Clients ask us all the time how long it takes to put a frame up. When we tell them it is usually a matter of days, not months, they look a little surprised. Then we explain that the raising is the short part. The long part already happened back in the shop.

Most of the Work Is Done Before the Truck Leaves

Every frame we build is mortise and tenon, cut by hand in Alstead and held together with oak pegs. There are no nails or steel plates in the joinery. That means every tenon has to slide into its mortise the way it was laid out, because there is no bracket to hide a sloppy cut.

On The Andover, three of us cut all the joinery in about a month. That frame had two valley rafters full of compound miter cuts, sitting on cantilevered plates and wrapping around a purlin. We raised the whole thing in about another week. If the layout and cutting are right, raising day mostly takes care of itself.

Before anything goes on the truck, every piece gets marked so we know exactly where it lands. Posts, girts, braces, rafters.

Getting the Site Ready

We design the frame with you, cut it and raise it. The foundation or deck is done by your own contractor, so the two crews need to be talking well ahead of time. A frame can only be as square and level as whatever it sits on.

We also need a way in for the trucks, and often for a crane. Soft ground or low wires can make for a slow morning. And we need a flat spot to lay timbers out. If the only level ground is covered by the excavator’s dirt pile, the morning gets long. A short phone call the week before saves a lot of shuffling. Who books the crane, and when, is worth sorting out early too. Ask Bruce how it usually goes for a job like yours.

Standing Up the Bents

Most frames are built from bents. A bent is one cross-section of the frame, usually a pair of posts joined by a tie beam, with braces and sometimes rafters or a truss on top. Lying on the deck, it looks like a giant letter H or A.

We put each bent together flat. Tenons go into mortises, braces get set, and pegs get driven home. Then the bent gets lifted upright, often by crane, and set down on the sill. We brace it plumb with temporary boards and move on to the next one.

Once the bents are standing we tie them together with girts and plates, and then the roof framing goes on. Pegs go in as each joint closes up. When a joint pulls tight there is a sound to it that never gets old for us. Dale and Rick, whose house had several gables tied to one common ridgeline, said the timbers locked into place “with an interesting locking sound.” That is about as good a description as we’ve heard.

Weather and Safety

Rain slows us down, and high wind or lightning stops us. We won’t swing heavy timbers when it isn’t safe. So leave some slack in the schedule, and maybe don’t plan a big party on a date you can’t move.

A raising site has loads in the air and people working up high. Keep kids and dogs well back.

Once the frame is up, it needs to be closed in. A lot of our frames get SIPs wrapped around the outside. Talk with your builder about how soon that can follow, so the timbers aren’t sitting out in the weather longer than they need to.

Building Far From Home

We cut in New Hampshire, but our frames stand in more than 36 states. If you are building a long way from us, our post on building a timber frame in another state goes into how that works.

Enjoying the Day

For most families this only happens once, so take lots of pictures. One of our clients set up a camera and made a time-lapse of us raising their frame. Some folks bring coffee and lunch for the crew, which we never turn down. There is also an old builders’ habit of tying an evergreen bough to the peak once the last timber is in.

At the end of the day, go stand in the middle of the frame and look up. Those braces and pegs are the same ones you’ll see from your couch for years to come.

If you’d like to know what raising day would look like on your site, drop us a line or call (603) 309-8793 and we’ll walk you through it.