Timer is being used as a construction material of building in all over the world from very long time. There are many old houses in England, Scotland, and Europe where one can see the used of this material in a very vastly. There are many frames made these products from the time of early 13th century in England that are still there to e seen, all these historical buildings have proves the strength and the durability of this product. People are very much aware that this is a strongest methods for buildings and that ways it is being used till now, with little bit change people are still using it in the construction business and it is a fact that things have changed so much in this field and old ways have been replaced by new method and techniques but still this material is working as efficiently as it was in the past, so that we can see its popularity.
The mostly used technique to use this material was lap jointing, which was used at the time when it first got used for the construction in the houses of 12th and 13th century. After some time people started using mortise-and-tenon joint, it was a lot stronger than the last one and also long lasting too. The frames made by this method were very solid.
New techniques and methods were introduced with time passing time and soon these methods became very popular such as box frame construction which was the most used one and then there was cruck construction. There were some other techniques too such as jettying it was used when people started extending the upper floor space more than the wall; it was also being used to build more than one floor. Its best example can be seen in shambles in York.
It started being used for ships and fuels during 16th century and at that time it was hard to find it because its use in ships was very great, many building had these frames until 18th century after that it became an old fashion and people started covering it with plaster.
This material came back on the scene in 1970s; it was the time when these frames came back for constructions of buildings with different techniques which were reasonable and affordable but their quality was not that good in all over the world. This timber was softwood with low quality which was not that reliable. But it was still popular in many countries.
Sweden was the country where it remains popular and people who worked with this material enhanced their skills by working 50 years in this field. In this country craftsmen also used this in wall panels, windows and all these panels had thermal integrity with factory finish.
There were ups and downs of this material but it still is a very popular and people have increased their skills and coming up with different new skills and techniques to use this material.
Bailey Swinburne