Board Stiff

Every American drama and sit-com seems to be based in a white painted timber clad Colonial style house.

Jim Belushi lives in one, Raymond is liked by everyone in his. Very American apple pies sit in the open window. In the foreground in most images there are sprinklers in action on the lawn as the delivery boy rides past and throws the newspaper.

The mother characters in a good number of Hollywood blockbusters always seem to work in Real Estate showing them to prospective buyers. Mrs Bueller (Ferris's Mum), Elliot's Mum in E.T, even Marge Simpson had a go in her red blazer.

The house, clean cut, large and open is a mainstay of what middle America would have us believe is the epitome of a comfortable and affluent life.

The house type developed with the plentiful availability of both land and the natural resource of timber. They were easy to build using the skills of local tradespersons and of rapid construction with much of the load bearing timber frame being prefabricated off site and then transported in to be positioned on a custom made foundation slab. With the frame in position and the roof on, typically in mineral felt or wooden shingle, it was a relatively straight forward process to clad the vertical elevations in the distinctive wide overlapped boarding around the pre-formed window and door openings and then complete the internal services and rooms once watertight and weatherproof.

In all, a most attractive style of residence.

Timber frame was a dominant form for low rise residential development projects through the States. In effect the idea and methodology will have been brought over by migrants from Scandinavia, the Baltic and Northern Europe where the same factors of abundant timber were present.

In the UK there was a flirtation with timber frame buildings in Medieval times constructed from rough hewn boughs straight from the tree and held together with peg joints, wattle and daub, mud and other finishes dependant upon the local area. Prone to fire and collapse not many of the timber buildings have survived although the National Trust do retain some of the finest restored examples within their collection.

A few timber frame buildings arrived from Scandinavia in the post war period as part of the programme to rehouse those who were bombed out of their homes and were gratefully received by Local Authorities as an option to the ubiquitous prefabs and other weird and wonderful forms of construction amongst the rapidly expanding housing stock.

Many of these have since displayed irreparable defects, many latent in nature, and have had to be demolished and cleared to make way for what the British public like best, good old bricks and mortar.

A few National Building companies had a go at mass volume timber frame in the 1980's but disastrous efforts in terms of quality and applied skills destroyed any confidence in the construction form for two decades.

Enlightened self-builders began to see timber frame as a viable method to realise their dreams and in response to this new sector of demand there grew a fledgling and bespoke group of producers of kit-form houses.

The glossy books of house plans to be found on top shelves in WH Smiths and all good book stores wooed and seduced those intent on doing their own thing with a single new build project.

Timber frame became the system of choice for the upmarket and informed amongst the self builder. Manufacturers of kit based timber frames emerged and one in particular, Potton, assumed cult status quickly for quality and individuality of designs.

It was a condition of purchase that a specialist team from Potton accompanied the flat bed trucks carrying the sections and descended on the site for a couple of days to erect and fix them on a custom prepared foundation. The setting out of the floor pad was in itself a highly skilled requirement to ensure the accurate fit of the frame.

Thereafter the work to externally clad the frame, brick still being the British favourite, and complete all external and internal parts could be left to local trades.

This was the background to such a colonial style house that I was asked to check out on behalf of a prospective purchaser. It was a thing of beauty, a modern classic and the only one of its kind that I knew about in the county.

My inspection covered the main elements of the build. The frame system was indeed an example by the market leader and the team had weaved their magic. The external finish was perfection indicating that a good and diligent team had followed in their wake. The use of a rosemary clay tile for the roof, rustic reclaimed brick and pebble dash for the walls and with a couple of years of weathering made the property look as though it had been built in the 1930's.

This belied the highly energy efficient characteristics of the construction and the little eccentricities in the layout which gave the house prestige and charm.

I did spot, however, that a key feature was missing.

There were no weep holes at the base of the external walls by which any moisture from the weather or developing in the frame itself could escape. In the absence of venting there was a risk that in about 60 to 100 years time the frame will have rotted away into mulch.

The vendor of the house raised my observations with the frame makers and yes, the follow on trades had not adhered to that aspect of the specification. After finding out that the vents could be retro-fitted by carefully drilling out the mortar joints this was undertaken by the vendor in order to prevent the omission becoming the deal breaker in the sale.

My client, the buyer stipulated that I re-vist and verify the adequacy of the work.

I hired the ideal piece of equipment for the job, an endoscope. This consisted of a long stainless steel tube, hollow, with a bright bulb in the end and a viewing piece to peer into the dark recesses exposed by the new weep vents.

On a summers day this will have been an almost pleasurable activity but it was in the depths of winter and on the morning I had arranged to reinspect there was snow on the ground around the house.

I fashioned a padded and insulated cushion out of various coats and clothes from the boot of the car with my waterproof jacket as the outer layer. I could then lie down in a prone position at the level of the weep holes and push in the endoscope to view the detail.

The perimeter of the house was about 36 metres and with the perpendicular joints cut out at every metre. It would be a long job out in the cold. It was apparent that a valid inspection and note taking for each of the 36 holes would take about 2 minutes per hole. This gradually increased per hole as I had to walk about, stamp my feet and clap my hands to keep them from freezing up.

What I had not made an allowance for was the increase in temperature of the little bulb at the end of the scope.

I first noticed it when I inadvertently touched it as it was being withdrawn and was preparing to move to the next hole. It scorched my hand but a small snow drift by my side was available as some sort of immediate relief.

I thought nothing of just carrying on even with the temperamental equipment.

Through the outer brick leaf was the underlying detail of the timber frame including a polythene based vapour barrier. This was well inside the building and forming one of the layers including insulation and the marine ply gusset boarding.

On inserting the still hot probe I heard a frightful popping sound as the bulb burst and with a flash of flame, seemingly magnified to a firestorm magnitude in the viewfinder, the polythene melted.

I recoiled in shock and stood bolt upright listening for any screams from the house that it was on fire. I knelt down and in an alternate motion put an ear to the hole and then my nose with a cold tip and runny sniff to make out any sounds and smells of combustion.

I thought about packing some snow into the hole or even, as a last and vey desperate resort, directing a stream of urine through to extinguish any flames.

After a few minutes, which seemed like an eternity to a guilty mind, nothing had happened. The ensdoscope hire company were obviously aware of the susceptibiity of the bulb to explode as they had included a plentiful supply in the carry case. I was able to complete the job with no other dramas.

The house, some 20 years on, is still a classic and much admired by all who see it. I do glance up the driveway every time I pass by on the main road mainly focusing on the small vertical weeps for any faint whiff of smoke. I occasionally wake up in a cold sweat at the thought of starting a slow burner of a conflagration inside that fabulous timber frame.