Possible to build Stick Frame Instead of Timber Frame House or Extension?

Hello,

Does anybody know if it is possible to build a stick frame home or extension in Ireland instead of a timber frame? For those not familar with stick frame, basicaly instead of all the framing being done off site in a factory the way timber frame homes are done, everything is done on site. Carpenters cut the 2x4's studs and frame walls, put headers for windows and doors, cut and apply plywood or OSB etc. all at building site. Anyway, you end up with the same structure as timber frame and is how most homes in US are built. As husband has built homes here in US it would make sense for us to build this way when we go back to Ireland. Also a great way to add extension. But knowing all the rules in Ireland we probably won't be allowed! I have tried to read the Irish building codes but were not very clear and did not really seem to specify what type of construction methods were acceptabe. I thought I read somewhere that you can't build this way due to it not being proven as a structural engineered method or something like that but I am hoping that is not the case. Thanks for in advane for any information. This is such a great forum!

Small Timber frame extensions would always be built that way Id imagine as no one is going to get their 6x8m extension factory made?
As far a wholehouse being built this way it would far more expensive surely. The factory made sections are quickly put together in kit form, why would someone want this option unless a bespoke build is wanted?

Hi Monkeyboy,
In general it would be more expensive in Ireland to build a stick frame house. As for the build time, if you have a crew of framers (3-4) who know what they are doing, a house can be framed and completed to the level a timber frame would be in 5-10 days.But I know it is not the norm in Ireland so not a good option for entire self build home as such an unfamilar way of building over there. Also, timber frame homes are usually more airtight/energy efficient than stick build. The only reason we are considering it is it may be cheaper for us as my husband would be doing the work as that's what he does here in US and also we are looking into bringing the lumbar back with us from US as way cheaper over here. Interesting comparision between US and Ireland, stick frame homes are the norm in US and much cheaper to build than an off site timber frame home and vice versa in Ireland. I just want to make sure there is not some "law" saying all timber homes or extensions need to be off site construction. Has anyone had an extension built that way (stick framed) and if so did they have any problems with planning or insurance? Thanks again.

These stick houses are the ones we see on television when the latest hurricane/tornado has swept over the US. "Stick" home is the right expression for such a construction. Don't forget that Ireland is an island, open to the forces of the wind for 365 days per year from all sides. And all timber ("lumbar"?) exported from the US to Europe has to be poisoned against termites. Hardly suitable as a home with our health and safety demands .....

I am also living in the US and thinking of going the Stick frame route when I go home as well.

Maybe someone can explain to me the difference between timber walls put together in a factory and on site if the same timber is used. I think the price that timber frame companies are charging is ridiculous. If you frame it yourself as long as everything is structurally sound there should be no problem.

A good architect should be able to direct you as to where load bearing walls go etc. All these Timber frame co's do is seperate your plans into walls and sections and ship it to you as a jigsaw.

As Colorado says any good carpenter that has framed in the USA (and there should be loads at home now) running a few guys should have it done in a few days (depending on the complexity etc)

Good luck with It

Head The Wall

The difference between onsite build stick homes and factory made frames is enormous. First: Factory timber is dry. On site timber can be of any moisture content. Shrinkage! Rot! Once wrapped in vapour barrier wet timber dries slowly.
Second point: In the factory large vices are used to compress the parts before they're fixed. Not so on site.
There is a difference between a stick house and a skeleton house. The stick home is build by people who can hold a hammer. The skeleton house is build by real carpenters. And will last a few centurys.There are no stick homes around the globe that have lasted that long.
The oldest known skeleton homes are to be seen in Quedlinburg/Germany. The oldest is from the 13th century.Still occupied.
Charly Chaplin in his goldrush movie showed pretty clear what happens to a stick home in an open place when the wind blows and with our increasing storm forces ( caused by the discard mentality of many of us who think in terms of months rather then in terms of generations when building a home) the situation will get worse.

