People have built houses and barns using common sense and experience based judgment for years without doing any calculations or following building code.
Any idiot can build a bridge that stands. Only an engineer can build a bridge that *barely* stands.
Engineers are there to work out what you need, as well as what you DONT need so that itâs not only safe but also economical.
Yes that's about right on someone that knows how to build Post and beam with joinery it'll far surpass any loads they have in that area and probably even and in the high wind zones.
I think this is 10 times stronger than 2x4 framing with weak trusses.
Right, I guess I don't understand OP's point. Surely he or she knows that people were building wood structures for thousands of years before the latest revision of NDS was published? And some of those structures are still standing today (in some form or another).
Itâs almost like the engineers job isnât to build the most robust structure but to design it using the minimum strength materials necessary to meet the requirements of the customer.
Almost like someone is trying to save money. Because if left up to the trades everything would be 5x stronger than necessary and 10x the cost.
Looking at you welders!!
I think the importance of distributing capacity/safety evenly throughout the structure is an underrated aspect of proper design. No point using a beam so strong that the column will buckle at a third of its capacity.
At first glance this farmhouse isn't offensively dinky or anything. Dunno if it would pass a 50 year wind load check or exceed common foundation settlement limits with permanent storage loads in the rafters or whatever but for the most part yeah, nothing too sketchy about chunky-ish columns and beams with a bunch of kickers to make things stiffer.
Cutting his own wood is setting off more alarm bells to be honest, I guess it'll be a pretty breathable structure but if he's milling wood and using it hours later you can expect all kinds of gaps and cracking as time goes on.
Just picked up some "certified" lumber 2x4's and 2x6's to use on a remodel. The premium studs were horrible. Twisted and bowed. There even a few with boring holes in them. The new normal is....I have to hand pick at the best lumber yard around. I've never seen it this bad. This guys wood is probably better than most of what I see every day. I'm at the point of quoting metal for deck structure and LSL's for interior walls. Tired of trying to make bad wood into a good project. If I could get it to pass Inspection, I would buy the wood from the guy selling it from his sawmill in Kentucky. At least he cares about the finished product.
I've heard stuff like that anecdotally but don't do enough wood work myself to really have an opinion - but yeah, gotta wonder how much jankiness you get when you force a bunch of twisted and warped studs into approximate alignment.
The price is closer to prepandemic, so it isn't as painful as it was a couple years ago. Paying triple the price for garbage wood. At some point there has to be a correction. These huge corporations cannot continue to make record profits and produce a horrible product. I guess there's no competition for price or quality when all the smaller businesses get bought out.
timber framing is almost always done with green wood. The techniques used, although it looks like this guy uses more mechanical fasteners and less traditional joinery, will maintain the integrity of the structure while checking and shrinkage goes on.
Where I live, in New England, you see lots of 200+ year old timber framed structures that are solid (and beautiful). 8x8 or 12x12 posts and beams with huge checks in them, but the joinery is still holding it all together.
New England Dutch colonial settler enter the chat.
In CT,We have houses here that date back to 1700 and late 1600s. In particular the Dutch colonials seem to Outlast the rest.
I mean, yes? Seat belts and building codes both perform the same function: *mitigate* risk.
Somehow there's a whole group of people who believe that things like seat belts and building codes *eliminate* risk, and leads them to the logical conclusion that anyone who ever drives without a seatbelt or built a barn without a building code was a suicidal idiot.
Guess that puts me in the suicudal idiot group then, since I can recall several times I've driven a car without fastening a seatbelt (although I do fasten it 99 percent of the time).
I mean a bunch of individuals theoretically contributed to building the Tower of Jericho 10,000 years ago and they didn't even know what architecture, construction or a building was. They just like, kept piling stones until it didn't fall over anymore.
Not just materials, but labor time as well. All of the "extra" things he throws in there take time to procure and install. If they had calculations to justify fewer or more efficient placements, they could churn better.
There's definitely a point at where gains in efficiency are marginal with additional design, but based on the images, I don't think he's close to that. He cuts his own trees... It seems like he doesn't care too much about efficiency.
Gothic cathedrals did an amazing job at this! Of course half of them ended up as piles of stones nobody today remembers, but that was how they learned.
I look back at the crazy tree houses we built as young teens in a chunk of woods nearby and itâs a miracle they never fell. Most our lumber was scrap from friends dads construction sites.
Well I have to get siesmic calcs submitted for all my electrical gear. Nothing like ½ all thread epoxied into the ground 6 inches to hold a 15kv transformer down
Sure, but a lot of those houses failed prematurely. And the others were more expensive than they should have been. And many were more expensive AND failed prematurely.
Anyone can design a building that stands, but it takes a good engineer to design a building that barely stands.
I always tell people theyâre using âover-engineeredâ wrong. When they see something beefy they saw itâs over engineered. When itâs the oppostite. They just farm built it huge knowing it would work.
Yep. "Over engineered" should mean that the engineer spent too much time designing it when it was not necessary to do so. Using a large safety factor is not "over-engineering" in my opinion. But you know we have already lost that battle. Still noble to fight on, I guess. Like Don Quixote.
Yah our bridge building class was âdesign a bridge where you can predict when it failsâ.
Half the grade was how much weight it holds, other half was how close your math was to the actual failure point⌠(we had to build it out of a fixed material with know qualities).
