Company CEO, Tanya Bachmeier, is a second-generation owner.  She grew up in the business and was instrumental in helping the company adopt digital design for conceptual and shop drawings.  She also recognized an unmet need in the heavy timber industry for architectural grade finishes and was amongst the first to offer a fully customized finishing service to clients. (She also plays a mean right wing on the company’s hockey team, the Timberwolves.)

Tanya will be presenting an address to the summit on her personal experience of working in the heavy structural timber industry.

Michael Pankratz, Vice President, studied architecture at University of Manitoba. Following his degree, he sought to better understand the practical aspects of construction and took a job with a firm that worked on everything from high-end custom homes to civic art installations and airport terminals.  The diverse hands-on experience of those years cultivated an appreciation of designs that enable ease of construction and efficient site processes. As Cornerstone’s design leader since 2015 he’s been personally involved in all our mass timber projects. (Joins the madness in March when college basketball is in tournament mode)

Michael is presenting a workshop session on a timber wall system that has the potential to simplify our industry’s approach to single and multi-family construction.

Jake Howe, Director of Commercial Sales, hails from Toronto where he attended trades school, learned gas fitting and worked in commercial construction.  He went on to pursue his C.E.T. diploma, a Passive House trade certification and worked for one of North America’s largest general contractors.  As a project manager he had opportunity to work with mass timber and quickly realized that engineered heavy timber has the power to change the construction industry.  (Like many Canadians, he admits to talking loudly to his TV during hockey games.)

Jake will be available with insights as a commercial building project manager in Michael’s workshop.

When a tree becomes a timber post or beam for your home it still holds a portion of its living moisture.  At Cornerstone, our timbers spend time in a conventional drying kiln, but this can only draw moisture from the outer inch or so. This helps stabilize the timber and the kiln’s heat protects against sapstain.  In the following months the remaining moisture will leave the timber.  As it dries, it is also shrinking slightly in girth. Cracks will form parallel to the wood grain as tension is released.  These are called seasoning checks. Checks can form in multiple fine lines on two or more sides or be concentrated in one larger crack on one face of a timber.

Seasoning checks are natural and unavoidable. Large timbers will usually have more checks than smaller timbers and these also tend to be more visible.

Reducing Checks

While you can’t avoid checks altogether, there are a couple strategies you can use to decrease their number and size.  The idea is to slow the rate at which your timbers lose their moisture.

Caught in cycles of harm or despair a person may reach a point where they know they need help.  For First Nations people, the Western ideas of clinical diagnosis, therapy and treatment can offer some relief, but it struggles to reach the deep disconnection and loss that often drive indigenous cycles of harm and pain. Five years ago, Elder Langford Ogemah had a vision for a place where those seeking recovery, could reconnect with their culture, learn skills, participate in ceremony, and draw on the power of the land and their place in it.  The program is voluntary and open-ended to meet the unique needs of each person’s journey.  And with typical Anishinaabe generosity, the healing center welcomes everyone, whether indigenous or not.

The road into Bug Lake is serpentine and bumpy. As we disembark, we’re greeted by Jackie Marcine and Dave Lindsay. Jackie is a healing guide who exudes a serene energy, while Dave, a Fish & Wildlife Officer for Treaty 3, is exactly the person you’d choose to have with you on a backwoods journey – a kindly teacher-guide, bundled within the power of a bear.

They show us around the camp. It’s mid-day and my stomach is growling. We visit the log yard where a horizontal bandsaw mill will eventually be sheltered under a roof anchored between double stacked sea containers. The mill provides construction lumber for the camp while offering practical skills to program participants.

The Dutch, of course, are famous for windmills and rightly so.  While windmills were built around the world by many civilizations, it was in the Netherlands that they reached their highest point of technological achievement. Today, there are still hundreds of them in the Netherlands, mostly dating from the 1400’s to 1800’s and many are still operating, pumping water, grinding flour, and cutting lumber.

Technology travels well.  The Mennonites who settled in Steinbach, Manitoba in the 1870’s, built a windmill based on knowledge handed down through generations.  It only served a few years before being replaced by a steam powered flour mill. A replica mill, built in 1972 at Mennonite Heritage Village, was destroyed by fire in October 2000. That was a big shock to the community.  Thankfully, the Steinbach windmill was rebuilt over the next year by Cornerstone Timberframes and the Dutch millwright company, Verbij Hoogmade. As you can see in the photos below, it was a fun and challenging project!

Windmills are a joy to see operating, the sails swinging through the sky, wood gears and shafts spinning and the sound of the big millstones grinding wheat into flour. There is a real beauty to be found in things that are well-made and that serve a good purpose.

On a planetary scale, any single action seems trivial, almost worthless.  But if we worked ourselves into trouble by a few billion unwise actions, we must find our way out by billions of responsible actions, no matter how small.  Everyone has a part.  

At Cornerstone Timberframes we’re actively working on several fronts, to bring about positive change.  Here’s our Earth Day update on what we’re doing:

• In 2017 we started working with mass timber, which allows for a low-embodied carbon approach to commercial construction.  Mass timber also provides for faster construction while storing large amounts of carbon in the finished building. By 2030 we expect that 75% of our projects will be built with mass timber.
• Our joinery and finishing shops use a lot of electricity – equal to what 44 Manitoba homes need in a year!  We’re preparing to go solar. This will free up power during peak daytime hours for use in homes, businesses and in the transition to EV transportation. 

A common criticism of modern wood-working technology is that it replaces people and discourages those left behind from retaining craft skills.  Our experience has shown this to be unfounded: we employ the same number of carpenters as we did before our first CNC arrived.  Injuries and repetitive stresses are reduced, and the variety of creative work and skills being learned has only increased. 

Modern timber framers are comfortable with computer modelling, they’re familiar with a wide variety of tools and techniques and are better able to see the whole project.