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Timber Frame Joinery Layout: Square Rule & Scribe Rule

By Timber Framing, Strawtron
Timber Frame Joinery

Understanding layout — the most important part of timber framing

I’m going to be very honest here — I will not be making any in-depth attempt to describe timber frame joinery layout here on this blog as part of my documentation for building our timber frame and straw bale house. I don’t feel fully qualified, and besides, you can find some pretty good documentation elsewhere. Personally, I’m in the camp of really needing to see and do layout to actually understand it. Reading about it, and having someone describe it to me makes my brain slowly turn off. Call me visual.

However, I can say a few things about the two systems we employed when building our timber frame. They are Square Rule and Scribe Rule layout. They are two singular approaches to achieving the same basic effect — making two different pieces of wood relate to each other, and join in a logical way.

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Our Wood Flooring Installation & The Best Wood Floors

By Strawtron
Wood Flooring Installation

Using reclaimed material for our flooring installation

Our wood flooring installation was a race against the clock — back in June, we had but a few short days to install over 300 square feet of our wood subfloor before the start of our Timber Framing Workshop. No pneumatic nailers here, no big sheets of plywood — only a huge pile of nail-y, reclaimed yellow pine tongue and groove flooring, full sun blasting down on us, and a few great helping hands to see us through to victory.

Here is the story of our wood flooring installation, and why I think we chose the best wood floor for the job.
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More Pier and Beam Foundation Design Images and Details

By Foundation, Timber Framing, Strawtron
Pier and Beam Foundation

The pier and beam foundation of our timber frame house

Earlier in the year, I discussed the idea of “replacing concrete with wood” in our pier and beam foundation design. For the construction of our timber frame house, we decided to go high and dry, and eliminate as much concrete as possible with this style foundation. I wanted to take this opportunity to go more in-depth about the plans for our pier and beam foundation, with a bunch of images to illustrate the design.

Read ahead more for details.

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How to Acquire Timbers For Building Your Own Timber Frame Home

By Timber Framing, Strawtron
Timbers

Figure out how you will acquire your timbers… early!

This is the first of many posts where I travel back in time, and fill in missing parts of the Strawtron building timeline with essential information for how we built our timber frame and straw bale home.

If you want to design and build you own timber frame home, you should be prepared to determine how you will acquire the timbers for your frame. You almost can’t determine this too early, nor start your search too soon. The timber frame can be a significant portion of the total expense of construction for an owner-builder, and as always, it is helpful to know how to keep costs manageable.

Here are a few tips for how you might acquire timbers for building your own timber frame home.

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Our Timber Frame & Straw Bale House Building Timeline

By Timber Framing, Straw Bale Building, Strawtron

Straw Bale House2012 was a whirlwind of a building season. Organizing and running two natural building workshops, building a timber frame house with hand tools, meeting deadlines, unbelievable heat…

Despite all of it, we accomplished an amazing amount of work. Again, huge thanks to our awesome building workshop crews, and every volunteer that picked up a hammer (or a really heavy timber) in our crazy journey. Here I present a recap of our 2012 Strawtron building season. In the coming weeks I will ‘fill in the blanks’ where I have not provided online documentation of our timber frame & straw bale house, so look out!

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How To Build a Timber Frame & Straw Bale House — Coming This Winter

By Timber Framing, Straw Bale Building, Strawtron

Timber Frame Home

Throughout the process of building my cob house “Gobcobatron”, I documented the entire process of its construction online here at The Year of Mud, demonstrating the process I went through to build my first home. It has been a rewarding experience for me, and the feedback and learning experience has been wonderful.

This year, since beginning the construction of my new timber frame and straw bale home, time has been particularly scant, as the timeline was even more compressed and deadlines were many, thus a less detailed documentation effort during the building season throughout the various construction stages.

However, this winter I have plans to retrace my steps, to present how to build a timber frame and straw bale house.

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Wood Stove Installation: Our Unique Stove Install Job

By Heating, Strawtron, Living Sod Roof, Winter
Wood Stove Installation

Through the wall and up… avoiding our living roof!

Well, I ended up with another weird wood stove installation in the new straw bale house. Back in 2010, I described how I penetrated the living roof of my cob house to install our new small wood stove at the time. (It was equally weird, and awkward.)We did a somewhat successful job (although every now and then we get water dripping into the mudroom).

This time, I wanted to completely avoid penetrating the EPDM pond liner, so I opted for a through-the-wall stove installation. There were a few tricks along the way.

Here’s how it went.

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Rainbow Over a Straw Bale Home

By Uncategorized, Photos, Strawtron
Rainbow over straw bale house

Nice way to end the day

Don’t you love it when that happens?

October feels like it is moving quicker than lightning. It is one of my favorite months, no doubt. A much-needed rainstorm ended with this visual feast just the other day.

The work season is rapidly coming to an end…

Moving Into an Incomplete House (p.s. We’re in Strawtron!)

By Winter, Strawtron
Straw Bale House Interior

Pug waits for the base plaster to dry

It is with somewhat reluctant, but inevitable feelings that we have just recently moved into our new straw bale house. I say ‘reluctant’ because really, the house is not complete. However, it has always been our intention to move in for winter, before the house is finished. Generally speaking, however, I highly advise people against moving into incomplete shelter, if they can avoid it.

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The Great Living Roof Prospect: Building Our Green Roof Begins!

By Living Sod Roof, Strawtron
Living Green Roof Party

Our group of volunteers help load soil to make our living roof

Yesterday was our very first day loading soil onto our rooftop, the official start of building our living roof! We used a pulley system to raise 5 gal. buckets up to the roof, where a line of people passed buckets to be dumped. It was a whole lot of fun, and it’s great to see our green roof coming to fruition, after weeks of scheming. Here’s a little bit more about our process.

Just like building our cob house, the living roof of our new straw bale house has had me thinking for hours, and quite honestly, it’s been the source of a lot of anxiety throughout the entire construction process. Gobcobatron was a breeze in comparison — single story, low to the ground, not a huge roof area.

But how would we get soil 25 feet up into the air, at the highest point on our new building? What type of soil, and how would it stay in place? Would people feel safe scampering all over the roof if we did the work by hand? Just how many hours of work is this going to take, anyway?

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