Lumber, timber, studs, sticks — whatever you call it, the material is the same: timber. Houses in North America are nearly all built at least partly with timber; it’s simple to use, it is lightweight but strong, and it readily allows for future structural changes. Wood’s universal sizing allows for quick, predictable structure, and also the recent introduction of engineered timber products has extended lumber’s capabilities and makes use of what has been previously squander.
Here you’ll learn all about this versatile material and how it works within your walls, floors and roofing.
Sizing
in case you go to a home center or lumberyard, you’ll see stacks of timber organized by dimension. The planks will be light in color, milled from spruce, pine or fir — fast-growing coniferous trees.
The most frequent boards will be either “one-by” or even “two-by,” as in a 2-by-4. Although the designation “2-by-4” refers to the size of this stud in inches, so it is not the finished size that you are buying, but the theoretical size of this board before it was dried and put through a planer to smooth out it. After these processes, a 2- by 4-inch pole ends up being 11/2 by 31/2 inches.
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All two-by timber is just 11/2 inches thick, and all one-by timber is 3/4 inch thick, but you can’t simply subtract 1/2 inch from the minimal width to get the finished size of other boards. As an example, a 2-by-8 is just 11/2 by 71/4 inches broad.
These dimensions will become second nature after a time, but until then bring a tape measure to test.
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The timber in homes 100 years old and older differs noticeably in its appearance from today’s dimensional timber. A stud now is tough, but the timber from yesteryear is rougher, having been shaped with cruder tools. This elderly wood is also harder, having come from old-growth trees. But most critically, it is not the exact same size.
Instead of the 11/2-inch-thick timber of now, old framing timber is often 2-3 inches thick. The depth is different from modern studs and not necessarily consistent from 1 stick to another.
When walls were plastered in the previous days, any variation in depth didn’t produce the problems it does now, when drywall telegraphs inconsistencies right through the wall. If you are framing with fresh timber in an old wall, then check the depth of the existing studs.
You may want to buy 2-by-3s so that your new framing doesn’t stand out pleased of the old wall. Plaster keys (the ooze out the back) can also get in the way of a full-size stud fitting in a bay.
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Uses
Old planks were also more. Nowadays lumber in lengths of 8 feet, 10 feet, 12 feet and 16 feet is easy to come by, and spans up to 24 ft are readily available. (Try to locate a straight 24-foot 2-by-4, though.)
Previously, when old-growth woods were being milled for timber, extended wood was plentiful, and homes could be balloon framed using long studs that moved from the foundation to the roof. Most homes are stage. The walls for each narrative are split by a ground, meaning 8-foot-long into 10-foot-long timber can be used.
The compression strength of studs is extremely high, so hefty floors can break on walls made of 2-by-4s or even 2-by-6s if you desire more room for insulation from the wall. Until a wall is sheathed with plywood, even though, those walls can move laterally and have very little strength against off-the-shelf forces.
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For structural applications, like construction walls or floors, two-by timber is best. One-by boards have many uses behind the walls and in spaces. Apart from “furring” (leveling) strips (1-by-4s that are demanding like two-by timber), one-by planks have a smoother finish than two-bys. This means they are suitable for making shelves or baseboards, if you’re opting for a very simple look.
One-bys can be used to flat out ceilings and walls when you’re marrying old fashioned with fresh, when boards do not line up or when you’re merging thick plaster walls with fresh drywall.
The addition of a one-by to existing framing thickens the wall by 3/4 inch. If you are trying to make a wall mounted, you can put shims (small wedge-shaped parts of timber) behind the one-by every 12 inches, until the wall is perfectly right down and up.
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Protection
apart from water, timber’s biggest enemy is the termite. Termites follow water to the timber in your property, which means you need to plan to construct structures in a way that retains the timber from water.
Sometimes this is difficult to avoid — such like decks or the very first board that sits on the foundation. In such cases pressure-treated wood (wood injected with substances to make it rot resistant) should be used. The sizing is the same, but you’ll notice that the same-size planks are a lot heavier as a result of moisture indoors.
You’ll also spot these planks by their green color, as seen from the photo here. Previously there was concern regarding the arsenic used in pressure-treated timber, but now’s processes do not use arsenic.
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Sustainability
This talk of old-growth woods’ being cut down to build homes might lead one to believe building with wood is bad for the environment. But wood is a renewable resource that absorbs carbon while it develops and then has a long life cycle before it is burnt or obviously degrades. When a forest is sustainably managed instead of clear cut, there’ll be a ready supply of timber for future generations.
There are two main designations that demonstrate the timber has been grown in a sustainable setting. Check the label or the timber for the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) or SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) stamp.
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Engineered wood products permit you to secure more strength from less wood. In this photo you can see two examples of engineered wood. The stair treads are made from a laminated strand lumber beam. Little pieces of wood are glued together to form a bigger piece of wood, very similar to oriented strand board (OSB).
The floor joists from the top-left corner of this photo are trusses. The strength of this joist comes from a triangular arrangement of webs and chords, attached by metal fixing plates, instead of from solid timber. This layout uses less timber and allows plumbers and electricians to run pipes and wires through preexisting openings.
Several other engineered products, including finger-jointed timber, glulam and laminated veneer lumber (LVL), are common on jobsites today.
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