Author: Gary Snider

Roof Deck Solutions

Posted on by Gary Snider

In this article, we look at a critical but often underappreciated part of timber frames – the roof deck.

In modern timber framing, whether with sawn or mass timber, the roof deck is the first layer that is attached above the ceiling beams or rafters.  It’s a big part of what makes timber frames strong and attractive.  We call them decks because they’re more than a ceiling finish; they carry roof loads and resist forces that could distort or damage a building.

Tongue and Groove

The most popular roof deck material that Cornerstone supplies to client projects is “2×6 tongue and groove boards”, in pine or fir.  These boards have a profile that allows them to fit tightly together and span up to 5’ between rafters.

When T&G boards are nailed onto rafters the high friction connection between boards makes the entire roof act as a single unit which can resist lateral forces, such as those created by high winds.  They also provide these great benefits:

  1. Continuous nail base – which means a nail or screw will always find a solid base to attach to. This makes installing the rest of the roof so much easier.
  2. Work stage – during construction, T&G decking supports workers, making their job faster and safer.
  3. Interior finish included – not only strong, but also good-looking, T&G boards provide an interior ceiling finish that goes well with timbers.

Tongue and groove boards come in other thicknesses and profiles as well. 1×6 is a favourite for accent walls where the look of T&G is desired but the strength of 2” material would be excessive.  And double T&G is made in 3” and 4” formats to be used for spans of 6-8’. It’s harder to find and is often a special-order item that may take 3 months or more to produce.

Mass Timber

Modern and minimalist designs, both residential and commercial, have long spans that require roof decking to match. Laminated wood decking answers this need, coming in 8” and 12” widths and lengths up to 60’.  Spans of 10-12’ are typical.

What’s Next

Micro CLT is a fairly new product that is made up of 3 ply’s of laminated wood that run crossways to each other.  The material comes in panels, in a variety of dimensions up to 6’ wide by 15’ long. Thicknesses range from ½” to 2-1/4” so it can be used as a wall, ceiling or structural roof deck.

The cross-lamination makes this material extremely stable and strong, while keeping all the beauty of natural wood.  Micro CLT often comes with a lap or T&G edge profile, allowing them to fit tightly together.  The panel format will enable them to be installed fast!

Fire Resilience of Mass Timber

Posted on by Gary Snider

Wood Burns

This fact may make the word “resilience” in today’s blog title seem a little optimistic. But time and again, real-world testing in Europe, Canada, and Australia show that in fires, large-section mass timbers maintain their design strength, thanks to how wood reacts to fire.

Fire Testing

To start, let’s look at a recent fire test conducted at the Ottawa Fire and Explosives Testing facility on June 10, 2022

The Canadian Wood Council was assisted by fire researchers at the National Research Council to conduct full-scale fire testing on a two-storey, mass timber office, with open floor plan.  The final test was designed to simulate a “worst-case scenario” and was run without the intervention of sprinklers or firefighters.

The office space was arranged with wood cribbing to about 120% of a modern office fuel load. Window and door openings were left open to allow unobstructed air inflow. An “aggressive ignition package” was used to start the fire, ensuring that flames reached the ceiling as rapidly as possible.

At 10 minutes following ignition the fire is at its maximum intensity and thereafter begins to cool.

By 25 minutes, only the remains of the “office furnishings” continue to burn at a low intensity.

The fire lasted four hours, ten minutes and self-extinguished once the fuel load was exhausted. Despite the intensity of the fire, the building remained structurally sound and, following the fire, was safe to enter.

Char Saves the Day

Why did the office building in the CWC fire test not collapse? The answer is found in the way big timbers burn. As fire envelopes a big timber, it develops a surface char layer, and two effects occur – the char is much less combustible and its also a poor conductor of heat. These characteristics of char dramatically slow the transfer of heat to the interior of timbers, which in turn reduces the rate of burn and limits the amount of material available for combustion. By sizing timbers to account for the char layer, a mass timber structure can endure a “worst case” fire and still maintain structural integrity.

