Room by Room: Designing Your Timber Frame Home

Rating:
Summary: Mechanical Fasteners in a Timber Frame Home, Hmmmm
Review: This is my 5th book purchase on the subject of timber framing. Previous books I've read have included 'Building the Timber Frame House', 'The Timber Frame Home', 'The Timber Framing Book' and 'Build a Classic Timber-Framed House'.

In none of these books will you find 'concealed mechanical fasteners for strength'. They justify use of these fasteners because cutting mortises and tenons is a 'costly, time-consuming method of construction'.

Isn't a main point of building or buying a timber frame home to have a traditionally construced timber frame? Using concealed and exposed mechanical fasteners 'for strength' misses the entire point of traditional timber frame construction.

After reading this book, it's my belief that a Yankee Barn Home is not what I'd want a timber frame home to be. For the $140-$180 per square foot that they say it takes to build a home, I would want an authentic timber frame rather than this cheapening of the art form. It honestly strikes me as if your typical stud frame construction techniques were applied to timbers, and that's just plain poor quality in the world of timber frames.

To the book's credit, there are checklists to help you decide what kind of rooms and features you want. The pictures are excellent and depict the construction techniqes of Yankee Barn Homes if you should decide to use them to build your home.