Hello,

Seemed to have opened up a can of worms here! Just like an off site timber frame home or a block built home, stick frame homes are only as good as the people who build it and follow the correct procedures. There are lots of rules and regulations regarding how big a span you can build, load bearing walls, insulation, type of lumbar used etc. Structurally, there is no difference between an off site timber home and an on site timber home provided both homes have been built the correct way. Off site timber frames are based on the same principles of stick frame building. The house I live in in Colorado is a 50 year old "stick" framed home located at the base of the Rocky Mountains which sees extremes of tempertures (-40 in Winter, 35+ in Summer) huge amounts of moisture in the form of snow which I would think may be even worse than rain as the snow sits on the homes for days, extreme thunderstorms with rain and golf ball sized hail and extreme wind, much greater than anything I have ever experienced in Ireland. Only last night our metal patio table was lifted up by the wind and carried about 50 feet. Yet the house still stands as do several other millions in the state. No mold, no rot, it does not blow in the wind etc. As for all the homes that blow down in the hurricanes, yes the majority are built the stick frame way, and a timber frame will and have performed in the exact same way. And block build homes do not escape the wrath of hurricanes or tornadoes either. My sister lived in Ohio and 5 block built homes on her street were destroyed by a tornado yet 2 stick homes sustained only minor damage. So I am sorry but what I have seen with my own eyes is that if a hurricane or tornado hits, it does not matter what way your house has been built, you are in big trouble! The ones that seem to do better in hurricanes appear to be SIPS due to the fact that the entire wall is structural. Also, I have a sister who lives in a "stick" built house in Jersey, Channel Islands which was built over 30 years ago so I don't think that they are as bad as some of you think, just a different way of building. 6 years ago when timber frame homes started to be built there was a lot of people very wary of them, saying they would blow down, rot etc. Obviously that is not the case and it is not the case with stick built homes either. Let me ask people then if they are getting a small extension, and an offsite timber frame company is not interested in doing the panels due to it being too small a project, is your only option then to build a block built home with all the problems associated with that? I hope not because I have lived in an Irish block built home and an American stick built home and I have nothing but negatives to say about the block homes. Damp, drafty, cold,crooked walls, cracks etc. Off site construction has a lot of advantages, build time and accuracy are the 2 biggest advantages, I am not knocking it, I think it is a wonderful way of building but I also believe that stick frame is a great way of building, particulary if you are building an extension or a garage. I would still like to know if anyone has built this way (either a house or extension) to see if it can be done in Ireland. Thanks for everyone's imput.

I've no personal experience of "stick build" but I have read many books on the subject, many published by Taunton Press. "Framing Walls, Floors, Ceilings, from the Best of Fine Home Building" published by Taunton is an excellent reference on the subject.As I see it any "stick built" structure constructed in Ireland will have to be faced externally with a masonry "cladding" to endure our ravages of weather. Our moderate climate isn't harsh by world standards but we do have wind driven rain and high humidity at times which are detrimental to timber cladding (even though timber cladding is quite often used on commercial and apartment build now). Any "stick built" structure destined for this contry would need to be designed (or at least be approved) by a structural engineer to get loan approval from a lending institution. However if you could get an engineer to supervise your stick build I'd see no other obstacle to going this route as long as the external cladding is of masonry and has an IAB certificate, thus ensuring it is suitable for use in our climate. Homebond will not cover stick build. They apply a rule that any material used for the structure of a home must have an expected life of 60 years in order to be deemed suitable. I see no reason why a properly designed stick build, constructed to regulations and under good supervision would not meet this criteria. The product produced by the timber frame factory is a more economic one in terms of the materials used in fabrication- as each element is designed and engineered to achieve that economy. But I'd imagine a good stick built (built with heavier frame sizes in all likelihood) would be more robust. An important requirement of any timber or lumber used would be to ensure it is stress graded and stamped as suitable for structural applications.

Hi Carpenter,

Thanks for the information. I should have clarified that the house would be clad with masonry or rendered plastered, just like most timber frame homes. Once built you would not be able to tell the difference between it and a timber frame or block home. If we go the route of building a house from scratch we would be employing an architect and structural engineer to design and sign off on everything. Here in the US there are building inspectors also that examine the work of all homes at various stages to ensure they are to code. If not, building stops until the problem is resolved so standards over here are pretty high. Do you have building inspectors in Ireland or would the enginner and/or artchitect be the one to do that? I would have to double check with my builder husband but I believe the same size studs (2x4 or 2x6) are used in stick frame and the same 2 foot on center spacing used and then the OSB and breather membrane etc. (Sorry, I can't figure out the metric system ) I'm thinking if someone was doing up a house and wanted to add or replace an internal wall that it would be next to impossible to get a pre-fab wall panel in through the front door so that's where the real benefit of stick frame is. I think I will contact a structural engineer in Ireland and figure out if we could make it work. In general I would say that building a house from scratch in Ireland it would be cheaper and a lot easier to go with a timber frame company, just in our case we have an entire family crew that have built stick homes for years so could be cheaper for us. And house prices being what they are in Ireland we need to examine every angle! Also will check grades and types of lumbar (sorry, wood, I have been in the States too long!) to ensure any wood we used whether bought in US or Ireland would be suitable etc. Once again thanks to everyone for their imput.

