By: Sam Cole

Hello! Sam Cole here, reporting in as the new Sales & Marketing Support Specialist at New Energy Works west coast operations. I’ve worked in “industrial marketing” for many years, starting with a forklift attachment manufacturer and most recently a provider of grid-scale energy storage systems. It’s been a fun niche to find myself in -- I really enjoy working with companies that A) make something, especially when I can walk out into an actual fabrication facility and watch the magic happen; and B) work closely with clients to address their specific needs. I’m excited to dive into the world of heavy timber and learn about a whole new industry. 

Why New Energy Works? Having gotten to know the company and its people a little bit, I find that New Energy Works combines several things I’m passionate about: craft, community, and sustainability. 

While I may be mostly a writer & digital media kind of person, I’m also a huge fan of physical crafts and maintaining connections to traditional methods of making & building. (By the way, I have recently signed up for blacksmithing classes.) I’m massively impressed by the projects in New Energy Works portfolio, and it’s awesome to be able to watch our timber framers at work. Plus, woodworking smells good!

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The NEWBeamery has been full of finishing touches, though we’ve been running jobs through the Oikos X for the last few months. Timber frames plus fabricate & finish jobs for partners in the mass timber space. Now we’re taking a moment to celebrate some smaller things on the non-production side that make the shop feel like home.  

Timber Frame Entry
It wouldn’t be a New Energy Works space if it didn’t have a timber frame greeting. Back when we moved to McMinnville in the early 2000’s adding a truss to the front door was one of our first to-dos.

Same here, as The NEWBeamery gets an official raising of a timber frame entry and porch. It sets the stage for what’s to come inside and gives a taste to visitors of our roots. Though not visible from the road as a greeting, it certainly adds warmth and suggests respite for the mostly industrial complex.

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Oikos, translated from Greek, means an inhabited house or as we use the word in English, a home. It is also the name of an Italian model of a CNC machine designed to cut timber. Our Oikos will then fulfill its meaning or origin cutting the timber frames and glulam homes for our Oregon shop. Sure, it will cut commercial buildings too, in fact we’re pretty excited to be able to offer more to our commercial designers and builders given the machine’s ability to cut 12" x 48" in cross-section and 60' in length. But let’s just for a moment consider the beauty of a machine named home creating homes.

Name is certainly not the reason we chose the Oikos X for the NEWBeamery in McMinnville, though it is poetic. “The Oikos X is a six-axis robotic arm style CNC machine.” said Kelsey Boyer Timber Frame Engineer for our West Coast team. “This significantly differs from what we’ve typically operated with, which is more of an assembly line style of CNC machine where there is an all-in-line variety of tools and the machine grabs the beam and brings the beam to the tool. This CNC machine brings the arm with multiple tools to the timber and moves around the timber.”

“We looked at three separate machines,” continues Kelsey. “And we ranked each machine in a series of categories. As we worked through this decision matrix, and looked at the rankings of the categories that we value highly, the Oikos was ranked above the other two competitors.” 

After making the decision, Kelsey and lead timber framer Darren Watson traveled to Italy to spend time actually running some of our joinery through an Oikos X that is nearly identical to the one that would be ours. Then we worked with a company to create some customized tools for our arm, so that we could use the Oikos more. This makes our machine even more personalized to the way we cut frames.

Every once in a while I make my way upstairs to chat with the engineers only to be delighted with the knowledge that something we made is going up in my hometown. Nestled in a neighborhood in Clarence, NY is Brookfield Country Club—a place to play a friendly round, have a wedding, or if it was the 90s and you were a high schooler in Clarence, get a summer job. And soon, home to some New Energy Works' big a** trusses.

"I don't think I've ever seen tension numbers as high as these," said Owen MacDonald, EC Timber Frame Department Manager. 

"An incredible 71.6 kips (71,600 lbs)," replied Melissa Schmidt, Timber Frame Engineer.

And to deal with all of that tension these 50'6" trusses have a glulam bottom cord and hidden huge steel plates paired with traditional mortise and tenon joinery.

"The client wanted the timbers to work well with, yet contrast against, the cocoa T&G that they're using. So the Douglas fir solid timbers and glulams have a custom dark brown finish. This way the glulam blends even further into the truss, making it visually seamless," says Schmidt.

The New Energy Works timber trusses will be part of an expansion of the event space at the country club. The trusses sit atop steel beams and show off a massive 45' skylight that runs down the center of the space.

New Energy Works in collaboration with the McMinnville Economic Development Partnership, Representative Lucetta Elmer, and Mayor Remy Drabkin hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for our new 20,000 square foot production facility in McMinnville Oregon on Thursday, December 21st.

With this new facility, employee-owned New Energy Works will be expanding our McMinnville operations adding new cutting edge CNC equipment, offices, and production space to our existing campus, which will increase our capabilities and service offerings, resulting in regional growth and expanded employment opportunities in the McMinnville community.

