK concrete tile wouldn't. Althought I admit to having seen artificial slates peel off in a great slab during some particularly strong winds in the Mendips.
|Isn't the UK problem with timber frame more down to
More British fire regulations. In the UK American style wooden houses are allowed only if they are more widely spaced than is normal in the UK. It all goes back to The Great Fire of London.
Nope. The US in parts has higher rainfalkl than the UK and they have tiomber frame. The olders timber building in the UK is a church in Essex built in the 1100s
Yep. That is the cowboy.
Yep. Cowboys, 95% of them are.
Nope. There are numerous cases of concrete and brick cancer.
They build so they can come off quite easily and save the rest. Otherwise the whole house would lift off its footings. They want to preserve the base for re-construction.
We don't nail them down. The regs state that the centre tiles in the roof need not be nailed down. Ludicrous.
Nope. The highest timber framed house is 5 or 6 floors, which is a block of flats. Most new Travelodge's are timber framed. I stayed in one when outside was -8C and I never required the heating on.
Which some might say has nothing to do with the insulation qualities of the building as you probably spent all the time watching the Screwfix channel on the telly ;-)
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