We built a 'stick' built house last year. We bought the timber in Clare,it was imported stress graded, treated,planed scandanavian slow growth timber.For the timber frame it was significantly cheaper than any of the timber frame companies we priced.One year on, Our house has significantly fewer ( only a couple) of plaster settling cracks compared to a friends recently constructed masonary house.The house in faced with a nap plaster on 4in block.The great advantage as I see it is warmth. 22 degrees in the kitchen this morning, no heat on all week.Timber Homes from what I have read, and observed in my travels are the most common type across the World.I concur there is no problem with insurance on a timber frame home.

Soft wood timber can shrink in lenght and width by 2-4%. Therefore it's essential that all structural elements are evenly dry before a putting up the stick struckture. Imagine a chair where one leg shrinks by 2%. It would be shaky and get out of shape.
If that happens to a loadbearing stud/stick ("sticks" are not thicker then 5cm according to the books b.t.w.) then the nails and screws loose their holdfast. Only the panels/cladding/OSB boards will then hold up the structure-untill the bad weather that is surely to be blamed turns up and blows the structure apart.
Don't get me wrong:massive structures are build by using sticks and have shown they can last a long time. But these where erected by master carpenters and civil engineers.You see these trades people sometimes in the US as well, big black hat and wide black trousers, often confused with the Amish people.They know their trade. But Joe Average with a nailgun and a chainsaw is usually not up to specs for such a job.

Hi Heinbloed,

I think you are right that the average person (or even builder) should not build a timber frame home on site as it is a skilled trade. The design should be done by a structural engineer and examined and monitered as being built. That's what we would plan on doing and my husband is a master carpenter (both Irish and US trained) and has built a lot of these homes so we have an advantage there.(Not the cheap track homes where a lot of times there is only one carpenter and the rest are labourers, these are multi-million dollar homes with exacting standards so he really does know what he is doing ) Do you have any websites on those "skeleton" homes you mentioned? I would love to read up on these. I did a quick search but kept getting sites about the dead! Thanks again to everyone

Check out any books by Larry Haun, master framer in California.

quote: "sticks are not thicker than 5 cm". Not true, just checked with my husband regarding the dimensions of the studs (sticks/wood) that are used for framing stick build homes. Exterior walls use 2x6 (5cm wide by 15 cm deep/thick aprx) and interior walls are 2x4 (5cm wide by 10 cm deep/thick aprx). Also, spacing on exterior wall is 16" on center, so there is a stud placed every 16" (40cm aprx). Also regulations/codes regarding how many nails required for each stud, osb/plywood panel. This appears to be the exact same dimensions and structural requirements as used in the offsite Irish timber homes if you check the technical specifications on their websites. Example Kelly Timber Frame - External walls 38x140mm which unless I have converted to imperial incorrectly, would be aprx 1.49 inches x 5.5 inches. Now the 2x6 studs in the US work out slightly smaller as they go through a machine so edges smooth etc. and would in fact be closer to the 1.49 and 5.5 inches mentioned above. Several other dimensions listed in the technical specifications (spacing, heights of panels to correspond with plasterboard etc.) all are the same as what is used in building stick homes so the off site timber homes are using the same dimensions, structural requirements, theories as the off site timber homes. Thanks.

"Thickness" and "depth" are two different things, Colorado. "LUMBA" doesn't exist on the US-site, well, lumbago does though.(smiley)
About the skeleton houses: Check the German/Swiss/Austrian pages, "Fachwerk" or "Fachwerkhaus" is the right term there.Skeleton houses are sometimes -esp. in England- refered to as "wattle and doub"(?) In Ireland we have building regulations, these are also covering the thickness of the insulation- or better- the "U-value" of the walls. Kelly has 38 cm thick walls, not 8" ( ca. 25 cm). It's up to the builder to keep the min. U-value, so make yourself familiar with the issue.There is no way to build a house/extension with a wall only 8" thick. Unless you go for vacuum insulation.The frame manufacturers overcome this problem by building double walls.US homes are known to be of the most bad quality in the western world when coming to energy conservation, so your experience in the US might be useless in Europe.We have an "energy pass" compulsary from next year on (as far as I know), make yourself familiar with it.
Well, you could build an 8" thick insulation, but your house would be outdated soon, with the next building regulation changes it would be "old" and have an accordingly lower market value. To cover the next few years of building/regulation developements and maintaining the market value you shouldn't go with the min. regulations. Put extra insulation in.
It doesn't matter to the screws how long or thick they are, but once they're pulled by moving/shifting timber just a little bit the sorounding timber fibre is destroyed and they wont hold any more. Compare it with a cork screw in the cork, once the cork gives a little bit when pulling the cork screw it has no hold any more. No matter how deep it sits in the cork.The cork will crumble. And that would happen when the timber studs shrink unevenly, i.e. when they have a different moisture content when beeing put in place. They all will dry but some studs will be shorter then others and there the demage occurs.
P.S.: Are/is "Colorado" two different persons?

