Oak frame or other?

[da901400]

I'm a student from Nottingham Trent Uni (UK) and I would be most grateful to anyone who can find the time to answer a couple of simple questions to assist me in the write up of my dissertation. The dissertation is based upon the increased use of mechanization in the production of timber frame housing.

Q1. If you were to choose to live in rural Britain which of the following styles of house design do you think you would most want to live in?

a) Traditional brick and block
b) Traditional oak frame
c) Other

Please feel free to comment on your decision.

Q2. If you are either in the process of, or have recently completed a self build project of your home what were your thoughts towards using a traditional style oak frame?

a) Didn’t consider it
b) Considered it but decided against it
c) Chose to use it

Please comment on your thoughts.

Q3. The increased use of advanced mechanization in the production of timber frame bespoke houses has enabled more developers to build new homes in a highly desirable traditional style. This will ensure that it will become the predominant form of house construction by 2020.

a) Agree
b) Disagree

Please comment on your opinion.

Thank you for your time. :shock: :?:

[roger g]

Oooooooooh! I like this one.

Question 1 (a) Who's tradition? If it is your traditional then I really don't know that much about it. Our brick and block might be completely different than your brick and block. We have many variations of building with brick and or block.

(b) Oak!!!!!! Build a house from oak !!!!!!!! For a start no one could nail into it. I should really ask what "you" mean by oak frame. Here, if you have the money (lots) you might get oak trim and flooring. That's about it.


(c) We have so many "other" I wouldn't know where to start. Our temperature and climate ranges are huge.


Qustion 2

(a) Never seen it. wouldn't consider it. Couldn't afford it. Couldn't cut it. Couldn't nail it. If of course "your" framing is the same as ours..

(b) & (c) See the above

question (3)

Agree ( whatever bespoke houses are?)

Ah! it's nice to see how housing has changed since I was a kid. I grew up in a house built of 100% asbestos. This was state of the art "prefab" housing just after the war in"noof London".

God, I enjoyed this.

Roger

[Rich]

Traditional oak frame doesn't use nails :) from what I know.

[roger g]

The really old fashioned homes were built like our post and beam(like a barn) with mud and wattle placed inbetween the posts. Later on the mud and wattle was replaced by brick.
The last modern house I saw built there was what we would call a solid brick home. Brick on the outside and a cinder type block on the inside. The inside block was then plastered. Didn't see any insulation. My wife has a cousin in Germany who had a house built last year and by all the pictures he sent it was built the same way.
I'm not sure if any of those old countries use stud walls for anything because of the horrendous high cost of wood. When they see our houses being built over here thet think they are very poorly built. Remember they buiild for eternity not a lifetime.

Roger

[Dano]

Q1: a&b...too expensive...especially OAK...Rich has a point with Oak...the homes I've renovated that were framed with White Oak were of the dowel pin type and the nails that you did find were of the RailRoad type...Massive. Lattice boards were attached by cut nails as with most anything else
c: Standard pine framing

Q2: definitely "a", due to cost (are you sure your Traditional style is Oak?)

Q3: Assuming your termonolgy is what we refer to as Pre-Fab, Panelized or Modular< I would agree...Have inspected numerous manufacturers and even had one built but I went with the rough cut kit due to GC's preference..but a "Kit" home just the same

You sure you want our opinions on this dissertation...seems to be quite a differance in construction traditions from this shore to yours...

[mreynolds]

Here is some information for those of us not up to speed on timber frame. This is interesting stuff.
http://www.century.ie/cent/includes/press.asp?id=49
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/half-timber.htm

[Dano]

Thanks..interesting site...more like our Post n Beam style construction..the site elluded to the fact that Oak was readily available...was being past tense...hummm.. wonder how the Brits can afford oak framing when their tax base is even higher than ours.....

[roger g]

He's got to be talking about something else. Even the Tudor design homes over there rarely if ever use oak like they used to in the real Tudor era.
We say "brick veneer" and it could be construed as a very thin layer of brick whereas it is really a full layer of brick.
He's gotta explain more. London has more billionairs than any place in the world.

Roger