Old Hilly
ArboristSite Operative
OK, here is how they built pole frame houses around here just over 100 years ago.........
First, set out your corners and intermediate poles, then dig your holes. Allow for the size of pole you are going to put in the hole. Measure the depth of each hole and work out where your floor level is going to be. Square the pole so that the part where the building is going to be is square but below the floor level is still the natural round shape of the pole. Set the pole in the ground with the flats in the right line for the walls.
Alternatevly.......Stand all your poles where they should be, then rip the sides in a square of the desired size down to the floor line, set your bearers between the poles and resting on the ledge left between the square and round sections.
Around here the old-timers used Tallow Wood poles and a single layer of Red Mahogany T&G boards just under 1&1/2" thick and about 4" wide set vertically between the floor system Bottom plate and a top plate that carried the roof. The boards were held in place with a triangular moulding of about 2". As the boards shrank they were wedged up tight again and another section of board slipped in the gap at the end.
Over the last 25 years I have worked on a few of these old houses and they are still strong and weather-tight. Not too bad for something twice as old as me!
The old bush-workers that built a lot of these houses would have used the tools that they worked with all the time. An axe, a broad axe (used for squaring sleepers), an Adze and a cross-cut saw. Perhaps a hammer, a couple of nails, a string line rubbed with Mutton fat and powdered charcoal and a plumb-bob to get things perlindicular. A folding 3-foot boxwood rule and a roofing square would have been considered luxuries for some of these blokes.
Lazer levels, power tools, chainsaws, nail guns......Just science fiction stuff way back then.
Gentlemen, we don't know how lucky we are!
Dennis.
First, set out your corners and intermediate poles, then dig your holes. Allow for the size of pole you are going to put in the hole. Measure the depth of each hole and work out where your floor level is going to be. Square the pole so that the part where the building is going to be is square but below the floor level is still the natural round shape of the pole. Set the pole in the ground with the flats in the right line for the walls.
Alternatevly.......Stand all your poles where they should be, then rip the sides in a square of the desired size down to the floor line, set your bearers between the poles and resting on the ledge left between the square and round sections.
Around here the old-timers used Tallow Wood poles and a single layer of Red Mahogany T&G boards just under 1&1/2" thick and about 4" wide set vertically between the floor system Bottom plate and a top plate that carried the roof. The boards were held in place with a triangular moulding of about 2". As the boards shrank they were wedged up tight again and another section of board slipped in the gap at the end.
Over the last 25 years I have worked on a few of these old houses and they are still strong and weather-tight. Not too bad for something twice as old as me!
The old bush-workers that built a lot of these houses would have used the tools that they worked with all the time. An axe, a broad axe (used for squaring sleepers), an Adze and a cross-cut saw. Perhaps a hammer, a couple of nails, a string line rubbed with Mutton fat and powdered charcoal and a plumb-bob to get things perlindicular. A folding 3-foot boxwood rule and a roofing square would have been considered luxuries for some of these blokes.
Lazer levels, power tools, chainsaws, nail guns......Just science fiction stuff way back then.
Gentlemen, we don't know how lucky we are!
Dennis.
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