Post and Beam Garage

[G TownGLI]

After some egging on over at VW Vortex, I've decided to start a thread here. I've been lurking around in the shadows and I have to say your guys stuff is top notch

Anyway first a bit of history. My mom wants solar panels. While we have a decent amount of property, due to a multitude of factors the only place the PV array could go is where we had a shed/30s garage. Our 230 year old farmhouse is mortise and tenon timber frame construction, and it got my dad really interested in this type of construction, so when the plan to construct a new garage came about, it was the only choice.

I'm going to school in boston to be an architect, so I was able to design the whole thing from scratch. My father and I are doing all the work ourselves, minus the PV panels. We are limited by our chosen method of construction and our abilities, so the garage is only 16'x 30'. Less than ideal for a shop, but its primeraly a solar array holder. Also eventually we hope to put an addition off the side to store the lawnmower and wood under. That should free up the inside for just working on my car. Either way its huge compared to our old "garage".

Anyway, onto the tons of pictures:

What we started with. The roof(s) were shot, and it had fallen off the slab on all 4 sides thanks to an unfortunate incident with my dads old tractor.

Demolition begins. At this point I was still having a lot of fun, even after discovering another roof under the asphalt.

I fell through the closest hole. Fun times.

The inside. The amazing part is I stored my car in there too.

The old man and I. That old door was heavy.

In my other thread someone asked why we didnt just pull it down with a truck. Aside from the asphalt shingles, almost everything is going to be reused in the new structure. The siding will be used as flooring, and the beams as framing around windows and such. We even used the old cedar shingles as mulch.

This part was fun.

Sorting the scrap

Cleanest the garage has ever been.

 

[G TownGLI]

Digging for the piers begins

We measured where the piers would have to go really carefully. We got every one within an inch.

Unfortunately after we returned the tractor we realized there was still some shale in the way.

18" Sona tubes 4'-6" deep. Thats 2000lbs of concrete in each of the 8 tubes. All mixed by hand. We did this during a heat wave too, it almost killed us.

After backfilling (by hand) The remaining trench is for power and such. We are probably going to get the backhoe out here again to make it deeper so we can run water too.

 

[G TownGLI]

This is a gin pole. We use it to lift up the assembled sections of the building (bents) into place.

Its pretty simple, the pole is only a few inches in the ground, the ropes keep it from going forward and the lean keeps it from slipping back under load. We used the scaffolding to lift me up on to test it. At the time it was a big accomplishment.

Before I go further, here are some renderings of what we hope to have when its done. Excuse the 90sish look of the rendering, I'm still screwy with lighting and textures.

The back has a dormer. As of now it will be my moms space to restore furniture and such, however I'm hoping to convince her to take my old room and let me have the garage

The wood delivery:

More:

That doesn't include roofing, sheathing, or a second order we did just a few weeks ago because we switched some things around. The wood is all #1 yellow pine, non treated except the posts that will touch the ground.

 

[G TownGLI]

The first cut. Note that while weve done construction before (addition on the house, deck, redoing floors), we've NEVER done anything like this. Basically we read a bunch of books, looked at some examples in the area, and hoped for the best. Its been a learning experience.

Process for a mortise. Step one, measure. Carefully. Twice.

Step two, drill:

Step three, chisel:

Chisel a lot. In the beginning it was taking us around an hour for each mortise. Were down to about 20 minutes as of now (4 months later)

And finally, test fit. More chiseling is usually required after this step.

Some father and son pics. My mom was having a field day:

The biggest constraint with this project is that my parents live in New York. I live in Boston. So with school (architecture school has insane amounts of work) I can only go down once every two weeks. Here we are test fitting the first bent:

Crappy pic, but here we are lifting it the first time. After this is fell forward. Twice. At that point we thought we were over our heads and had no idea what to do.

Obviously we got it up. First we had to swap out all our rigging. The ropes we used were nylon, so of course they stretched out and were useless. We redid everything in poly and manella (?) ropes, and it went right up. It was awesome to see.