The fancier you get, harder it is to predict.
Relative measurements and traditional knowledge *are* a form of calculations. They do quite well for structures 3 floors or shorter, IMHO. And have done so for thousands of years. Even things like pagodas and castle towers that go much higher have been built quite successfully with only relative geometry. All of the calculations are being taken care of with tools like a square and a level and a rope.
It's when you start trying to go outside the traditional methods, or min-max your finances, or do something creative or extreme (compared with medieval or colonial period buildings) that you *really need* formal structural analysis in the modern sense.
Exactly. This is a traditional timber frame with 100âs of years of examples and experience behind it. I donât see anything here out of the ordinary
Edit : instead of mortise and tenon I see a lot of butt joints and steel plates instead. I stand by my original opinion and think there is nothing wrong with what this gentleman is doing it seems like 175% acceptable joinery
I certainly consider it superior to the typical matchstick construction most us houses have!
No matter how much I understand about how 2x4s and plywood work, I'll never consider them to be better than timberframe. At *least* give me engineered timber post and beam if we need to be sustainable!
Not sure I would consider this a âmassiveâ structure. But this is very impressive. Good for this guy. Would love to have this guy build a barn for me.
Only snag with his âno calculationâ approach is the risk of not accounting for lateral loads well. His member sizes look stout, and his connections look good, but I only see construction bracing. Residential lateral loads are small, but lacking lateral bracing can still be a sneaky spot in design.
Otherwise, this guyâs work looks impressive!
I donât like that the entire ridge beam is translated down to the four chamfered connections shown in pic 7. Otherwise nothing else stands out to me from a âno calculationâ review
Looks like knee braces on the main posts are the only element resisting lateral loads. They're not rock solid in my experience. The structure will sway a little in the wind without a bit of sheathing on the walls.
These photos get pointed out a lot. Those are pre fab panel and truss packages that were just stood up probably the day before and experienced a bad wind storm. The framing is not even close to complete in those photos.
Probably not making calculations however is certainly using some kind of standard margins if not over built with those timbers. Those beams look thick.
yep, an engineered structure could easily be designed with less materials, less labor, and in the end be stronger, but there is something nice about timber framing nonetheless. i appreciate traditional work.
I did a quick review of this and it looks pretty solid. The only things that stood out to me were the gurts were undersized and already deflecting. It looks like the angle braces may be attached using joinery which will make a very strong semi moment connection.
But even here in Florida the state statutes allow non-registered people to design residential and townhouse structures.
They are usually required to use a prescriptive method which there are several including the ICC 600.
Also a contractor that has taken the wind design course can certify these plans also in lieu of an engineer.
he says his girt sag is no different than all the steel structures he has built around the country where the C8 and C10 girts sag under their own weight and require sag rods. He says it will be addressed before the board&batten siding is applied.
First thing I noticed too. Although I used to work as a construction manager, so these things stand out.
But seriously, climbing a ladder and walking on trusses with a pair of vans isnât easy or comfortable. Flip flops are crazy.
Guy has probably spent his career building structures that have been designed by engineers using "calcs". So he has a good sense of the member sizes, framing layouts, connections, etc. Now he gets to brag to his friends and take credit for all the hard work that real engineers do. And I sincerely apologize if this guy is an actual engineer who happens to have the skills to build the structures he designs. But as others have mentioned, if he's using unrated lumber, thats a huge risk/liability that I hope an actual engineer wouldn't take.
It doesnât require too much skill to make a one story building stand up against self-weight and even snow. I wouldnât want to be in it during an earthquake or huge wind storm though!
As a structural engineer as well, looking at those members and the connections he has, I would much rather be in that house than most of the residential designs we put together based on todayâs codes.
Dude is using much denser cuts of wood at larger than nominal sizes and his connections look pretty sound. Including the metal side plate connection he has there.
Like you said, thereâs really not too much to a single, or two story, residential building. Even in a wind storm.
Load path matters a lot though. For example, are the rafters attached to their support beams in a way that can resist significant uplift? A stout roof can fly away in one piece
Sure. But what Iâm saying is: from what Iâm seeing in these photos, itâs at least matching the minimum that would be done in todayâs engineered residential designs.
People who have built like that have the long line of others doing the same. They learned what works and what doesnât. So you could start looking for archeologist who specialize in construction in th 1600-early 1700 you MIGHT find what you are looking for.
Photo 8: The extension chord and his body are a bit too close to that saw blade for my comfort level but then again, Iâm not âpowered by mushroomsâ.
I'm glad that there are not many people like him, otherwise we would have to clear the whole planet to build a million houses like that 
I would have loved to have known an engineer who could reliably tell me if I needed another piece of engineered lumber for a doorway I was widening. Coulda saved me $500 for that one opening.
This guy coulda saved a whole bunch of trees and sawing with some calculations.
Itâs like an artist who has never been to school for artistry. Thereâs plenty of info out there if you have the intuition and natural engineering mind⌠who taught the first engineers lol
I'm just an MEP guy, not a structural engineer. My thoughts about this are noted here.
https://imgur.com/gallery/timber-structure-yDykXv0
What do you think?
Edit: This might be overkill but it looks good to me for attaching rafters to ridge beams.
https://www.finehomebuilding.com/forum/how-to-connect-rafters-to-ridge-beam
Pretty sure the OP doesnât understand that code minimums and design standards were developed to counter the folks that under built wood structures, not for the folks like your neighbor who over build like crazy.