On a recent episode of the Digital Supply Chain podcast, host Tom Raftery sat down with our founder & CEO Jonathan Orpin to discuss his journey helping to revolutionize the timber and construction industry with a staunch commitment to sustainability.

The episode dives deep into how New Energy Works incorporates an eco-friendly approach to our projects, often focusing on the use of reclaimed and sustainably harvested wood in partnership with our sister company Pioneer Millworks.

See the interview on YouTube:  https://youtu.be/kNPvRjzPLx8
 

See more from Digital Supply Chain:  The Future of Building: Sustainability and Innovation with Jonathan Orpin (digitalsupplychainpodcast.com)

Recently our founder & CEO Jonathan Orpin wrote a "SPEC" editorial for our friends at Fine Homebuilding Magazine about TimberHP's new domestically manufactured wood-based insulation product TimberFill. This series is where the magazine explores new products and solutions for crafting fine homes from the perspective of respected professionals in the industry. 

TimberFill is a loose fill insulation product from TimeberHP that can be blown in or dense packed for high performing, affordable, fire-resistant, and carbon negative coverage in attics, wall cavities, floors, and ceilings.

Ep. 178 - Triple Bottom Line with Jonathan Orpin

In this episode of Contractor Radio host Jim talks with our CEO and Founder Jonathan Orpin about operating a business sustainably on multiple fronts by implementing the Triple Bottom Line Company model.

Jim and Jonathan discuss why the triple bottom line emphasizes people AND profits. They turn their discussion toward aging out of your business sustainably by creating an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) that rewards your workers with ownership and leaves the former owner/founder with a sense that their company is in good hands.

In the second part of the episode Jim and Jonathan dig into the flexible definition of sustainability. They have a great talk on what it means to focus as much energy and resources into stewarding the planet as generating profit.

See more:

We work all over the country, but you already knew that.  And while there is no doubt that it’s great to get back home the night of a raising when it’s local to either our Western New York or McMinnville, Oregon shops, the truth is most of us like to travel, and that we get to do!  

Out here on the West Coast, where I spend most of my time, we’ve had a summer of unreal views and sights (and sites). Someone asked me recently where we’ve been.  Lessee...  Yosemite, Leavenworth, Flathead Lake, Carmel, Lake Lapeer, Michigan…  Wait Michigan?  You bet.  

Most of our clients and much of our industry are looking for their timber frames in Douglas fir, so doing these out of our west coast shop makes a lot of sense as we are in the midst of Doug-fir-land here in Oregon.  We also feel strongly that whenever possible our timbers should be kiln dried.  It just makes a better final product.  And yes, we’re in the middle of kiln country as well.

So, sending a large set of hammer beam trusses and bents to a beautiful Michigan lake fits.

As does Yosemite, where we are returning next week to finish the exterior timbers on the top of this hill.  

Businesses around the country were forced to make significant changes to how they operate in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. When our friends at the Benedictine Brewery called with a need to raise an outdoor pavilion for their customers, we were happy to jump into action.

 One of only three breweries in the United States owned and operated by monks, the Benedictine brewery raising in 2017 was a community effort and one that we will always remember.  You can catch up on that story and watch a video of 100 folks hoisting the frame here: (https://newenergyworks.com/blog/a-community-raising-the-benedictine-brewery-mt-angel-oregon)

Designed to mimic the original brewery and taproom with their close to 14,000 board feet of Douglas fir, we created the structure of the pavilion with matching embellishments, using chamfered edges and a clear, natural finish to the wood.  Just as the original raising started in 2017, the Douglas fir timbers quickly defined the shape of the pavilion and now serve as a way for the brewery to continue serving as a welcoming way for the community to gather, taste, and believe.

This particular design project utilizes six salvaged trusses that were reclaimed from a church demolition and serve as the bones for the “A” frame shape of the 17/12 pitched roof.  Our architects sketched the trusses in such a way that the two areas created a twin main volume, connected by a glass breezeway.

Taking inspiration from modern design aesthetics, we incorporated steel and strapping on the reclaimed trusses to accentuate the existing hardware and character of the wood.  Each volume was then treated with a different finish material in order to provide a visual delineation.

This 3,600 Square foot design offers a split floorplan with the great-room, kitchen and accompanying loft on one side, while the bedrooms occupy the other.

Guest Author: New Energy Works, Dave Cratty

We all have those dreams of wanting to leave it all behind and live off the grid.  Find a place in the Adirondack mountains, on a remote lake, and just surround yourself with nature and the outdoors.  The question is, how do you deliver and raise a beautiful timber frame lake house to a location that no roads have touched?  The answer, by boat.  

