Not happy with my frame design. Ideas????

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I am not particularily thrilled with design (i like exterior concept, dont like the frame) i have come up with.

Exterior concept:


- goals i think i have met with exterior:
potential for simple design (i think i faltered here)
excellent passive solar design - I have tested this, and it appears that it will let in loads in winter, and hardly anything in summer.

I think my desire for next to full head room in loft area has perplexed me and my frame has become overly complicated, this is what i am trying to achieve as far as headroom is concerned:


and finally...a quicky of the frame (not finished - no braces, and just lines for smaller girts).  initially everything is 10x10.  I'm not happy with how the bents look - looks like a bunch of space invaders.  Fire phasers.  the frame is ~40 feet long, 25ft wide.   So, anyone have any suggestions on how to simplify this, do things different, etc??? I'll probably be posting in TFguild as well to see what comments arise there as well.  Any help would be greatly appreciated!! thanks!

[Jim_Rogers]

Well, nice drawings.
And welcome to the forum.

First of all you haven't told us your location.
Snow load, wind load and seismic load will have a lot to do with your design.
You may not need 10x10's at all. These are very large timbers and sizing timbers depends on the the loads mentioned above.
Ceiling heights as well as floor plans (or intended room definitions in your floor plan) also help.
Enclosure system, and roofing materials also play a part in overall design.

Good start, though.

Jim Rogers

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I dont have actual floorplan digitally done..and cant 100% remember it - have to go home and and get something whipped to display.

but for now, more dimensions (using the rough plan instead of timber sketch - dimensions easier to visualize here):





location: SE South Dakota
snow loads: 30 Lbs sq/ft
wind: very windy here, 25mpg gusts weekly, thunderstorms can get 60-70mph and tornadoes.
seismic: none
roof: 12" SIP, with a metal roofing of some kind
enclosure: seriously considering strawbale

I was trying to go for a dutch barn type of approach - seemed to lend to the extra headroom i wanted in the loft.   I was initially looking at using a series of queen posts trusses in the bents, but felt that would obstruct views from the loft.  But, i feel my design ended up making the house into segments of cubes, which may be the opposite to my intention of having a sense of space.  You can see a plane in the house that is essentially where second floor/loft will be, and everything under that will be bedroom, bath, laundry room, and kitchen.  i will detail that later today.

I am NOT doing these drawings in any fancy application, just using Google's free Sketchup.  If anyone is interested, here is the timber frame part for use in Sketchup:
Frame in Sketchup format

[Thehardway]

Pick up some of Ted Benson's book's on designing your timberframe.  You do not need to keep bent spacing all uniform in size.  Use the posts and girts to define specific areas ie. kitchen, living room etc.  this will add warmth and character. Use your imagination.  Look at the galleries of some of the timberframe companies online.  It will give you some ideas. 

Things such as arched trusses or hammerbeam's can break up the linear feel and add warmth.  Perhaps a bridge truss to support the rafters?  Your gabled dormer could be a real show stopper but it will involve some very complex compound joinery to do it right.

If your thinking of strawbale enclosure don't forget to allow for extra thick walls and include them in your dimensions/spans.

Nice illustrations!

agree with above comments that floorplan is really necessary to help with creativity.

[Thomas-in-Kentucky]

I'm just throwing jello at the wall, but sometimes that helps, so here are some thoughts...

*Benson's book "The Timber-Frame Home : Design Construction Finishing" (not his first book) is _the_ book that could help you most right now.  He has a few pages of bent designs that really help compare the various options.

*Look for ways to simplify.  (I violate this rule all the time, and some of my suggstions will violate this rule, but gee, life would be a lot easier if I could follow this rule!)  For instance, you have 4 nearly identical bents... that is a good thing in terms of simplifying your design time.  Bravo.  On the other hand, the dormer is going to be tricky... would a shed dormer make you nearly as happy, if it meant moving into your house 3 months (and $6,000) sooner?  Also, if you want a dormer that you can walk out of on to a balcony (is that what I see here?), maybe you could eliminate all of the pitched roof  that lays south of the dormer?  In other words, implement a flat or nearly flat roof south of the dormer, instead of carving out a balcony within a pitched roof?

*Back to that Benson book, the design you have now is almost centered around "aisles" instead of "bents".  In other words, instead of building and raising typical bents, I could imagine building and raising the frame you have pictured by building four 42' long bents that run the length of the house.  Benson's book discusses this better than I could here.  Or raise them as four 25' bents and use top plates - even better.

*Some of your discontent with your design could possibly stem from not havign the braces pictured.  The frame will "feel" better with those braces in there.  (you could print out your sketchup model, and hand sketch the braces in there to see if it "feels" better)

*shrink what you can.  I built a house bigger than I intended for some reasons that now seem arbitrary to me.  For instance, maybe you don't really need headroom in _all_ of the second floor.  If you have closets or furniture in these areas, maybe you could get by with 4 or 5' ceilings at the perimeter of the upper rooms?

*the four post bent design (barn style) is very stout.  I like it, so long as it does not interrupt your living space too much.  Especially if you plan to have 4 continuous (or scarfed) 42' top plates.  (OK, technically the two plates over posts 2 and 3 are not top plates, I forget their names, but they support the rafters.)  If you have rafter support and continuous top plates, then you could use common rafters in your design... which to me seems like another way to simplify.

*looks like you have so far avoided the dreaded "4 girts into one post at the same elevation" issue, but you might run nto that issue when you start thinking about how to support the 2nd floor.

*balsa and hot glue (or pin-needles) might be quicker than sketchup for you right now.  I have used both - Sketchup can be tedious when you want to "ideate" but it is invaluable for visualizing the outside shell of your house.  3/8"x3/8" balsa "beams" helped me visualize my frame.  I didn't model all braces, girts, and certainly not the joinery, but it was helpful nonetheless.  Due to shoddy consruction and 4 kids running around the house, my balsa model spontaneously deconstrcuted itself multiple times until finally one day the baby-sitter did me a favor and threw it away when I wasn't home.

Gotta run.... Good luck!  Keep us posted.

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All:

Thanks for comment so far.  I gotta see if i can get that Benson book ASAP - I figured that one was a showcase of what Benson is doing for high end customers.

[Joel Eisner]

We just moved into our timberframe house a few weeks ago and I would applaud the repetition in the timbers and bents.  Also, using the connecting girts etc to define the rooms is a great idea.  Having a few quirky things like braces that cut across a door or two or a window is okay.  After a few weeks we still feel like we are on vacation.  I can't wait to get home from work to see the house.  The big problem I have is that as I lay in bed at night looking at the timbers above me I remember each one and think about when they were cut.  It makes is hard to sleep.  More at boothemountain.blogspot.com.