Post & Beam Construction
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Although few builders employ post & beam construction today, no discussion of framing would be complete without a few words on this type of construction.
Post & beam houses were popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. The post & beam system is the most straightforward way to build a house. Posts go straight up; beams attach to the posts and go across. You build an open box, and you have a post & beam structure. 
Imagine that you were building a model of a home's frame using an erector set. You would first set 4 vertical beams--one in each corner. Then you would attach them to a set of 4 beams horizontally at the tops of your vertical beams; the box these 4 horizontal beams would form would give the vertical beams substantial structural rigidity.
You could further strengthen your model now by attaching another set of horizontal beams along what would be the floor of your structure. You have essentially made a box, but it is a very sturdy box!
This is post & beam construction.
Note that the basic box that you have built is so strong that you have no need for any additional structural members; any exterior walls you add will not be load-bearing.
Real-life examples of post & beam construction are easy to spot. Homes from the Colonial period sport huge and imposing corner and central beams that are hard to miss; these beams, typically exposed, are often the central point of the building's architectural focus. There are also many ways of forming joints with this type of construction, and the variety of such joints adds to the character of these exposed beams. There are modern examples of this type of construction: pole barns. A pole barn is a quick & dirty structure, and you can plainly see the huge supporting beams in a pole barn. 
Why build with post & beam? In today's market, conventional building gets the nod for cost & efficiency. However, some architectural statements are best made with post & beam construction. Log homes are the primary example, where the exposed central logs become a focal point in the home's aesthetic appeal.
In the log home at left, the towering central beam is a focal point; the secondary horizontal beams are also an important part of the architecture of the building. All these beams are weight-bearing and are simply exposed parts of the building's structure. Today, a few specialty builders still employ post & beam construction. Ashley Homes does not build using post & beam. |