| How is Granby's Post and Beam System Superior? |
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Granby's packages are produced in our warehouse located in Grand Forks BC. At present this facility can handle the current sales volume. Plans for future development are in place so the next step can occur very simply and without an effect on our ability to serve our customers. Granby’s plans for the future include an ever widening scope of Service area. Inquiries are welcome by Contractors and Sales People with construction experience if you are ready to take on the challenge of a Granby Distributorship. Granby has a product which while it is built of wood and timber work is ecologically responsible due to the longevity of the building style and materials concerned. Post and Beam construction while similar to Timberframe construction does not place the same type of load on the old growth forests due to our utilization of built up beams at the ridge and Purlin support locations. This Beam structure allows use of less massive timbers in the roof support structure without sacrificing any of the strength of the beam once in place. This change means the lumber and timbers we do use can be obtained from smaller trees than would be required to supply a beam of the size required for a Ridge or Purlin Beam therefore the necessity does not arise to target larger older trees. The oldest existing wood structures in the world are built using Post and Beam Construction methods, many of them being hundreds of years old. Just imagine having a house you can pass down to your Grand children and they to theirs. ****
A lot of people are no doubt wondering why is Post and Beam building superior to traditional framing. The answer to that question is in the exceptional structural integrity of the Post and Beam building system. The Post and Beam timber frame would stand alone as a building without wall panels, then when the wall panels are in place the system becomes much stronger again. Let me put this into the perspective of Post and Beam building vs. Conventional framing, Post and Beam has all of the advantages of Conventional framing but goes much farther. In the event of natural disasters such as Earthquake or Hurricane the structure of a conventional home can be compromised severely when a wall or roof panel is blown free or the structure's integrity is otherwise ruptured. The reason for this is that by attaching sheathing to studs in conventional framing they have created a box beam of sorts which allows the conventionally framed building to maintain its structural integrity. This same feature explains why there are so many failures of traditionally framed houses in an earthquake or heavy wind because once the panels rupture the structural integrity is gone. The beauty of the Post and Beam building system is that in the event of some wall panel damage or removal, the structure of the home is not compromised severely. Making the structure more resistant to extremes of weather and natural disasters. The Panels can be made up from a multitude of materials allowing the structure to be extremely well insulated if that should be a required component to build in your specific area. Post and Beam building is a personal design statement which is made by the owner when choosing their design and features. The process of building a Post & Beam Home is inspires envy and personal pride. The Post and Beam Frame is a hand crafted piece of craftsmanship which is fashioned from the best of all possible building materials. Wood! The end product is a living breathing, organic structure which will last for many generations. Post and Beam constructed homes have an indefinite life span. Timber based structures can last forever if there is never any excess moisture problems. Therefore if you build any wood structure pay extra attention to the roof and stop any leaks before they become a long term water saturation problem which will severely shorten the life span of any wood homes structure.
A true Post and Beam has distinct advantages over a log home. The first being that a Post and Beam frame does not require that the wall panels be in place in order to hold up the roof. Therefore long expanses of glass can be incorporated in the design, without weakening the structure. The Post and Beam framed home uses much less wood than an equivalent sized Log home. Another feature of Post and Beam which is superior to log construction is the fact that the design by its nature is less susceptible to shrinkage related problems. Log building requires extreme attention to extra spaces required over windows and doors due to the fact that all log homes will shrink and expand substantially during their lifetime. Most will vary a matter of inches over the years in height. While Post and Beam construction will shrink more similarly to a conventionally framed house (In other words no significant shrinking at all). This is due to the fact that Timbers and lumber do not shrink measurably lengthways of the grain virtually all shrinkage occurs across the grain. Due to building design and functional structure the log home is not readily added on to, while the Post and Beam on the other hand is the worlds most simple type of building to add on to, should you wish to expand you merely, remove a wall panel and build on. This can be done in Post and Beam because the wall panels are not a required structural component. As for insulating value the log is one of NATURES best insulators but compared to Man made insulation the log has a very low R-value. An average R-value for a softwood log is 1.25 per inch of thickness. The R-value for polystyrene on the other hand is R-7 per inch or more. Traditional fiberglass insulation gives an R-value of approximately R-3.5 per Inch. Granby homes allow for a combination of fiberglass and polystyrene insulation to achieve a very thorough thermal barrier without going to Stresskin panels (SIP's) which are also an option but are quite a bit more costly than our basic insulating system. |