Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 24, 1993 TAG: 9301250238
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RAY REED STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Long
BUILDING THEM TO LAST
OLD-TIME craftsmanship by Blue Ridge Timber Frame Co. of Christiansburg - solid housing by skilled woodworkers - is finding a market in Japan.
Houses with huge oaken beams, joined together with craftsmanship equal to the finest furniture and cabinets, are an unlikely framework for pushing against the tide of Japanese technology flooding the United States.
Fine woodworking and timber-frame construction are as native to Japan as fish and rice, and yet a blend of 2,500-year-old construction principles and 20th-century insulation technology is making its way from Christiansburg into Tokyo's suburbs.
The source of this countertrend in trade is Blue Ridge Timber Frame Co., a group of 14 woodworkers and business people who create sturdy houses inside a blue metal building tucked off of Redwood Drive near the bowling alley.
Two of its structures now stand on the far side of the Pacific, erected by Blue Ridge crew members who cut and fitted the timbers together in Christiansburg, then took them apart and shipped them to Japan. There, the same people assembled them to withstand all the natural forces, including earthquakes.
Timber-frame construction started coming back into vogue in the United States in the 1970s. Coupled with a stable and effective insulation called stress-skin panels, it attracted the interest of Japanese executives who were able to afford Western culture.
Businessmen with the Mitsui Group, a major Japanese conglomerate, researched timber-frame builders in the United States and chose Blue Ridge Timber Frame Co. for a business venture.
"We feel good that they had a lot of people to talk to, and when they saw us they liked us," said Al Anderson, president. "They appreciated the effort and quality we put into our work."
The relationship is more remarkable because Mitsui is in the construction business itself. It owns a contracting division that builds high-rise apartments that focus on energy efficiency.
There's also a bit of irony in Japan's turning to the United States for a building method that its own craftsmen practiced for centuries. Anderson explained that Japan's emphasis on high technology the past 40 years has led more people into white-collar jobs, meaning it doesn't have the number of skilled craftsmen it once had.
That's where Blue Ridge Timber Frame's people come in.
Erecting the buildings in Japan was a cultural exchange. Anderson said many of their Japanese hosts, who already knew schoolbook English, could speak better "street English" after the visits by the Blue Ridge people.
"Street English" doesn't mean profanity, though. Listening in on these artisans' lunchtime conversation is much like being among professionals from other fields. Their topics may be magazine articles or shows on public TV.
The street English the Japanese people learned from them was the art of conversation instead of the textbook language they already knew.
The crew members gained an appreciation for the friendliness of Japan's people there, too, as well as experience in their work ethic and desire to entertain guests.
Twelve-hour days on a construction site with few breaks were followed by evenings of dining and music. It was hard for tired crew members to say "no" to hosts who were trying to please them.
That's what led them, on one well-remembered evening, to the karaoke bar. These have come to America now, but Japan originated the machines that play background music while customers take the microphone and sing popular songs.
The crew members didn't go into detail about the evening, but they did say Elvis is mighty popular in Japan, and people in the bar wanted to hear his songs sung by Americans.
Being in Japan is not a totally foreign experience for Anderson, though. Although he's lived most of his life in Virginia, his American parents were living in Japan when he was born.
Timber-frame buildings have always had two major assets: the ability to stand for centuries through windstorms and other blasts of nature, and wide-open living spaces that draw their character from the exposed wooden beams.
Added to these now are insulation that lets some owners spend less than $300 a year on heating and cooling.
Durability of the structure was important to the customers in Japan, where the natural forces include earthquakes. Blue Ridge had to incorporate Japan's seismic codes into the buildings' design.
Timber-frame buildings have a "memory," Anderson said. They can bear a strain and return to the shape they had before. That's because the framing is held together by interlocking joints called dovetails or mortise-and-tenons. These joints distribute the weight and stress over much larger bearing surfaces than nailed joints.
Nails made it possible to build with 2-by-4s about 150 years ago and virtually replaced timber framing. But nails work loose as the joints are forced to undergo slight movements over the years.
Timber frames don't have a single nail in the framing. Where joints must be fastened, wooden pegs 1 inch thick are used.
Interiors of timber-frame buildings are naturals. The beams in the ceilings are real, and the central living quarters can be really large because walls usually aren't necessary in the middle of the building to support the roof.
They're pretty cozy, too, with stress-skin insulation panels. These are 4 1/2 inches thick, with the wallboard on the inside and chipboard sheathing on the outside, with a layer of insulation in the middle that's equal to 10 inches of fiberglass. These panels are fastened to the outside of the framing with long spikes.
The price is a little higher than conventional houses framed with 2-by-4s.
Anderson said the finished cost of a timber frame house is usually in the neighborhood of $75 per square foot. That's $150,000 for a house with 2,000 square feet.
Conventional construction runs about $60 per square foot, or $120,000 for the same amount of floor space.