The dramatic photos above leave no doubt that fire is a severe threat to structures and human life. They also show that mass timber acts in a way similar to non-combustible construction. It is the contents that burn while the structure keeps its capacity for loads. In multi-storey buildings this capability allows for fire survival in cases where evacuation becomes untenable and ‘shelter in place’ is the remaining option.

Sprinklers Work

Building codes require multi-unit residential buildings of four stories or more to have automatic sprinklers. They also have hardwired smoke detectors and fire alarm control panels that notify the local fire department. Thus, the probability of a “worst-case” scenario is very low. In Europe, an engineering consulting firm Arup conducted fire tests on a large mass timber structure and found that when a low-pressure water mist suppression system was in use, it effectively extinguished the fire with only “limited discolouration” of the ceiling panels above the fire ignition point and minimal water damage.

Conclusion

While fires will always be a risk, modern mass timber design and construction dramatically improve life safety. While mass timber is extremely difficult to ignite, when it is exposed to fire, its char-forming trait will protect its load bearing capacity. When an operating sprinkler system is in use, fires will be contained within the space where they were initiated.

Mass Timber- Finishing Well

Posted on by Gary Snider

It’s hard to imagine that a half millimeter could dramatically improve our appreciation of a material. But with a stain or finish, carefully chosen and applied, the natural beauty of wood can go from “that’s nice” to “this is gorgeous!”.

Twenty-one years ago, our CEO opened the first five-gallon pail of stain in Cornerstone’s finishing shop. Her unyielding pursuit of technical perfection is a path our professional finishing team has followed ever since.  As Cornerstone entered the world of mass timber our tools and methods adapted. The goal, achieve a super-durable finish that looks great, allows easy clean-up both during and after construction, and makes the owners and occupants proud.

Photo from: Northern Log

One of our first realizations was that mass timber can be very heavy and awkward to handle. Glulam billets that we transform into finished columns and beams can weigh several tonnes and be up to 60’/20m long. Every step of handling requires the right equipment, skilled operators and well considered safety precautions.  Moving a 60’ billet through a 24’ wide shop door with a standard forklift simply doesn’t work.  Thankfully, a company out of Belfast, Northern Ireland had already solved this problem.

A Combilift Sideloader carries loads to the side of the operator and can drive in all directions, making it an invaluable team member when pieces get long.

Standard industry practice for finishing mass timber is quite basic and consists almost entirely of sprayed wood sealers.  These are best described as undercoats, and their stated purpose is “to protect wood from weathering during storage, handling, shipping, and installation”.  Sadly, most proponents and owners of mass timber projects never realize the short-term nature of these finishes. Left as the only coating, they leave timbers looking dull, scuff easily and break down within months of application, leaving timbers vulnerable to moisture, UV damage, and dirt.

Cornerstone’s finishing approach is driven by our craft experience. We see mass timber structures like large furniture. They deserve quality finishes that preserve the beauty of an honourable material and that respect the hundreds of hours of craft work in each frame.  In our view, a finish must do three things: celebrate the beauty of wood, make cleaning and maintenance easy, and look good for years.

Our finishing process for mass timber follows these steps:

  • Billets arriving from the laminator need a good sanding to make them silky smooth
Put the palm sanders away! A set of wide billets gets an initial sanding with…a floor sander.
  • A penetrating base coat sets the client’s chosen stain colour into the wood.
  • A first topcoat of clear finish is applied to protect the base coat.
  • For exterior timbers, a second topcoat is added, providing extensive protection from weather while also enabling easy maintenance.
  • The result:

We may be more than a little biased, but the relatively small cost of quality finishing for mass timber is a true no-brainer. So much aesthetic goodness is developed and preserved, while so much hassle and future cost is avoided. 

It’s a beautiful half millimetre that should be part of every mass timber plan!

Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day

Posted on by Gary Snider

At Cornerstone Timberframes a few of us with Irish roots look forward to St. Patrick’s Day, and we’re happily joined by our friends and co-workers who are fond of green beer and the sound of tin pipes and bodhrans.

Us few turf cutters, also tend to think of what this time of year represents “back home”. This is when the first green shoots appear, tree buds swell, and Irish farmers are busy preparing their fields. It’s also well remembered that St. Paddy’s Day replaced a more ancient Celtic celebration of earth’s amazing power of rebirth, so was marked as a time of love and renewal of friendship.