Overbuild is such a misunderstood word/concept. Just because you oversize every beam/column by 50% doesn't mean that a tornado won't rip it out of the foundations if your anchors aren't adequate, or that it huge windstorm/earthquake won't collapse it like Lincoln logs if you don't have adequate lateral bracing. But I have no idea what the governing environmental forces are where this is being built.
And he said he does no calcs, which means he doesn't design anything. You can't overbuild something if you don't know what the minimum requirements are. This guy appears to be very talented, but I wouldn't trust him to properly build something for me.
Bet he fells the trees with an axe he forged himself over the flames of the devils butthole with the iron of a meteor he chased down as it fell from the sky! Some dudes jus built differently I suppose
Itâs fine and dandy. Builder sounds like a character!
Until your friends go to sell and the buyers ask for the permits for the barn.
Even if the building is hella stout and an engineer can buy off on it, the home milled lumber needs certified/rated by inspection on all 6 faces which is pretty hard when the building is complete.
In a lot of rural places you're allowed to build whatever you want on your property under a certain height. If you even asked the local government for a permit for a barn they'd probably look at you weird.
>home milled lumber needs certified/rated by inspection on all 6 faces which is pretty hard when the building is complete.
Gonna doubt that one and just throw it under the pile of tasks too menial for any enforcement agency to ever care about.
oh! I forgot to mentionâŚ.he says he is a certified lumber grader (from a class that is offered by the TN division of forestry)and can grade his own lumber as #2 use for construction!
Let me add that when I got into wood design for high wind conditions after hurricane Andrew I found out that quite a bit of the design even in the prescriptive codes did not calc. out.
A quick example is a roof that is cut down the middle with a ridge vent. There is no provision for shear walls under each edge of this cut to transfer the loads from the diaphragm.
Where do all those go? I don't think anybody's ever figured it out but I know that they end up causing the diaphragm to rotate and put loads on the joint webs of the truss.
And let's not get into wood columns and what happens with them.
Perhaps related to what you are talking about: https://www.airvent.com/index.php/ventilation-resources/literature-sales-tools/shinglevent-ii/22-ridge-vents-in-high-seismic-regions/file
See also page 12: https://wood.tcaup.umich.edu/lectures/2021/X305.pdf
When you're using timber framing, you don't have to be like an engineer. Those timbers are STRONG. It's the same reason we have roman bridges still existing today. They were built with the materials available, which were stronger than necessary to hold the weight of traffic and the weight of the bridge itself.
The saying, "Anybody can build a bridge that stands, but only an engineer can build a bridge than barely stands".
^^^
I belive I heard the Millennium tower in SF was not design nor construction? I thought it was the deep foundation design bearing capacity psf, diagonally at that intersection. I thought I was due to a inordinate about of rain during new high rise and that they actually dewatering their foundation evregiously, which in turn changed modified the compliant needed composition of Millennium soil bearing psf and the water to soil ratio?
Even with the deep foundation design, soil nails, piling??
Maybe I'm wrong? Engineering wonders....that the lawyers and expert witnesses will battle dispute for years in litigation.
Just my thoughts after looking at the photos and not knowing any sizes of lumber. The headers supporting the ridge beam at each end seems small and the cut on them to match the roof slope looks like there is not enough butt left.
Having said that I would still trust it going into it, probably be there long after I die.
Only have to be so precise when building a shed with steel I beams. At a point the load just doesnât matter if itâs only at 1/50th its max payload.
My grandpa designed and built his two story house with concrete and bricks. Honestly no idea what he thought of when he built it but itâs still standing after decades so I guess he had some intuition.
Itâs very possible. All of the old Greek and Roman structures were built without calculations. This includes the colosseum and the astounding Pantheon. No one had realized back then that numbers could predict/simulate real world forces
Maybe a stupid question, but I don't really work with wood or frame anything.
How come those plates in the one picture seem to be screwed? Would a series of bolts joining the framing together not make it significantly stronger?
This guy won me over when you said he wore safety flip flops. Sheathed a roof in flip flops once, make me work the weekend and I'm a show up in weekend attire.
Giant safety factors mean using a lot more wood than you absolutely have to. Which is fine if you're not having to buy the lumber or pay to transport the lumber to the build site.
I wouldn't call that a massive structure. Also significantly oversized members & using traditional methods isn't really 'designing', more like rehashing.
"Massive structures."
Bro... its just a square barn. It requires only the most basic fundamentals to make a square building. As l9ng as you have the tools to make sure its plumb, level, and square ots pretty hard to get it wrong.
When he says he does not use calculator, it means he has done it far too many times he already know what needs to be done before he starts. So it is all just the same for him without a calculator.
Second, his design, metal joints, and bolting are basic stuffs and therefore it is believable they can all be self-made by someone who is resourceful.
Who is he? He can be someone who anyone wants to be, including you. But to say he is a goat may just be an overstatement.
Iâve done the same. Iâm no engineer by any stretch, and I can tell you the barns Iâve built were not at all efficient, but if you slap enough reinforcement and supports on a structure you can get the job done lol.
