I have an outbuilding with a "timber frame" of 5.5m x 3.5m that I plan to use as a winterized holiday home, and where the sills, roof base, and panels are in bad shape (basically just the frame and rafters will be reused). Since I lack the experience to assess whether this is a waste of time, I wanted to ask what you on the forum think is technically most reasonable if the aim is to get a holiday home with standing height that doesn't risk rotting.
My original plan was to pour a stable foundation under the house and also raise the ceiling height by raising the sills above floor level using a leca wall similar to what is usually at the bottom of garage walls. Without the raising, the beams are around 180cm = hit my head.
Currently, the outbuilding is raised with jacks, and the foundation is ready except for the pouring, and I am starting to believe that the sill replacement risks becoming bad and time-consuming, so demolishing and building a new frame is preferable from an efficiency standpoint, even though "the house is already there." As I see it, the advantages of new construction are that there are ready-made design solutions for how things should be built.
Problem 1: Although parts of the sills have barely half the thickness left, they can take the load and have kept the cabin stable during the lift. The sill replacement essentially requires 3 sills to be removed simultaneously and somehow fastened to each other and the remaining sills and then into the standing studs (while everything is lifted!).
Problem 2: If I raise the house, I will need to remove the center sill (as the sill is raised above floor level). This might also weaken the already weakened frame.
On top of this, a large part of the paneling is rotten and needs replacing, and the panels are currently nailed directly into the sill without an air gap, so all panels will need to be removed regardless.
There's no real roof battens, so I'll need to redo the roof where basically only the simple rafters consisting of two planks will be reused.
Solution 1. Replace the entire sills without joints.
Solution 2. Remove the sills and hope it still lifts well, splice in new ones, nail/screw in place.
Solution 3. Leave the old sills in place (except the middle one), brush on some interesting chemicals and build up with new lumber around it so there are no gaps.
Solution 4. Demolish, build a modern frame with new lumber. You can then get a reasonable ceiling height without leca blocks but also without any cultural historical value.
Solution X ??
Which solution seems most reasonable, or is there something I've missed considering?
A few pictures:
The sill that runs along...
Here you can see all the sills that are rotten, behind the picture everything is okay.
The center sill is nicely rotten but has fresh wood, so it still holds together.
Sketch of the original "sill splice" plan
I would probably build new with the exact same appearance. Make sure the roof overhang and facade details are the same. It's a simple pole house, where most of it is rotten. Even if you put in a lot of work, it will never be good.
I have a similar shed with a high stone foundation. The difference is that my stone foundation consists of cut granite and contains a very good stone cellar. I have kept the superstructure mainly for that reason. Additionally, the sill is made of oak and therefore intact.
Nice to hear from someone who has a similar house, albeit more exclusive. I had completely missed the concept of a pole house, now I see there are building descriptions for these that look very interesting. I have long thought log houses were attractive, but pole houses seem like a good compromise if you want to make things easier for yourself but still have something that looks robust.