In our line of work, with timber frames and mass timber, we also find that this time of year has us thinking green thoughts, especially about the health of the places we depend on for our livelihood.

The Green Challenge

In both Canada and the U.S., the arrival of St. Patrick’s Day coincides with foresters nervously checking snowpack depths, soil moisture and long-range forecasts. In many regions, but especially the west, the past decade has seen a rise of persistent drought conditions. The spring rains still appear, which helps spur plant growth, but this is often being followed by weeks and months of hot, dry, windy weather. The result is that wildfires in BC, Washington State, Oregon, and California are hotter, larger and faster spreading than at any time in recorded history. In BC, 2024 saw forest areas lost to wildfires at more than double the 20-year average.

Climate change is a major driver of drought and fire. And humans have unwittingly assisted. By suppressing wildfires for 90 years, we created whole regions where natural, healthy fire renewal has been prevented. With hot, dry summers, many of these over-dense, mature stands are rich fuel when fire finally arrives.

Keeping it Green: Sustainable Forestry Practices

In 2017 Cornerstone made a deliberate choice to promote the use of mass timber in more commercial and residential projects. Mass timber makes better use of forest resources, is a net drawdown of CO2, and goes hand in hand with better forest management practices.

The use of mass timber is more than just an eco-friendly choice; it strengthens local economies through the creation of well-paying jobs in manufacturing and forestry positions that are often vital to rural towns looking for economic hope. In celebrating the richness of nature at this time of year, we’re reminded that building with wood has a very real connection to both the health of our environment and the economic success of our communities.

Healthy Forests and a Green Future

Silviculture is the practice of studying, caring for, and maximizing the health of forests.  In turn, forests are a major and integral part of our planet’s biosphere. And it’s not an exaggeration to say, that a functioning, healthy biosphere is the life-support system for all living things.

As we raise a glass to St. Paddy, and all things green and growing, we should also thank the foresters, whose silviculture work today in careful planting, thinning and harvesting will have real impact for decades ahead. Their work is daunting, but few jobs are as important or rewarding.

As we face challenges such as wildfires, drought conditions, and the impacts of climate change, the economic and environmental role for wood products is more important than ever.

This St. Patrick’s Day, take a moment and join us at Cornerstone Timberframes to give thanks for forests and those who work to make them more resilient. By managing our forests sustainably and utilizing the wealth they offer, we can work toward a greener, more sustainable future for all.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day from all of us at Cornerstone Timberframes!

Engineering Week: Celebrating Our Collaboration with Engineers

Posted on by Gary Snider

At Cornerstone, we take pride in working with remarkable engineers who not only understand timber’s advantages as a building material but also bring attentiveness, creativity, and exceptional analytical clarity to their work.

Over the decades, our relationship with engineers has evolved into a more proactive and collaborative partnership. In the past, we would simply submit final shop drawings for structural review. Now, we engage engineers early in the design process, exploring innovative solutions that excel in function, finance, and aesthetics.

In engineering, as in other professions, standards of professional responsibility provide an important ethical baseline. However, they seldom address the real-world concerns that matter most to clients, such as quick turnaround on questions, openness to collaboration, alternative solutions, reasonable fees, and excellent personal rapport. These qualities are driven by the people and the workplace culture of individual firms.

Three engineering firms exemplify this new approach to collaboration. I’ve changed their names not to avoid giving them credit, but to encourage all engineers to continue striving for a more collaborative, client-centred practice.

Clarity Engineering – This multi-office firm provides engineering solutions across various sectors, including transportation, buildings, and water treatment. We appreciate their thoroughness and highly detailed proposals that are clear and comprehensive. They are champions of value engineering and readily offer studies of alternative solutions.

Grand Engineers – This international engineering firm specializes in mass timber and has established itself as a leader in large, high-profile projects. When project complexity rises, they deliver exceptional solutions that allow architects to utilize intricate geometries, massive cantilevers, and striking curves. They remain at the forefront of monumental wood design.

