Post-and-Beam Is More Than Just Comfy Ambiance
It’s more than just a pretty facade.
The benefits of post-and-beam modern home construction – the “it” referenced in our previous paragraph – goes beyond just the aesthetic appeal of an interior etched in beautiful timber. Most notably, without the need for interior walls to bear structural load, floor plans are open to the imagination – wide open.
You can have a spacious great room with a glass exterior wall offering a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside. You can have a sprawling, airy interior space for any purpose you desire, with smaller and more private areas in the wings for the less communal aspects of daily living. You can even use screens or moveable walls to set off rooms.
When your lifestyle needs or desires change, the absence of load-bearing interior walls makes your home renovation ready.
Post-and-beam construction is a specialty of Modern Dwellings and an exclusive of Lindal Cedar Homes, for which we are your area dealer.
To give you an X-ray view of a home’s skeletal system, we uploaded a video that shows the framing of a home we recently built in South Carolina.
Ingenious Method
Post-and-beam construction uses heavy timbers or engineered wood, rather than dimensional wood such as 2 x 4s. Timber frames have been used for hundreds of years; with axes, chisels and other hand tools before modern machinery ws developed.
Frames of Lindal homes are prefabricated in its factory, then each part is numbered and shipped for assemby on site. Posts run vertically supporting beams on the horizontal plane, redistributing the home’s weight load to the footing. The foundation is engineered according to what is required by the soil, usually concrete tube or block pier or 6-inch-square wood posts.
Post-and-beam construction allows Cathedral and other vaulted ceilings with roofs that can be A frame but also flat or low-pitched while still maintaining interior loft.
Spawned from Timber Frame
Post-and-beam is a derivative of timber frame construction, the difference being the way post and beams are connected. A centuries old method, timber frame utilizes wood-to-wood joinery whereas metal fasteners or other joinery connect post-and-beam structures.
Post-and-beam frames are sometimes hidden behind finished walls but more often the frame remains visible within the interior of the house for both cosmetic reasons and to display exceptional craftsmanship. Diagonal bracing, critical for timber frame, is not needed with post and beam but may be added for aesthetic appeal.
Constructing post-and-beam framing requires far fewer manpower hours than would a stick-built house – the most common constructio method – of the same dimensions. Lindal’s pre-fabrication provides further efficiency.
Lindal Heritage
Lindal post-and-beam homes are “engineered to meet diverse site requirements as well as weather conditions ranging from mild to extreme,” according to its website, which added: “Lindal post-and-beam homes have been known to survive floods, fires, hurricanes and even earthquakes.”
The beautiful, exposed timber gives a post-and-beam home a warm and comfortable feel. Interior design flexibility maximizes aesthetic options. The wooden exterior may likely blend with the natural environment surrounding it.
Imagine your post-and-beam possibilities.