Itâs easy to build a sturdy barn. Itâs hard to build a sturdy barn and minimize material use/ maximize profit of the construction. Lots of old industrial equipment was made without calculations. Rather they made it big, thatâs part of why old cast iron machines are so huge. They couldnât calculate exactly how much material was needed or solve for the exact best shape. So they just made it big.
HE doesnât, the supplier for the framing package does. then you catch him flipping through the IRC tables.
Although, farms in my area are not required to get building permits.
Most American wood frame homes are strong due to engineered products. This is to save money on material, and time through efficiency. If youâre willing to accept that you could build the structure with less material/energy, if you had engineered products, but donât care about that, you can generally build based on principles and common sense. Check out balloon construction buildings back in the 1800s, not great for fire or insulation, but theyâre still standing today and those guys didnât standardize anything.
lol. I immediately recognized you from your post in fellinggonewild this winter.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/FellingGoneWild/comments/195eckf/showed\_my\_buddy\_how\_to\_cut\_down\_a\_36\_dia\_white/](https://www.reddit.com/r/FellingGoneWild/comments/195eckf/showed_my_buddy_how_to_cut_down_a_36_dia_white/)
My house was built by a 5â1â guy who cast adobe bricks he made from the arroyo, 20â long pine trunks he rolled down the mountain and hauled a few miles with a mule and stones he found in the back field. I doubt he could spell engineering but I still deign to cast aspersions about that mans level of intelligence or sheer willpower.
People have built houses and barns using common sense and experience based judgment for years without doing any calculations or following building code.
don't forget the obligatory \*slaps beam\* "she aint goin nowhere"
Isn't that all the structural engineering work is?
Structural engineering is knowing that slap forces vary widely, so we design it for 1.6 metric slaps.
đđđđ ...I'm gonna use that!!
Gosh I love this sub
How many slaps is that in freedom units?
At least 1776+246 this upcoming Thursday
What is that in PSI Palms Slaps/inch?
HOW CAN SHE 1.6 METRIC SLAP?!
You win r/StructuralEngineering and r/civilengineering for today.
Nah we calculate the members are going somewhere a little
Structure engineering is optimizing for not falling down while minimizing cost.
âAnyone can build a bridgeâŚâŚit takes an engineer to barely build oneâ
Any idiot can build a bridge that stands. Only an engineer can build a bridge that *barely* stands. Engineers are there to work out what you need, as well as what you DONT need so that itâs not only safe but also economical.
Yes that's about right on someone that knows how to build Post and beam with joinery it'll far surpass any loads they have in that area and probably even and in the high wind zones. I think this is 10 times stronger than 2x4 framing with weak trusses.
\*drives truck into beam\* "she ain't goi nowher"
Very similar thing in geotechnical engineering when talking about footings or piles on rock: âwhereâs it going to go?â
I would shit myself if someone sneaks that onto one of the general notes on one of my prints
I mean, i use that method when im welding new machine frames, lol if that slap dont make it giggle your good to go.
Right, I guess I don't understand OP's point. Surely he or she knows that people were building wood structures for thousands of years before the latest revision of NDS was published? And some of those structures are still standing today (in some form or another).
Itâs almost like the engineers job isnât to build the most robust structure but to design it using the minimum strength materials necessary to meet the requirements of the customer. Almost like someone is trying to save money. Because if left up to the trades everything would be 5x stronger than necessary and 10x the cost. Looking at you welders!!
One of my profs used to say "any idiot can build a bridge that'll stand up. It takes an engineer to build a bridge that'll *just barely* stand up."
My prof said "an engineer is someone who can design a structure to cost $100 that any dam fool could do for $1000"
I think the importance of distributing capacity/safety evenly throughout the structure is an underrated aspect of proper design. No point using a beam so strong that the column will buckle at a third of its capacity. At first glance this farmhouse isn't offensively dinky or anything. Dunno if it would pass a 50 year wind load check or exceed common foundation settlement limits with permanent storage loads in the rafters or whatever but for the most part yeah, nothing too sketchy about chunky-ish columns and beams with a bunch of kickers to make things stiffer. Cutting his own wood is setting off more alarm bells to be honest, I guess it'll be a pretty breathable structure but if he's milling wood and using it hours later you can expect all kinds of gaps and cracking as time goes on.
I was also concerned with a mill on site lol
None of this suggests that the lumber isnât cured, to be fair
Just picked up some "certified" lumber 2x4's and 2x6's to use on a remodel. The premium studs were horrible. Twisted and bowed. There even a few with boring holes in them. The new normal is....I have to hand pick at the best lumber yard around. I've never seen it this bad. This guys wood is probably better than most of what I see every day. I'm at the point of quoting metal for deck structure and LSL's for interior walls. Tired of trying to make bad wood into a good project. If I could get it to pass Inspection, I would buy the wood from the guy selling it from his sawmill in Kentucky. At least he cares about the finished product.
I've heard stuff like that anecdotally but don't do enough wood work myself to really have an opinion - but yeah, gotta wonder how much jankiness you get when you force a bunch of twisted and warped studs into approximate alignment.
The price is closer to prepandemic, so it isn't as painful as it was a couple years ago. Paying triple the price for garbage wood. At some point there has to be a correction. These huge corporations cannot continue to make record profits and produce a horrible product. I guess there's no competition for price or quality when all the smaller businesses get bought out.
timber framing is almost always done with green wood. The techniques used, although it looks like this guy uses more mechanical fasteners and less traditional joinery, will maintain the integrity of the structure while checking and shrinkage goes on. Where I live, in New England, you see lots of 200+ year old timber framed structures that are solid (and beautiful). 8x8 or 12x12 posts and beams with huge checks in them, but the joinery is still holding it all together.
