The Forestry Forum

So we're building a house all post and beam and after talking to one of the framers he said we could use the tenon as a seat.  I don't think this is right.. BUT  in my practice I always do a seat 1/2" to 1" where the tenon goes into the mortise and has that lip to rest on.  I looked at the plans again and there is no seat there so we now have some beams where I put seats on and some beams just resting on the tenon.  The tenons are 3" long with a 7/8" peg, the architect said the seat should not matter because it will be sitting on a 2x3x8 inch tenon.  The 8x8 will then rest on a 2x6x36" brace.  I'm not sure about this, I'm thinking with the load on the house those tenons could shear. Thoughts?

There is no telling if this joint is right or wrong without knowing all the loads on the timber with the tenon.

Jim Rogers