Boutique Engineering – With a single office and seven engineers, they stand out with remarkably fast responses that reflect a deep understanding of project priorities, constraints, and opportunities. Boutique excels in small and medium-sized projects, consistently maintaining high levels of service. While fees shouldn’t be the sole deciding factor, their great service and fair pricing make for a winning combination.

In the past, the engineering profession may have been perceived as a little distant and occasionally inflexible. These old stereotypes have been overturned thanks to a new generation of engineers who value collaboration and welcome alternative solutions. Cornerstone’s structural engineers appreciate wood and realize the vast potential that mass timber holds for safe, resilient, sustainable construction.

Join us this week to celebrate the contributions that engineers make to our lives and the built world we inhabit. Their innovative ideas and value-driven solutions are truly inspiring!

When Affordable Is Sustainable

Posted on by Gary Snider

Imagine a comfortable, attractive home that is well-designed and has features that greatly reduce the energy demand. It has a heating and ventilation system that is half the size and cost of a regular home. It has exceptionally clean indoor air. It can handle prolonged power outages and stand up to extreme weather. It is far less susceptible to loss from a wildfire or other calamity. In short, it’s as close to future-proof as one can imagine.

And the kicker – its price tag is what your neighbour just spent on their “custom home,” but yours will be completed in 1/3 of the time and will outperform the neighbour’s place in every measurable way. In 20 years, when you sell, your place will have appreciated at twice the rate of your neighbour’s, and if you invested your savings from low utility bills, you now have an impressive nest egg. Although you and your neighbour spent the same on your new homes, you are hundreds of thousands ahead simply by choosing the affordable/sustainable option.

Dozens of authors, scores of studies and thousands of built examples tell us how we can build better. So why are we not there yet? Sadly, the construction industry is the most dysfunctional, wasteful and unproductive sector of our economy, and it’s a system that stubbornly resists change. As homebuyers, we are disadvantaged because so few of us understand how poorly homes are built, and even fewer know that radically better ways exist. A better way, exemplified by companies like US-based Unity Homes, is steadily gaining traction, but you don’t turn a 10 trillion-dollar ship around in a day.

Image source: ThinkWood

To help move the rudder in the right direction, we need more:
1) Collaboration –Affordability happens when trades, regulators, architects and suppliers work together, removing waste and creating efficiency. Silos of power and control are roadblocks to the future we need.
2) Building off-site – Manufacturing is a big part of the answer. Prefabrication provides better quality, reduced costs and shorter timelines.
3) Demands for efficiency – higher efficiency requirements support the building of homes with the lowest lifetime cost of ownership. Affordability is the purchase price plus all the utility and upkeep bills for as long as you live in your home.
4) Innovation & Automation – Building science and advanced manufacturing equipment combined with new ways of using natural materials to achieve more affordable, warmer, healthier homes.

If you’re interested in new and better ways of building, we’d love to hear from you. In 2026, Cornerstone will introduce an innovative yet straightforward wall system that will provide a beautiful option for architects, builders, and clients. It’s exciting to be on the leading edge of change, and maybe a little nerve-racking too. But this is how change starts.

Would you like to dig deeper? Here are a few books on the housing crisis and the role
for cities, policymakers, and you and me on how to resolve it.

  • Our Crumbling Foundation, Gregor Craigie, 2024, Random House Canada
  • Escaping the Housing Trap, Chuck Mahron, Daniel Herriges, 2024, Wiley
    Home Truths, Carolyn Whitzman, 2024, UBC Press
  • You’ll Pay for This!, Michel Durand-Wood, 2025, Great Plains
Image source: Elemental Green

Waste Reduction- A Golden Opportunity

Posted on by Gary Snider

In nature, waste from one life form always becomes food or building material for another in a continuous, efficient loop. In our modern human experience, waste is too often on a single-use, linear trip to Mt. Landfill, where it is stored forever.  To fix our waste problem, we need to find ways to better emulate nature.  For those who do, it’s a golden opportunity to achieve goodness on multiple bottom lines.

At Cornerstone we’re looking for ways to significantly reduce our waste streams.  The reasons are simple and several:

  • Our wood waste is valuable, representing thousands of dollars of purchases
  • Paying for waste to be taken away is a double loss
  • Recovering value from waste puts money back into our pockets
  • Reducing waste makes us more competitive
  • Environmental stewardship: we want to be good ancestors.

