Rick - as far as looking into timberframers, Clydesdale Frames was the first and to be honest only framer we looked at very seriously. I found them online and after seeing they were somewhat local went to visit them. Chris and John were fantastic to work with and took the time to show us or provide contacts for as many homes as we wanted to see. The homeowners helped seal the deal. We looked at six homes total that had Clydesdale frames over a two month period and every homeowner we spoke with said they would use our framer again if they had the opportunity. We did speak to one other timberframer and had them ballpark a price for our frame since I had no idea what was reasonable with a timber frame. They came back very similar in price.
As far as general contractors I don't have a lot of advise since we didn't research GC's and worked as our own. I have pretty much lived onsite since we broke ground. There hasn't been a single day I haven't been there at least to check in, with most days spending a great deal of time either checking on work or doing what work I can do on my own. I guess the main thing I could advise would be to know your plan inside and out and think about 3-4 steps ahead of the process as you go. Our framer was also a GC who builds some pretty high end houses. This was also his second timberframe. Even with that said we would have had major problems if I had not been onsite leading the build. When we get close to finalizing the build I'll take the time to detail some the issues and challenges as we progressed through the build.
Insulation turned out to be a non-issue. I had concerns about insulating some of the harder to reach areas behind the timbers. In the end there are a few places I insulated before sheathing but for the most part we are able to take care of most of it with spray foam. Let me know if you have other questions.
Cool - like the pic with snow(you have a bit more than we do)
Be sure to inspect the foam to sheathing adherence - sometimes a cold surface does not lead to a good bond
I expect your foam contractor understands this - but it is your house
also are you filling the cavity or something short? Best if cavity is full, but not protruding - closed cell is difficult to level and your sheetrock guys won't do a very good (careful?) job if they are left to take care of it (experience speaking here)
Wall and ceiling cavity will be mostly filled on the first and second floor. Only 2" on the basement walls. This will leave room for running electric if we finish it out later.
Here's a few pics. First one is the monster in the attic. lol. At least that's kind of what my kids think it looks like. All of the duct work crammed into what little attic space we have and snaking out to the rooms on the south end of the house. All pipe is rigid with the exception of the flex duct for bathroom fans. The HVAC guys taped or doped all seams at every connection and looks like they did a top notch job.
Spray foam in the basement is done and moving to the upstairs today.
I finished up soffits in the bedroom last week. The raised area will get toungue and groove. Soffits will get sheet rock. I've also got some timbers that will span the soffit north to south.
We fired up some of the track lighting for the ceiling of the living room and loft. Just waiting on a couple more sections of track to add to the corners of the living room and loft to finish it up. We've got a couple of home runs left to pull but other than that I'm just about done wiring.
Sheetrock will be delivered on Wed. The crew will start hanging on Thursday of next week. Cabinets are scheduled the first week of Feb.
