I need to start by explaining that timber frame is very unpopular in Romania. I don’t think I am wrong if I say it is practically inexistent. In the US it is almost the only type of building. We build with bricks and cement, lots of cement, which takes long to cure, is heavy, you need a lot of rebar and machinery to build such a house. My cousin Calin (this is his personal blog – he is kinda famous in Romania’s wood world) decided he wants to use a timber frame construction. He has a Romanian friend that specializes in houses like these in Belgium, he has lived there for 35 years now. He agreed to come to Romania to build my cousin’s house and estimated 3 weeks for the job – framing only. His name is Adrian, just like mine. He brought 2 carpenters (Thibaut and Quentin) with him from his team (he has a small construction company there) and told my cousin to find other people to help if possible. 2 local carpenters who build amongst other things wooden churches came to help, me and Calin and his girlfriend Adriana (I know … this is a very popular name in Romania). June 12th is when we started – 8AM until … 5,6,7,8 depending on energy levels and weather. Ah, I forgot to say that all the timber was shipped from Belgium – you can’t find that quality at a decent price in Romania. One major difference between this house and all the houses I have seen being built in the US is that this was … very strongly built, I don’t know if it was over built, but the walls were made with 2x11s ! And it had 2 huge beams across, one needed a crane to be lifted, the other needed 6 people. I’ve always wanted to learn this type of work. I like working with wood and I like building things, so apart from wanting to help my cousin with his (most likely only) house build – a major milestone in his life, I was also interested in learning. But man, it was hard work! Moving those 2x11s around was not an easy task. Adriana made us lovely food every day – lunch and dinner and the spirits in the team were high. People were nice and the 2 Romanian carpenters (Vasile and Ionut – another 2 of the most common Romanian names) had a very good sense of humor – to bad they didn’t speak English nor French. When I got really tired or there was some downtime I got distracted with 2 side projects – one is to build 2 sawhorses – which the buys made a lot of fun of me for but ended up being useful (the last use was that they served as the legs for an improvised table) and the 2nd was to improvise a cooler so we have cool refreshing drinks during the very hot days. This was also a success in the end 🙂 all in all it was an experience, which is why I am writing about it. Ah, another nice thing was that it’s cherry season – everyone was bringing us cherries and there were a bunch of friends and family members visiting to see the miracle 🙂 And miracle it was because we were done in 8 days! In 6 of all, everybody worked long hours, but still, 20th of June was the last day of work. The Belgium team decided to stay for another day – I took the guys for a hike and Adrian spent some quality time with his mom who lives in Baia Mare. The house will end up being an uncertified almost passive one 🙂 the walls will have cellulose blown into them plus another 4cm of insulation from the outside boards (they are called Pavatex), it will have a wood burning fireplace that will have a secondary burn and the 3rd burn chambers so it will be very efficient, the smoke will have around 140F (60 celsius) when it leaves the chimney. There will be an HRV (heat recovery ventilation) system that will bring fresh air in all the time, move the air through the house without losing too much of the heat (or the coolness in summer). Alright, that’s all I can remember 🙂 Enjoy the photos, click on the flowers – the place we hiked to is called Rooster’s Comb (Creasta Cocosului).

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