New England Dutch colonial settler enter the chat. In CT,We have houses here that date back to 1700 and late 1600s. In particular the Dutch colonials seem to Outlast the rest.
Is this kind of like - every single person alive today that drove without a seat belt is still alive?
I mean, yes? Seat belts and building codes both perform the same function: *mitigate* risk. Somehow there's a whole group of people who believe that things like seat belts and building codes *eliminate* risk, and leads them to the logical conclusion that anyone who ever drives without a seatbelt or built a barn without a building code was a suicidal idiot. Guess that puts me in the suicudal idiot group then, since I can recall several times I've driven a car without fastening a seatbelt (although I do fasten it 99 percent of the time).
I think they're maybe getting at survivorship bias.
I mean a bunch of individuals theoretically contributed to building the Tower of Jericho 10,000 years ago and they didn't even know what architecture, construction or a building was. They just like, kept piling stones until it didn't fall over anymore.
No man, if you didn't spend thousands having an engineer stamp something it is gonna fall down. Fact
that's using the minimal amount of materials that require calculations. with is cheaper than without.
Any idiot can build a building that stands. It takes an engineer to build a building that barely stands.
I'm gonna frame this...
Not just materials, but labor time as well. All of the "extra" things he throws in there take time to procure and install. If they had calculations to justify fewer or more efficient placements, they could churn better. There's definitely a point at where gains in efficiency are marginal with additional design, but based on the images, I don't think he's close to that. He cuts his own trees... It seems like he doesn't care too much about efficiency.
Gothic cathedrals did an amazing job at this! Of course half of them ended up as piles of stones nobody today remembers, but that was how they learned.
âYou donât need to be an engineer to build something, you need an engineer to build something that barely stays upâ
I look back at the crazy tree houses we built as young teens in a chunk of woods nearby and itâs a miracle they never fell. Most our lumber was scrap from friends dads construction sites.
Well I have to get siesmic calcs submitted for all my electrical gear. Nothing like ½ all thread epoxied into the ground 6 inches to hold a 15kv transformer down
I bet over there years there was probably an awfully lot of 'well we probably should have made that piece a little bigger...'
The Japanese have been building timber earthquake proof multi-storey buildings for at least 1000 years
I mean, makes sense as long as you overbuild the fuck out of everything. Just really expensive to do it that way.
When in doubt, build it stout⌠and out of stuff you know about.
Anyone can build a bridge that stands for centuries, it takes an engineer to make one that barely stands
Sure, but a lot of those houses failed prematurely. And the others were more expensive than they should have been. And many were more expensive AND failed prematurely. Anyone can design a building that stands, but it takes a good engineer to design a building that barely stands.
Any man can design a bridge that doesn't collapse. Only an engineer can design a bridge that barely doesn't collapse.
Iâm not an engineer but very much appreciate this quote.
Engineers đ¤ bridges Always on the edge of a nervous, stress-induced breakdown
An engineer's job is not done when there is nothing left to add but when there is nothing left to take away.
r/civ
I always tell people theyâre using âover-engineeredâ wrong. When they see something beefy they saw itâs over engineered. When itâs the oppostite. They just farm built it huge knowing it would work.
Yep. "Over engineered" should mean that the engineer spent too much time designing it when it was not necessary to do so. Using a large safety factor is not "over-engineering" in my opinion. But you know we have already lost that battle. Still noble to fight on, I guess. Like Don Quixote.
Oversized is the term they keep mixing up with overengineered.
Definitely, idk how strong my trestles are but I wouldnât hesitate to plop a 500kg beam up on 2 of them
Reminded me of Jurassic Park! Man creates bridge. Engineers beat man. Woman inherits the earth.
* The Francis Scott Key Bridge has left the chat
Succinct
I prefer the more dramatic phrasing, "only an engineer can design a bridge that barely stands"
Man I love this quote
Just make it larger and more rigid
I worked on aerostructures in the past. This statement canât be more correctđ
This is a great comment
The engineer can get done with 1 box of screws and 10 boards that I can get done with 10 boxes of screws and 150 boards
Yah our bridge building class was âdesign a bridge where you can predict when it failsâ. Half the grade was how much weight it holds, other half was how close your math was to the actual failure point⌠(we had to build it out of a fixed material with know qualities). The fancier you get, harder it is to predict.
I had a professor that used to say, âAn engineer can do for a dime, what an idiot can do for a dollar.â
A professor once told me an engineer is someone who can make for a nickel what any fool can make for a dime.
Relative measurements and traditional knowledge *are* a form of calculations. They do quite well for structures 3 floors or shorter, IMHO. And have done so for thousands of years. Even things like pagodas and castle towers that go much higher have been built quite successfully with only relative geometry. All of the calculations are being taken care of with tools like a square and a level and a rope. It's when you start trying to go outside the traditional methods, or min-max your finances, or do something creative or extreme (compared with medieval or colonial period buildings) that you *really need* formal structural analysis in the modern sense.