Vertical now. Looking back its so small, but at the time it was the most amazing thing ever. This project has been full of moments like that.

Adding on the side pieces:

 

[autoist]

This project, I want to watch!!

I built our timber frame house.

 

[G TownGLI]

Skipping ahead now. We didnt keep up too well with progress pictures of it going together, so most of these are after we finished sitting around having a beer, it was like "oh yeah, take a pic"

Putting up the headers:

We averaged one bent every two weeks. The way it went is when I was in boston, my dad would raise the side pieces himself, and cut as many holes on the posts as he could. When I would come down we would spend saturday finishing up the mortise and tenons, test fit, and then raise on sunday.

Third bent in place:

You can see the shape of the dormer taking place here.

 

[G TownGLI]

This project, I want to watch!!
I built our timber frame house.

awesome, then you can probably appreciate what a pain this has been




I'm going to stop for now. I have a lot more up to just the other day, but I think I'll build the suspense a bit...

 

[igneous]

nice, glad to see you posted it over here like we suggested

 

[Togorashi]

Really impressive! I'm excited to see the rest of the progress.

 

[Moon63]

Good work! Post and beam is allways nice!

 

[jwhcars]

Keep up the good work .....I cheated and went on Vortex to see your progress....what a fantastic learning experience.

 

[sam 8]

Wow, what a thread.

I turned 50 last week.
I lost my father when I was 22.
It is not just a new shop you are building, the memories of working side by side with your father...they are priceless.

 

[KMR Construction]

I hear that, I re-built a addittion that was falling off the back of the garage at my parents house. Never forget my father screaming to my mother "Charron your son shot me in the *** with a nail gun" I almost died laughing.

 

[TejasBimmer]

Holy SH!T!!! Boy that will be one beautiful garage!
Very impressive of recycling the old stuff.
Question, I thought I saw in one of the pics that a corner was cracked badly.
Did you have to fix the floor?

 

[Boosted1]

Awesome work.

Keep the updates coming.

 

[G TownGLI]

Question, I thought I saw in one of the pics that a corner was cracked badly.
Did you have to fix the floor?

We've just left the old slab in because we don't have the money to pour a new one right now, but youre right, its shot. Since we built on piers though the floor will be the last step, we plan to park on dirt for a while.

Anyway, sorry it took me so long to update, i had a rather crazy weekend.

Here's the process of raising a bent. Since it was the last one I got on the ball and took a bunch of pictures.

Heres my dad (left) and our neighbor ******* together the bent. Our neighbors are really excited about this project too, and like to lend a hand.

We first lift the bent with a floor jack a bit, because we dont trust the gin pole to lift it straight off the ground.

As it goes up we have to attach boards to the side to support it while we put blocking on the floor jack.

Similarish pic, this is about how high we go before we use the gin pole to lift the bent.

My view from the van pulling it up, its a foot or so higher than it was before

First fitment issue. We planned ahead by putting a come along on this header so we could jack it up

Lifted and fit

You can see the knee brace on the bottom fit up, we are just about to get the top two fit

In order for the mortises to all fit, we can't just lift the bents to a vertical position inside their braces. Therefore we have them a few inches up and hammer them into the brace

Like so:

Together, minus one piece:

The last piece

You can see in the background its all together. In the foreground is my dad cleaning up all the wood chips. The pile and bag are all full of stuff we carved out for the mortises. Thats about half, theres other piles around the yard.

This is where the driveway will extend back. The tree will get trimmed a lot. you can just see the bent in the back there

 

[G TownGLI]

Allright next step. The "mini-bents". Not as good pictures as the last post, we managed to get all 4 done in one weekend, but we moved pretty fast so I didnt have many picture breaks.

First picture, two of them already up and braced. It was at this point we realized we could get one major step out of the way in just one weekend.

You can see the third "bent" there hanging while we do... something.

