Sustainable Building Presentation

The people at Sustainable Building San Antonio were good enough to let me present to their monthly meeting group on the benefits of timber frame construction. My focus was to create a dialogue about the current state of home construction and the environmental impact it has had over the last six decades, and how timber frame homes offer a vast improvement as far as sustainability, energy efficiency and overall footprint of the process.
Ever since WWII our country has manufactured homes in much the same way we until just recently manufactured cars. With the mass production of 2"x4"s and other building materials like nails and fiberglass insulation, the value quickly changed from quality to quantity. This led to the clear-cutting strategies in our forests and the building of very energy inefficient homes that were sometimes not even expected to last the length of the mortgage.
While standards have improved both in the logging industry and home construction industry, which is great, residential construction has a LONG way to go. Our culture is demanding that we are smarter about resource management, quality of our products, and has become very critical of our throw away society. What is so exciting about being in the timber frame industry right now is that it directly fits into these new cultural expectations, and it always has.
Timber framing grew out of a time when building anything required the commitment of years, not months, and depended on the entire community for the completion of the project. For this reason buildings were built to last centuries, not decades. Master craftsmen would cut joinery in timbers that would create a perfect fit without the aid of bolts and nails and were to designed to gain strength over time as the timbers dried together. This took great time and expertise, and when it was time to raise the frame the entire community came together to lift these massive timbers without the aid of a crane or forklift.
Clearly, our world has changed and only a few people are able or willing to wait years for a hand crafted home; however, modern technology has enabled us to cut joinery for timber frame homes utilizing a mechanized process. The mechanized process allows for the same precision in a fraction of the time. It also allows for quick reproduction of the same frame once the computer programming is finished. We have brought the best of the past, quality and sustainability, together with the advantages of modern technology, speed and efficiency, and are on the forefront of redefining the home building industry. It is an exciting time for Texas Timber Frames and we encourage any feedback or interest in where we are going as a company that believes what we do is not just about profit, but building a better country.