Exactly. This is a traditional timber frame with 100âs of years of examples and experience behind it. I donât see anything here out of the ordinary Edit : instead of mortise and tenon I see a lot of butt joints and steel plates instead. I stand by my original opinion and think there is nothing wrong with what this gentleman is doing it seems like 175% acceptable joinery
I certainly consider it superior to the typical matchstick construction most us houses have! No matter how much I understand about how 2x4s and plywood work, I'll never consider them to be better than timberframe. At *least* give me engineered timber post and beam if we need to be sustainable!
Not sure I would consider this a âmassiveâ structure. But this is very impressive. Good for this guy. Would love to have this guy build a barn for me. Only snag with his âno calculationâ approach is the risk of not accounting for lateral loads well. His member sizes look stout, and his connections look good, but I only see construction bracing. Residential lateral loads are small, but lacking lateral bracing can still be a sneaky spot in design. Otherwise, this guyâs work looks impressive!
I donât like that the entire ridge beam is translated down to the four chamfered connections shown in pic 7. Otherwise nothing else stands out to me from a âno calculationâ review
Looks like knee braces on the main posts are the only element resisting lateral loads. They're not rock solid in my experience. The structure will sway a little in the wind without a bit of sheathing on the walls.
Brother you need to stop talking about this guyâs member size, youâre freaking us all out
This would move my needle if he was doing that with concrete, but I've never heard of a wood frame all of a sudden falling apart.
You mean like [this, this or this?](https://imgur.com/a/X5Fr5xC)
Really no comparison to the timber frame shown here.
These photos get pointed out a lot. Those are pre fab panel and truss packages that were just stood up probably the day before and experienced a bad wind storm. The framing is not even close to complete in those photos.
That doesnt even compare my guy. That "builder" went about the first floor without sheathing.
Probably not making calculations however is certainly using some kind of standard margins if not over built with those timbers. Those beams look thick.
yep, an engineered structure could easily be designed with less materials, less labor, and in the end be stronger, but there is something nice about timber framing nonetheless. i appreciate traditional work.
I just donât know how they built anything 1000 years ago! đ
tbf math is older than 1000 years.
Thanks for that bit of knowledge
I did a quick review of this and it looks pretty solid. The only things that stood out to me were the gurts were undersized and already deflecting. It looks like the angle braces may be attached using joinery which will make a very strong semi moment connection. But even here in Florida the state statutes allow non-registered people to design residential and townhouse structures. They are usually required to use a prescriptive method which there are several including the ICC 600. Also a contractor that has taken the wind design course can certify these plans also in lieu of an engineer.
he says his girt sag is no different than all the steel structures he has built around the country where the C8 and C10 girts sag under their own weight and require sag rods. He says it will be addressed before the board&batten siding is applied.
But does he mine the ore to make the steel?
Beam saw, and rafter walking in flip flops đ This guy is hilarious. It works until it doesnât I guess.
I've seen many a house built in South-East Asia by people in flip flops...
First thing I noticed too. Although I used to work as a construction manager, so these things stand out. But seriously, climbing a ladder and walking on trusses with a pair of vans isnât easy or comfortable. Flip flops are crazy.
âHim.â He is Himothy, LMFAO.
Guy has probably spent his career building structures that have been designed by engineers using "calcs". So he has a good sense of the member sizes, framing layouts, connections, etc. Now he gets to brag to his friends and take credit for all the hard work that real engineers do. And I sincerely apologize if this guy is an actual engineer who happens to have the skills to build the structures he designs. But as others have mentioned, if he's using unrated lumber, thats a huge risk/liability that I hope an actual engineer wouldn't take.
he told me he is licensed to grade/stamp lumber from courses he took offered by the UT division of forestry.
guy likes to refer to himself in the third person
It doesnât require too much skill to make a one story building stand up against self-weight and even snow. I wouldnât want to be in it during an earthquake or huge wind storm though!
As a structural engineer as well, looking at those members and the connections he has, I would much rather be in that house than most of the residential designs we put together based on todayâs codes. Dude is using much denser cuts of wood at larger than nominal sizes and his connections look pretty sound. Including the metal side plate connection he has there. Like you said, thereâs really not too much to a single, or two story, residential building. Even in a wind storm.
Load path matters a lot though. For example, are the rafters attached to their support beams in a way that can resist significant uplift? A stout roof can fly away in one piece
Sure. But what Iâm saying is: from what Iâm seeing in these photos, itâs at least matching the minimum that would be done in todayâs engineered residential designs.
Architecture
Is that lumber dry? Or do you not have to dry lumber that large?
some has air dried for 18 months, some is green, the pine and hemlock doesnât move that much during drying to make a difference.
What an awesome life.
People who have built like that have the long line of others doing the same. They learned what works and what doesnât. So you could start looking for archeologist who specialize in construction in th 1600-early 1700 you MIGHT find what you are looking for.
All Iâm saying, is conventional framing is what falls apart and hurts people. Big giant timbers supported in the air by each other and gravity.
Photo 8: The extension chord and his body are a bit too close to that saw blade for my comfort level but then again, Iâm not âpowered by mushroomsâ.
Framing in flip flops is wild
Maths and numbers are just a liberal conspiracyâŚ
I'm glad that there are not many people like him, otherwise we would have to clear the whole planet to build a million houses like that 
Every barn on the planet says hi. Or any structure 50yrs old lol
Flip flops told me all I needed to knowâŚ
Did the guy says anything else?