These things were so light, after working with massive pieces it was like a piece of cake. We could actually lift them up with minor effort

My dad being crazy:

All but the two middle headers up. The sky was like this all day, it snowed a bit. This post is really weird, looking back at pictures where we were dying from the heat, where now its snowing.

Done

'nother view. Sorry for the crappy pics, it was getting dark.

View from up the street. It looks massive... I love it

 

[Abodyracer]

All I'm seeing are red X's

 

[nissan_crawler]

works great for me, looks awesome

 

[Bevis]

wow...looking to be an awesome structure. I helped a friend and his grandfather do a barn like that many years ago.

 

[cyclopsblown34]

Wow, that thing is hell for stout! Even more impressive is that you and your father are doing this together and from what I have seen, it isn't too common a construction process(not cheap like regular stick framing).

 

[G TownGLI]

Allright, time for the rafters. The last few pictures are Garage Journal exclusives... at least for a day or two.

This was a week or two ago. My dad's been doing this all himself, so I'm a bit screwy on the timeline

The rafters are a pain to get up because each has two birdsmouths, and despite our best efforts nothing is square, every one has to be custom cut

Bit of progress. We originally wanted to timber frame the roof, but at the time we thought it was beyond our ability. Light framing the roof will make it easier to mount the solar panels, so its a trade off.

The dark clouds say "hurry up, winters coming"

GJ exclusives, done. We're leaving off the front and rear overhangs for now because were going to use 4x6s on them for looks, since they will be exposed.

'nother view, you can see the dormers final shape. I'm quite happy with it.

So this weekend I'm heading back to New York, and hopefully the decking will start to go down. Once the roof is up the project will really slow down, because my father and I are head to head on how to (and whether we should or not) insulate it. Since there are no wall cavities per say (were leaving all the timbers exposed on the inside) it would have to be done all in rigid foam, which is prohibitively expensive.

 

[G TownGLI]

By the way, thanks for the great responses, its always fun being able to show off a bit; especially with positive feedback.

As many of you said, this is completely a father son project. We had a bit of a tight spot a year or so back (mostly my fault) so its been really great working with him on this, its brought us closer. We see eye to eye on most things, but when we disagree its a huge mess. There have been a few sticking points so far (insulation one, the loft another... I will elaborate later), but we have eventually reached a compromise each time. Basically, its been a great project, and great experience.

As for the cost of timber frame vs light frame, its not as bad as one would think. Raw materials (just the walls, no rafters or beyond) it was 5k for light, 7k for timber. However, the life expectancy is about 30-80 years on a light framed building, and 300+ on a timber framed one, so from that standpoint alone the choice was clear. A few other bonuses, we only had to pour a pier foundation instead of a continuous one, which made the process of mixing the cement possible, saving us having to pay a cement company to deliver. Then there are the aesthetics, and of course the previously mentioned personal interest. Overall its also been a fantastic learning experience.

Also, as you can no doubt see the structure is a monster, and in the future anything I build for my self will probably be in this manner, as I truly think it is hands down the most sturdy way to build with lumber, period. However, a mortise machine will defiantly be the first purchase, hand carving them is just awful.

 

[Kevin54]

Fantastic work ang great job of recording everything. I see these barns falling down all over and nothing is ever done to save them. My neighbor and I were talking last week about hers. It is rapidly failing. I told her she needs to hook up with the Amish that we have around here to get an estimate on using parts of the barn to build a real nice size attached garage. Way to go on yours an am now subscribed to make sue I keep an eye on the progress.

 

[vwgtivw]

Nice project, this experience will pay off in your future career. Nice choice in vehicles

 

[autoist]

Since there are no wall cavities per say (were leaving all the timbers exposed on the inside) it would have to be done all in rigid foam, which is prohibitively expensive.

You probably know about this already - what I did on my timber frame house was buy some 4x8x5" rigid foam panels...on one side I glued sheetrock; on the other OSB....then, we nailed them up to my veritcal timbers from the outside so the seams were hidden behind the timbers.....then, all we had to do on the inside was paint & on the outside we just sealed the seams & covered with our cedar siding.

