Timber Frame House - Part II

General Contractors

A general contractor is responsible for the actual construction of your home. They build the house from the ground up through to completion. Most general contractors will coordinate all the labour and materials. It is their responsibility to deliver the house on time and within budget.

The contractor manages your site, supervises all the workers installing plumbing, roofing, electrical services, and more. The workers may be on the general contractor's staff or they may be subcontracted in.

Your general contractor will coordinate all payments, maintain records, devise a construction schedule and officiate bids to make sure they are inclusive of all proposed work.

Experience with timber frame homes is useful, but not necessary. What is important is that the designer and/or the timber framing company are able to communicate to the contractor the construction details unique to timber framing.

Contractual Relationships

In all cases, when you are contracting with any of your team members, check their references, and insist on a complete, written agreement for all products and services.

When seeking competitive bids for your timber frame house, remember that fair and accurate bids are only possible with complete and detailed timber frame plans. Timber sizes, grade and species, and connection details should be clearly specified.

The completeness and quality of the construction documents is critical. These documents are the basis for all contracts and the clearer and more complete they are, the less likely it is that questions or disputes will arise later. Your contract with the general contractor should include a start date and a completion date.

Be certain you know just how long the construction process will take. Some communities have limited periods when building is permitted. This schedule will also dictate the timing foreseeing your existing home or completing your lease on a rental property.

Design Process

Custom design is an interactive process that requires communication, reflection, revision and refinement. Both flexibility and decisiveness are needed. It is a multi-step process that requires increasing levels of commitment as you proceed. Not only will good design add value to your home, the process should be an enjoyable one that results in a home that fits you well. Here's a bit about each phase.

Schematic Designs

Timber Frame House Your should have an idea of the number of rooms you require, a general idea of the overall size of the house, information about your preliminary construction budget and a notion of the feel you are trying to achieve: rustic, contemporary, open, private.

Your designer or architect will help you create a more detailed program which will result in the first schematic design - typically a set of hand-drawn sketches or CAD drawings of floor plans and one or more exterior elevation. It may require one or more revisions before you arrive at a version of the plan that you wish to develop further.

At completion of the schematic design, you should receive a rough cost estimate for the entire house. While many of the construction details remain to be defined, a preliminary cost estimate based on the schematic plans will be more accurate than the ballpark costs you collected earlier and will be a valuable reality check.

Depending on which process you have chosen, you may already have selected the timber framing company and general contractor with whom you wish to work. Their input is especially valuable during this phase of the design process. If you aren't ready to commit to one single firm yet, consider retaining a timber framing company and general contractor as consultants. The results of the preliminary pricing exercise may direct you back to the drawing board to revise or refine your concept, but it's better to do it early in the process rather than after the design is further developed. Remain flexible and open to compromise.

Developing the Design

With approval of the schematic design, the design team will prepare more detailed drawings to illustrate other aspects of the proposed design. Floor plan drawings will show all rooms in correct size and shape. Exterior elevations and a typical building cross-section are drawn to scale. You will begin determining specifications for major materials and room finishes. You can expect a more detailed, and therefore, more accurate cost estimate as part of this phase. Upon your approval of these (design development) documents, you will move on to creating construction documents.