Comments/Suggestions on design/plan for small residential house

[bogart_bogesley]

Hi

I am looking for suggestions on a small post and beam residential house that I plan to personally build.  First off, I should say up front that by a "post and beam" house I mean one that uses metal fasteners instead of traditional timber frame joinery.  If this forum does not discuss this kind of construction, please let me know and the rest of the message can be ignored (and, if this is the case, suggestions on where I could get comments/assistance with such a project are welcome)

What I would like to do is go through my construction plan step by step (with pictures preceding the explanation of each step) since the procedure seems to be just as significant as the design.  I have most of the design finished and an engineer has looked over my frame.  The engineer only evaluated the structural integrity of the frame and made some modifications, but did not provide suggestions with respect to fastener selection/placement (and I know fastener selection/placement is critical).  For this reason, it is likely that I will consult the engineer again for this purpose, and this is also why my fasteners look quite ridiculous.

I originally planned to upload my design and step-by-step construction plan to this forum, but due to having poor internet (verizon owns the lines but isn't interested in building out, so I'm stuck with 10kB/s 3g) my plan was to travel into town to upload the photos and then return home to finish the accompanying writeup.  Unfortunately, before I could return home and finish the writeup, the pictures were deleted because there was no accompanying post--which is understandable.  Another thought was to host a PDF on a filehosting site, but this would violate forum rules.  Therefore I am uploading a PDF containing my writeup via the forum's attachment function.  Due to the forum's max file size limitations I needed to compress it, so I apologize for any troubles with understanding it.

I tried to be pretty thorough.  At some point I will come back and incorporate window, door, and metal roof details.  I am considering this "version 1.0".  All suggestions/comments are welcome.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Dave Shepard]

Once your photos are in your gallery, they should still be there, forever. There are plenty of post and beam (metal fasteners) discussions here. Look for a thread by thechknhwk.

Welcome to the Forum!

[beenthere]

b_b
Welcome to the Forestry Forum
I saw those pics that you had up... there were many many of them. Then a few days later that set was gone (must have been deleted) and a new set of 50+ showed up. But no posts had been made about what you were up to, so was left wondering what was up.

A few pics are normally posted by members to enlicit any critique that you are wanting, or some part of the design that you are asking for comments. Maybe they will inspire some members and encourage you to post more..  if there is interest.

What size is the project, and are you going to be making your own posts and beams?

As far as discussion, this forum seems will discuss most anything..  ;D

[bogart_bogesley]

b_b
Welcome to the Forestry Forum
I saw those pics that you had up... there were many many of them. Then a few days later that set was gone (must have been deleted) and a new set of 50+ showed up. But no posts had been made about what you were up to, so was left wondering what was up.

A few pics are normally posted by members to enlicit any critique that you are wanting, or some part of the design that you are asking for comments. Maybe they will inspire some members and encourage you to post more..  if there is interest.

What size is the project, and are you going to be making your own posts and beams?

As far as discussion, this forum seems will discuss most anything..  ;D

The ~50 photos I originally uploaded needed some changes so I deleted them and reuploaded a corrected set.  Then those were deleted since I wasn't able to create the corresponding post in time.  However, at this point the PDF I uploaded above contains everything so there is no longer any need to upload the photos.

As for the project size, it's a very small--in the PDF you'll see the foundation is only 23'x19'.  The timbers were cut at a local mill and are hemlock.

[Jeff]

Your over 50 photos were deleted because there was no post. We are not a storage facility. Against the rules.  I told you to read the rules already in a private communication. Now, you have created a pdf to get around putting photos in the post that is monstrously large. The PDF is going to be deleted.  If you want to participate here, it has to be by the rules that have been in effect here for 15 years.

I suggest you create your posts and questions with words and punctuate with photos. You have probably already used more forum bandwidth than the average member uses in a year.  Uploading photos is a two way street. You not only have to upload them, we have to receive them.