Time for Timber Frame Extensions
Time Reductions
For timber frame extensions the comparative time noted under that section may be reduced to around a week to ten days, again subject to the same caveats, although relatively such extension work takes somewhat longer due to the issues of joining a new building element to an existing one..
Extend UP with a Complete New Timber Frame Roof
Connecting an Extension to an original building
No matter whether your original building is stone, brick, block, post and beam, or timber stud frame, the chances are that, over time, it will have ‘settled’.
Loading
This means that the weight of the building and the loads put upon it from wind and snow, as well as ‘live’ and ‘dead’ loads from the goods, people and their activities within it, will have compressed the structure of all the building materials and foundations, causing this to ‘shrink’ a little.
The amount that it does this will depend on the exact materials, combination and arrangement of these, but no matter. What does matter is that any new structure added to this in the form of an extension, whether at ground level or above, will go through the same process.
Minimising CompressionFairly obviously, more ‘dense’ materials, like stone and brick, are unlikely to ‘compress’ very much, but the ‘wet’ mortar joints that holds the individual pieces together may be subject to this. Likewise, the greater the weight of the materials, the heavier they will bear upon the ground underneath the (‘wet’?) foundations. This will more or less depend on what this ground is – rock, shale, sand, gravel, clay, etc., with some types expanding or contracting according to moisture content as well as temperature. These are two reasons why Building Control inspects the foundations to see that they are deep enough and solid enough. |
Soleplate under Timber Frame
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Foundation Design
As will be understood from the foregoing, the design of foundations depends on type and weight of materials to be used both for the superstructure (i.e. the structure of the building above the foundation level), the foundations themselves, and the imposed loads placed upon both.
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