I would have loved to have known an engineer who could reliably tell me if I needed another piece of engineered lumber for a doorway I was widening. Coulda saved me $500 for that one opening. This guy coulda saved a whole bunch of trees and sawing with some calculations.
That framing is as solid as fuuuck
Itâs like an artist who has never been to school for artistry. Thereâs plenty of info out there if you have the intuition and natural engineering mind⌠who taught the first engineers lol
I'm just an MEP guy, not a structural engineer. My thoughts about this are noted here. https://imgur.com/gallery/timber-structure-yDykXv0 What do you think? Edit: This might be overkill but it looks good to me for attaching rafters to ridge beams. https://www.finehomebuilding.com/forum/how-to-connect-rafters-to-ridge-beam
You only need calculations if you want to use the minimum amount of materials.
Pretty sure the OP doesnât understand that code minimums and design standards were developed to counter the folks that under built wood structures, not for the folks like your neighbor who over build like crazy.
Overbuild is such a misunderstood word/concept. Just because you oversize every beam/column by 50% doesn't mean that a tornado won't rip it out of the foundations if your anchors aren't adequate, or that it huge windstorm/earthquake won't collapse it like Lincoln logs if you don't have adequate lateral bracing. But I have no idea what the governing environmental forces are where this is being built. And he said he does no calcs, which means he doesn't design anything. You can't overbuild something if you don't know what the minimum requirements are. This guy appears to be very talented, but I wouldn't trust him to properly build something for me.
Looking at that house frame, it looks over engineered. This is how you would build a house frame if you, yourself, were going to live in it.
I bet this structure lasts longer than most engineered structures. Probably not grow mold without the use of ERV.
Anyone can design a house that wonât fall over, it takes an engineer to design a house that just barley wonât fall over
Bet he fells the trees with an axe he forged himself over the flames of the devils butthole with the iron of a meteor he chased down as it fell from the sky! Some dudes jus built differently I suppose
So, in the parlance of our times, heâs âraw dogginâ it?
Hard to take anyone seriously wearing flip flops while using a huge ass saw.
Itâs fine and dandy. Builder sounds like a character! Until your friends go to sell and the buyers ask for the permits for the barn. Even if the building is hella stout and an engineer can buy off on it, the home milled lumber needs certified/rated by inspection on all 6 faces which is pretty hard when the building is complete.
Tell me you have never lived outside a city without telling me you have never lived outside a city.
In a lot of rural places you're allowed to build whatever you want on your property under a certain height. If you even asked the local government for a permit for a barn they'd probably look at you weird. >home milled lumber needs certified/rated by inspection on all 6 faces which is pretty hard when the building is complete. Gonna doubt that one and just throw it under the pile of tasks too menial for any enforcement agency to ever care about.
oh! I forgot to mentionâŚ.he says he is a certified lumber grader (from a class that is offered by the TN division of forestry)and can grade his own lumber as #2 use for construction!
Let me add that when I got into wood design for high wind conditions after hurricane Andrew I found out that quite a bit of the design even in the prescriptive codes did not calc. out. A quick example is a roof that is cut down the middle with a ridge vent. There is no provision for shear walls under each edge of this cut to transfer the loads from the diaphragm. Where do all those go? I don't think anybody's ever figured it out but I know that they end up causing the diaphragm to rotate and put loads on the joint webs of the truss. And let's not get into wood columns and what happens with them.
Perhaps related to what you are talking about: https://www.airvent.com/index.php/ventilation-resources/literature-sales-tools/shinglevent-ii/22-ridge-vents-in-high-seismic-regions/file See also page 12: https://wood.tcaup.umich.edu/lectures/2021/X305.pdf
When you're using timber framing, you don't have to be like an engineer. Those timbers are STRONG. It's the same reason we have roman bridges still existing today. They were built with the materials available, which were stronger than necessary to hold the weight of traffic and the weight of the bridge itself. The saying, "Anybody can build a bridge that stands, but only an engineer can build a bridge than barely stands".
Sounds like the guy from Tonyâs Tractor Adventure.
^^^ I belive I heard the Millennium tower in SF was not design nor construction? I thought it was the deep foundation design bearing capacity psf, diagonally at that intersection. I thought I was due to a inordinate about of rain during new high rise and that they actually dewatering their foundation evregiously, which in turn changed modified the compliant needed composition of Millennium soil bearing psf and the water to soil ratio? Even with the deep foundation design, soil nails, piling?? Maybe I'm wrong? Engineering wonders....that the lawyers and expert witnesses will battle dispute for years in litigation.
All these great comments and nothing about the guy using the 16" circular saw while wearing flip flops?
Just my thoughts after looking at the photos and not knowing any sizes of lumber. The headers supporting the ridge beam at each end seems small and the cut on them to match the roof slope looks like there is not enough butt left. Having said that I would still trust it going into it, probably be there long after I die.
Why use a calculator when you have thumb rules
A good engineer will design a structure considering cost efficiency as a secondary priority
Only have to be so precise when building a shed with steel I beams. At a point the load just doesnât matter if itâs only at 1/50th its max payload.
That giant timber saw Not adequate footwear No hearing protection No eye protection If I tried that at work I'd be fired in an instant
Fast. Cheap. Quality. Pick two.
Design-build guy minus the design. Sounds like a guy is doing what he loves. Â
Engineers use math. That guy uses a hammer.