It’s important to remember that waste encompasses far more than the physical materials that might show up at a local landfill.  It can be excessive amounts of energy used to heat a workplace or power a machine. It can be found in suboptimal use of worker time, a dozen minor inefficiencies in a work process, or a missed interval of equipment maintenance.  All of these are wasteful and worthy of our efforts at reduction.

There are real and perceived barriers to addressing waste:

  • It’s faster and more convenient to simply throw it in the dumpster 
  • Setting up systems to reduce waste takes effort: planning and work.
  • It requires people to communicate, coordinate, and follow through.
  • The right tools are often not provided.
  • A first response is often: “No one has time for this!”

To get underway with our waste reduction plan, our first step is to do a complete audit of where our company currently produces waste, both physical and organizational.  The results will be used to build a Work Plan that will include regular check-ins to ensure we’re on track and adjusting things to work better as we go.

A priority is to address the largest sources of physical waste: 

  • Wood fiber (sawdust, chips, cut-offs) In 2025 we will begin to turn all our wood waste into energy to heat our buildings.  
  • Polypropylene lumber wrap (#5 plastic) from incoming lumber shipments will be baled and sent to a specialist recycling center that produces deck boards and other poly products.  Lumber wrap currently makes up 50% of our dumpster volume.

Our waste reduction marathon is underway.  An outline of our company’s waste reduction plan is available for viewing, here.

How we stumbled into being a diverse, equitable, inclusive employer.

Posted on by Gary Snider

A few weeks ago, I was in a session where a business leader was given several minutes to talk about whatever was on his mind. He described his concern that there was a surge in companies adopting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies (DEI). He felt this trend was evidence of “groupthink” that 1960’s term coined by John F Kennedy to describe how decision makers promoting the Bay of Pigs / Cuba invasion lost sight of alternatives and plunged forward on a disastrous course of action. His message was that DEI adopters are foolishly chasing a popular trend and are headed into trouble with dark consequences for society.  He couldn’t bring himself to define DEI or specify what those bad outcomes might be. I sensed he was holding back.  Perhaps he knew that saying more would expose his unfounded fears.

While he spoke, I thought about the changes I’ve witnessed at my workplace over the past several years.  Cornerstone started as a 100% traditional, macho-man timber frame shop that Tim the Toolman Taylor or even Archie Bunker would have loved.  It ran like that for 25 years. Now, it’s a place where more than half our employee group, including our CEO and lead timber framer, are women.  We also have Metis and Indigenous co-workers. Our worker morale and productivity are up, creative thinking and solutions abound, and our diverse workforce has put us on track to double our sales in just two years.  How did this happen?  First, some folks with bad attitudes found the exit door. We then invited a woman to try her hand at cutting joinery. When she succeeded beyond all expectations, it pushed us to consider the possibility that ‘other’ good people wanted to join us… people we had previously excluded. As the evidence mounted, we changed our old stereotype of who can be a timber framer, and we haven’t looked back.

As you can see, our transformation didn’t happen because we set out to be a diverse, equitable or inclusive company.  We dealt honestly with what we saw, the performance data and the positive “can do” attitude shift.  Our experience is that there is nothing to fear, only multiple good outcomes for employers, employees and customers.  After all, what is DEI when you really think about it?  It’s working cordially with people who don’t look like you or who may see things a little differently.  It’s about treating people fairly and allowing them to be fully part of your enterprise, with all the benefits and responsibilities.  It is saying yes to a virtuous cycle of learning, growing and re-imagining better ways to be.  Where is the danger?  Do we love our chains more?

I can’t resist smiling as I reflect on our DEI journey until I think about the personal and corporate goodness we could have missed if we never took that first step.

So, if this is groupthink, please tell me where I can find more!

You can find Cornerstone’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policy here!

American Institute of Architects- Minnesota Conference on Architecture

Posted on by Gary Snider

In November, Cornerstone Timberframes was honoured to be an exhibitor at the Minnesota AIA annual event in Minneapolis.