Hello,

The folllowing is taken from the Kelly Timber Frame webiste:
External walls
"38 x 140mm CLS Studs and rails positioned at centres...". These are the dimensions I was refering to in my previous post regarding the same size studs (2x6) being used in off site constructed timber homes and on site constructed homes. So perhaps it is just the way I worded the information that was not very clear? I am refering to the studs only with regard to dimension, not the finished thickness of the wall. I am very aware of all the new requirements regarding the energy requirements of homes (part L I believe in the building regulations) and we plan on exceeding the minimum but thanks for the reminder. Many homes in the US are now built to ensure much better energy conservation and come with a rating and u-value which will be similar to what Ireland will be implementing and these are all stick framed. And one thing we have learned in the US which will stand to us in Ireland is quality workmanship and customer service. I am always amazed at the poor workmanship that I see in so many Irish homes and extensions and wonder how they can get away with it. And then the builders not bothering to return calls or show up when they are supposed to -but I am going off topic here. I was out with some builder friends at the weekend who have constucted both on site timber homes and pre-manufactured off site timber homes and asked them for their views. They said the houses are framed the same way, same size wood is used, insulation, OSB, vapor wrap etc. One guy is from Northern Ireland and helped build a timber frame home last year in the North and even he said that if you do a cross section of a stick home and timber frame home you can not tell the difference. But timber frame homes are still a better option for the majority of people, especially developers who are mass producing the same design, because of their speed of construction and it is easier to achieve better energy efficiency. I really never meant for this topic to become a debate between which method of building is better because I have already looked into both methods and think both are excellent ways of building, each with their own pros and cons. Everyone considering building a home needs to do their own research as to the best method of building for them and take all the advantages and disadvantages of each system into consideration. I also think it is a good idea to talk with people who live or have lived in a house constructed the way they are considering, to get their imput.

Thank you to so many people who have sent me private messages to inform me that they have built stick frame homes in Ireland which have met and exceeded all building regulations and are energy efficient and were cheaper to build. Appears there is no issuse with planning permission, insurance or mortgages provided house is signed off by a structural engineer. So this forum answered my original question. My next step is to try and win the lottory so we can afford to move back to Ireland!
P.S. Heinbloed,Colorado is just one person and thanks for the information on the skeleton homes.

[It is far cheaper to stick build your own house I Just completed my own home and have built other homes in the area . It is a better job if done right and easier to get a good air tight result .I Build Homes that get A ratings and with very low running costs nbuote=HeadTheWall;203252]I am also living in the US and thinking of going the Stick frame route when I go home as well.

Maybe someone can explain to me the difference between timber walls put together in a factory and on site if the same timber is used. I think the price that timber frame companies are charging is ridiculous. If you frame it yourself as long as everything is structurally sound there should be no problem.

A good architect should be able to direct you as to where load bearing walls go etc. All these Timber frame co's do is seperate your plans into walls and sections and ship it to you as a jigsaw.

As Colorado says any good carpenter that has framed in the USA (and there should be loads at home now) running a few guys should have it done in a few days (depending on the complexity etc)

Good luck with It

Head The Wall[/quote]

brian...not sure quite your query above, but my 0.02 as they say, on a few points.

1. Stick build is cheaper if you build it yourself. If you're not a carpenter, don't even start. Even if you are, it's only cheaper if you're not charging for the labour - if you were to charge for the actual time etc, then, unless you're paying yourself less than the going rate, then it's not cheaper.
2. Most onsite timber in Ireland, as Heinbloed pointed out, is not factory quality.
3. Quality of insulation and airtightness on a site-built stick-built house is not comparable to that of a factory built one -especially if the factory one is pre-insulated or pre-lined, inside with VPM etc...
4. The quality standard of US-built stick frames is not on par with factory built homes here, so if you're 'returning' carpenters are working to US standards...........caveat emptor........
5. An architect will not issue a structural certificate unless actually qualified as a structural engineer also - you will need a proper structural certificate to a recognised standard, for example: B.S.648 1964, B.S.6399: Part 1:1996 Part 2:1997 Part 3 1998:, B.S. 5268 Structural Use of Timber, Part 2, 2002, Part 6.1 1996, and IS193:1986
6. Kiln Dried, Stress Graded Timber on an open site becomes.........just as wet as native. Shrinkage of site built homes in this country is a much bigger problem than in the US, due to our climate.
7. Onsite nailing is not comparable in quality or consistency to a factory built unit, either. And with timber on site drying out for some time to come, you'll find 'poppers' etc are more the norm than the exception.
8. Warranty. Factory's give one, and stand over their product.
9. Testing, QA and Accreditation. There's a reason factories (like ours) spend huge sums on it.

BTW, the smallest unit we've ever built for someone was 2.7m x 3.3 - it's all product to us !