There is beauty in mass.
I have more faith in this then many 'modern' builds
My grandpa designed and built his two story house with concrete and bricks. Honestly no idea what he thought of when he built it but itâs still standing after decades so I guess he had some intuition.
Is he Amish?
I donât know anything about structural engineering but itâs looks like itâs got a lot of wood in supporty places. Looks good to me.
Just so you all know, calc is short for calculator, he's just using slang.
Looks sound to me
Itâs very possible. All of the old Greek and Roman structures were built without calculations. This includes the colosseum and the astounding Pantheon. No one had realized back then that numbers could predict/simulate real world forces
Calc is short for calculator btw chat
Maybe a stupid question, but I don't really work with wood or frame anything. How come those plates in the one picture seem to be screwed? Would a series of bolts joining the framing together not make it significantly stronger?
He is an archetype of an American that is becoming more and more rare every day. The house is fine. Solid as a rock.
This guy won me over when you said he wore safety flip flops. Sheathed a roof in flip flops once, make me work the weekend and I'm a show up in weekend attire.
Reminds me of the reinforced wood beams from Valheim.
Calcs for what? Max deflection? Dynamic floor loading? Wind load? Itâs all about anchorage best practices anyway.
Thereâs something called âprescriptive designâ where a common design is accepted, usually rafter roofs and a single family home.
Probably a dad. Guarantee he built it cheaper and it'll hold just as long. Or longer.
âI used my eyeâ home improvement
Thatâs a man who is building a legacy
Single story with massive timber (no splicing), simple load path, should be fine
Sounds great until you try to sell it legally
Giant safety factors mean using a lot more wood than you absolutely have to. Which is fine if you're not having to buy the lumber or pay to transport the lumber to the build site.
Thatâs pretty fucking cool.
I wouldn't call that a massive structure. Also significantly oversized members & using traditional methods isn't really 'designing', more like rehashing.
Hey chat if you just joined the steam, calc is short for calculator.
Itâs how major structures were designed hundreds of years ago; oversized members⌠itâs not efficient by any means, but itâll work.
"Massive structures." Bro... its just a square barn. It requires only the most basic fundamentals to make a square building. As l9ng as you have the tools to make sure its plumb, level, and square ots pretty hard to get it wrong.
Evidently he can't make his own Carriage bolts
When he says he does not use calculator, it means he has done it far too many times he already know what needs to be done before he starts. So it is all just the same for him without a calculator. Second, his design, metal joints, and bolting are basic stuffs and therefore it is believable they can all be self-made by someone who is resourceful. Who is he? He can be someone who anyone wants to be, including you. But to say he is a goat may just be an overstatement.
Wait⌠I recognize this guy. This guy was posted in r/construction like a month ago for working in sandals.
How long was the lumber dried?
Over engineering is a thing too.
Iâm more concerned about those OSHA rated flip-flops. Where do I get some of those?
Iâve done the same. Iâm no engineer by any stretch, and I can tell you the barns Iâve built were not at all efficient, but if you slap enough reinforcement and supports on a structure you can get the job done lol.
Codes and engineering are minimums!
Dude is absolutely jacked and doing all this in flip flops lmao what a boss
that big ass circular saw with the flip flops tells me everything i need to know. get er done og
yep, i know a guy like that. they build it stout, and that covers any small errors.
Is doing this kind of work in sandals acceptable?!
Itâs easy to build a sturdy barn. Itâs hard to build a sturdy barn and minimize material use/ maximize profit of the construction. Lots of old industrial equipment was made without calculations. Rather they made it big, thatâs part of why old cast iron machines are so huge. They couldnât calculate exactly how much material was needed or solve for the exact best shape. So they just made it big.
HE doesnât, the supplier for the framing package does. then you catch him flipping through the IRC tables. Although, farms in my area are not required to get building permits.
he doesnât what? he supplied the framing package, cut the trees, milled the lumberâŚ
Again with these pics⌠lol
Most American wood frame homes are strong due to engineered products. This is to save money on material, and time through efficiency. If youâre willing to accept that you could build the structure with less material/energy, if you had engineered products, but donât care about that, you can generally build based on principles and common sense. Check out balloon construction buildings back in the 1800s, not great for fire or insulation, but theyâre still standing today and those guys didnât standardize anything.
Pole barn gonna pole barn I guess
If you over engineer something enough, you don't need calculations.
lol. I immediately recognized you from your post in fellinggonewild this winter. [https://www.reddit.com/r/FellingGoneWild/comments/195eckf/showed\_my\_buddy\_how\_to\_cut\_down\_a\_36\_dia\_white/](https://www.reddit.com/r/FellingGoneWild/comments/195eckf/showed_my_buddy_how_to_cut_down_a_36_dia_white/)
Chat whatâs a calc
The beams are under fastened. Looks like screws @ 300lb per fastener.
Donât like the ridge beam, to small and header over widows are to small.
Calc is short for calculator, heâs just using slang
My house was built by a 5â1â guy who cast adobe bricks he made from the arroyo, 20â long pine trunks he rolled down the mountain and hauled a few miles with a mule and stones he found in the back field. I doubt he could spell engineering but I still deign to cast aspersions about that mans level of intelligence or sheer willpower.
Calc is short for calculator, itâs slang!
Easy enough if youâre willing to massively overspend on materials.