We set up our mass timber display in The Depot exhibition space, an old passenger train station in downtown Minneapolis that dates from the 1890’s. It was wisely preserved and lives on as a graceful and charming meeting place.


Over a hundred architects and design professionals from across Minnesota gathered to attend AIA continuing education sessions and meet old friends. Our commercial sales director, Jake Howe and CEO, Tanya Bachmeier met with dozens of architects between sessions. Over thirty architects requested follow-up conversations to learn more about mass timber or to discuss specific projects. Several requested that we schedule visits to their offices to engage their wider staff group on mass timber.

While Jake and Tanya met architects at the AIA event, our VP and Design Lead, Michael Pankratz and US Sales Leader, Veronica English were busy connecting with AEC professionals across the Twin Cities. With coffee carafes and donut boxes in hand they brought “Breakfast Briefings” to Christian Dean Architecture and Sharrat Design & Company. At the noon hour, salads and gourmet sandwiches were consumed as they presented “Lunch & Learn” events at Nelson Rudie & Associates, an engineering firm and at Highmark Builders.

November has been a month of new and exciting connections. Mass timber design and construction is gaining momentum and it’s so rewarding to be at the center of this positive movement!

We’re looking forward to seeing how the conversations started here, continue into the year ahead.

Protect Your Timber Before It Gets Wet

Posted on by Gary Snider

For 34 years, Cornerstone has been producing high-quality timber frames for our customers.  In this time, we’ve learned a lot about timber maintenance and applied that know-how to how we design and build.  One particularly important area of knowledge is how to diminish and eliminate moisture damage.

Pergolas are a great example of the challenge we face, because by their very design, they are intended to be exposed to every kind of weather.  How do you maximize the service life of a pergola? Here is our best advice in five steps:

  1. Start with a water-resistant design. It’s in planning that most problems are avoided and costs are saved.  Outdoor wood that is going to get wet should be designed with angled pieces, bevels and details that shed water. The design should also allow for rapid drying, especially for the critical post-to-beam and post-to-base connections. Joinery should limit water intake and have ways for water to escape. 

  2. Choose your wood.  As cedar trees grow, they produce a host of natural preservatives that resist decay and deter insects, making cedar our top choice for exposed outdoor structures. Douglas fir trees also produce defensive compounds, but their preservatives are less effective. Fir can be used outside, but it needs capping or other protection to last. Pine and spruce should simply not be used outside unless the timber is under a roof.  

  3. Use excellent finishes. Our finishing shop staff are experts in the application of durable stains and treatments. We use a three-coat system of top-quality finish that gives outdoor wood fiber the best possible start. A coloured base coat soaks into the wood, and two clear topcoats add protection while offering a smooth satin finish that is easy to clean and maintain. To learn more about our process and finishing options, check out our blog, here.

  4. Details that protect. Wood posts that sit directly on concrete are prone to rot, making stand-offs, essential protection. In 2014 Cornerstone developed its own custom solution, a stand-off base that looks great, brings smiles to engineers and keeps post bottoms dry. For timbers that are especially vulnerable to moisture, a variety of capping materials can make all the difference.  Traditionally, cedar boards placed on top of beams or rafters were a type of “sacrificial” layer that could be easily replaced. Metal caps have also been used for centuries and more recently self-healing membranes of asphalt and polyethylene are widely used.  Careful installation is key to caps working effectively.  

  5. An active defence. In some circumstances, even the best details, finishes and caps don’t offer enough protection.  And every so often there are applications where these defenses are judged to be aesthetically unacceptable. For these cases or when added protection is required, a borax-based solution can be the right choice.  Borax (disodium tetraborate) is a mineral commonly associated with laundry and cleaning and is non-toxic to mammals. It offers strong anti-fungal and insect deterrence and comes in two formats – a liquid that can be brushed on and a solid rod shape that can be inserted into drill holes and capped.  It’s activated when moisture levels rise above 30%, dispersing into the wood fibre where it destroys rot fungi and insects.

There will always be those days and even weeks when the rain keeps pouring down. A good design with thoughtful details can set your mind at ease.  If you’re considering an outdoor timber frame structure, contact Cornerstone Timberframes for the best solutions that will stand the test of time