 

[bluesman2a]

This is a PHENOMENAL project!!! I love the concept of something built to last, and I think that structure will be there for MANY years to come.

Something I saw on an episode of This Old House or one of the spin-offs recently was a company who does professional post and beam, but they use CNC machinery to plan and do all the joinery so they only have to do fine-tuning on-site. Maybe they would be a good resource for folks who want to tackle this kind of project but don't have the time/skills to devote to it that you guys did... Sorry didn't catch the name of the company...

 

[G TownGLI]

You probably know about this already - what I did on my timber frame house was buy some 4x8x5" rigid foam panels...on one side I glued sheetrock; on the other OSB....then, we nailed them up to my veritcal timbers from the outside so the seams were hidden behind the timbers.....then, all we had to do on the inside was paint & on the outside we just sealed the seams & covered with our cedar siding.

Yeah, this is pretty much what I was thinking as well. Do you remember the cost / whos rigid foam you used? Ive been looking at DOWs Styrofoam stuff which is R5 per inch, but finding a supplier has been tricky.

 

[Stuart in MN]

It looks great! I've always been fascinated with timber framing and old barns.

Something I saw on an episode of This Old House or one of the spin-offs recently was a company who does professional post and beam, but they use CNC machinery to plan and do all the joinery so they only have to do fine-tuning on-site. Maybe they would be a good resource for folks who want to tackle this kind of project but don't have the time/skills to devote to it that you guys did... Sorry didn't catch the name of the company...

The company is http://www.bensonwood.com/ They did another post and beam house on TOH maybe 20 years ago or so, but back then all the work was done by hand on site instead of using CNC machines to cut all the joinery in a factory. You can go to the This Old House website and get more information on the current project.

As others have mentioned, structural insulated panels (either purchased or home made) is a good way to go with a post and beam structure. A friend of mine built his house that way here in MN, and it's very energy efficient and hardly takes anything to heat in the winter or cool in the summer.

 

[GHOSTDANCER]

Great job.You should be proud.

 

[goodfellow]

Also, as you can no doubt see the structure is a monster, and in the future anything I build for my self will probably be in this manner, as I truly think it is hands down the most sturdy way to build with lumber, period. However, a mortise machine will defiantly be the first purchase, hand carving them is just awful.

Totally agree with you. I owned a timer frame home several years ago and it was the most beautiful and liveable place I have ever been. It had 10" foam panels in the roof and the walls, and was so fuel efficient, I could heat the whole house with a single wood stove. In all the years I lived there, the furnace probably kicked on 20 times during the harshest winter nights. Can't wait to build another one.

Your place is absolutely great, and your craftsmanship is superb.

Since it's a classic wood structure you might want to take some ideas from fellow member "NIMROD". He has the best looking "old school" workshop around here.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3740

 

[mmg440]

It's looking great. I can only imagine the work it takes to build this way. Great project!

 

[dbeaty]

Very nice, cool project. Looks really nice so far!

 

[NSXSOON]

Fantastic craftsmanship, hat's off to you and your dad.

 

[Bevis]

any updates for this one...

 

[woodbutcher]

i remember my first timber frame it was a cabin. it was a kit as far as the logs went but the timbers were a cut your self deal. luckily it was for my friend or he wouldnt be able to afford it. it was an awesome build just for the experience and knowing that i just built some thing thatll last a long time.

i made jigs so i could use my 3hp router, i do finish carpentry alot so you learn tricks. the router was a handful on the walls but the work was very clean imo.

your building something you can take pride in thats for sure.

 

[nuttynil]

great project ..take pride in what you are doing

 

[G TownGLI]

updates soon. The weekend I last went home we got basically nothing done cuz it was cold and raining the whole time. With any luck though We should get most if not all of the roof done this holiday weekend.

 

[boiler7904]

Awesome Build.

Anybody else getting an urge to build a timber frame barn?

Now if I just had some land and cash to do it with.

 

[thetastelingers]

Awesome. Makes me want to build our barn this way.