![]() These days the big challenges for timber framers fall into two groups - getting the wood, especially longer lengths, say, 24 feet, and finding the workers.Ĭarlson said getting good timbers “can be a struggle. We’ve done a couple of projects on Martha’s Vineyard and areheaded back there in the fall,” Jence Carlson said. While the company works mostly in Maine, the Carlsons have “done a couple in Vermont and we have a frame going to New York at the end of the month. Some are turnkey homes, others just the frame. The company works on maybe a dozen structures a year, of various kinds. While committed to the old ways, most timber framers are like Sweet, willing to employ modern tools and Photo courtesy of Maine Mountain Timber Frames equipment that definitely make the work easier.Ĭarlson said Maine Mountain Timber Frames uses the computer-aided design and drafting software known as Autocad to design all its timber frame structures, then sends the plans to a consulting engineer for review. “But I would say 50 to 60 percent is done with a hand tool. “I have to meet a production schedule,” he said. And he doesn’t by any means eschew power tools: he uses circular saws to cut beams to length, for instance. While Sweet loves traditional joinery, he will also do hybrid stick-built and post-and-beam buildings, depending on what the client wants. The client has a limited budget and so it will be only partially built out by Sweet’s crews. Now he’s working on a more modest project, a 24 by 32 foot house that will rise two stories above a basement. “At the height of that I had 22 people working for me,” Sweet said. One project ran from 2007 to 2012 and produced over 12,000 square feet of buildings. Sweet said it takes a year to build a good-size building and the company he runs with his son, John Sweet III, completes one to three a year, depending on the size of the crews they field. An internet search will turn up a variety of options for the person looking to hone the skills to build a new frame structure. There are numerous programs teaching timber frame construction, including at The Shelter Institute in Woolwich. It’s out there and it’s happening,” Lamer said. Photo courtesy of Maine Mountain Timber FramesWhile Lamer agrees that post-and-beam construction is a “small niche as far as the construction industry as a whole is concerned,” it is a viable one, and those trained in it can find jobs: “We have timber framers calling all the time asking for our students. Its program was recently endorsed by the Timber Framers Guild, a national organization promoting timber framing education. KVCC teaches timber framing as part of its Associate in Applied Science degree program as well as two one-year certificate programs in Sustainable Construction. Scott Lamer, the program coordinator of the Sustainable Construction Program at Kennebec Valley Community College in Fairfield, said he talks regularly with 10 timber frame companies, some of them very small shops, and adds there are another 10 or so he knows of, but hasn’t had contact with. Sweet estimates “there’s probably seven or eight in Maine that are very serious” about timber frame construction. While many Maine building contractors may employ full-size beams in their projects, those who count traditional timber framing as a major part of their business are probably few in number. People just like the overall aesthetic of heavy timber and seeing the structure of the house itself.” “It’s popular,” said Jence Carlson, who with his wife Katherine runs Maine Mountain Timber Frames in the tiny western Maine town of Avon. “It gives a different feel to the house.” “It’s the quality, the aesthetic appeal, the simplicity and the tradition” that account for its perennial appeal. It’s waxed and waned in popularity over the years, as has the number of builders who employ it, and now appears to be on a bit of an upswing, said Sweet. In the 1980s there was a lot of interest in timber framed houses. You can step back and look at a building and take real pride in it. I’ve built octagons.” All using pegged mortise and tenon joinery. He’s built woodsheds, barns and boathouses in “all kinds of configurations. Desert Island, has done 70 to 100 homes in the years Photo courtesy of Sweet Timber Frames since. He figures his company, Sweet Timber Frames, on Mt. That was in 1982, and he’s never looked back. ![]() But in 1982 he made a big career shift into a much more ancient craft: timber framing. was an ironworker who helped build paper mills. ![]()
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