Our New Energy Works timber frame crew spent seven tireless days, traveling back and forth by barge to deliver, off load and raise by hand, this beautiful 1361 square foot bungalow.  The homeowner’s plan to utilize this location in the warmer seasonal months, created a unique opportunity to use a 3x tongue and groove design for the walls, while every door frame and window were outlined with timber.  The layout offered an open floor plan and offering visitors an unobstructed views of the private lake from this cozy, secluded cabin.

I’m excited to know this is your family vacation home! 

It is! We’d been looking for a location to build a home and found the land in Osterville. I had dreamed of a barn structure in a beach location; it was my initial idea for years. Overall we knew we wanted a large open living space with a barn look and exposed beam work that would fit the beach location.

How did you solve the integration of barn and beach?

For years I’ve resisted writing this post. It can come off as very self-serving. Please don’t let it. Instead, I’ll attempt to be as neutral-valued as I can, and share some of my 30-year history, and perhaps just a tad of the experiences, and sometimes frustrating stories, our clients have shared…and some that I have witnessed.

The timber frame industry has a great many good people in it, associated with it, and as I’ve often said, many of the coolest clients I can imagine. So first, think about a timber framer who is involved with the Timber Framers Guild. At our Guild conferences and our meet-ups, in the committee work we do, in the publications we create, two important things occur: we learn, and are better professionals because of it; we share, and our craft is better for it. In both cases you win.

And when you ask, “Is your company a member?” be sure to dig just bit deeper. Do you attend the conferences? Do you send your shop folk and your designers? Do you give, as well as receive?

Doors are the transitional pieces, the welcoming elements, the room dividers, the barriers against intrusion—be it weather or other diversions. A highly-crafted door is designed to function flawlessly and be in service for decades.

While chatting about the overall presence a home has—how it speaks to family, visitors, and neighbors alike—entry doors became a pointed topic. This sparked a more in-depth conversation with our fine woodworking division, NEWwoodworks general manager, Rob, and Jay, the team’s door guru.

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Richard Brown AIA, founder of RBA, about a newly completed project in Portland, Oregon. The modern, yet traditionally inspired design has a reclaimed timber frame core combined with stick built spaces. Nestled along the hillside with views of Mt. Hood, Richard explained that this will be the main home for a creative couple—a modern house with traditional queues. We conversed about this project and the broader driving forces behind his architectural creativity:

What can you tell us about this project’s build site?
It’s a really beautiful site in Portland, which are getting to be rare in major cities as our population grows. This site had a home removed a few years back in anticipation of a development which never happened. There are great views to Mt. Hood and good access to sunlight. The homeowner is an avid gardener, so we intentionally sat the home into the shade away from where sun falls to leave space for gardens and a meadow area.

Leaving the world of party tents, awnings, and rough construction behind, Pete O’Brien joined our timber frame group finding the craftsmanship and finer work of traditional mortise and tenon joinery much more to his liking. In his opinion, handcrafting is second only to raising a frame.

We seem to be inundated with folks who love the outdoors so we were not surprised to learn that this timber framer likes hiking, kayaking, and frequents the Adirondacks. However, Pete admitted that he’s a gamer with a passion for racing and marksmanship games (cat’s out of the bag, sorry Pete!). On occasion Pete puts his kayaking skills to the test, participating in our local white water Wild Water Derby. After sitting down for this rapid fire interview, he regaled us with a few stories from the derby. Read on to learn more on this young craftsman (with author comments in brackets):

What’s your favorite word or phrase?
Awesome. (Pete’s fellow timber framer and long-time member of the team, Jake, piped in saying to me, “That is for sure his favorite word.” Based on the grin he and Pete exchanged I suspected differently but didn’t press.)

We began raising the first complete Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) building in New York State on our main campus in Farmington, NY in late January 2017. A combination of mass timber, heavy timber, and CLTs, the 21,000 sq ft building will house our fine woodworking division, NEWwoodworks, and offer a bit of storage/shipping for our sister company, Pioneer Millworks. CLT construction is an economically and environmentally conscious alternative to steel and concrete construction, a material that is new to the U.S. building industry.

Many thanks to Adjusters International BLC. When our roof collapsed their team was unfaltering. They were there to explain the insurance policy, help the process along, and get us what we needed.

UPDATE: May 2017 – nearing completion:

A tree for a mass timber project? What started as an idea branched into reality as our team selected a west coast Broad Leaf Maple tree to be a central post in our Cross Laminated Timber project. Mike W, one of our timber craftsmen and an avid nature lover, applied his skills and artistic eye from unloading the big Maple in Oregon to hand-crafting the joinery and leading the raising in New York. Along the way he formed an attachment to this “post” and named it ‘Atlas’. He shares his adventure with Atlas below:

This tree had a purpose, a destiny even. The 60-year-old Acer Macrophyllum Big Leaf Maple was selected by my co-workers Randy and Noah (from Randy’s land) for its particular size, shape, and branch structure. It would become a load-bearing post and not just any post – it will support a 30,000 lb gravity load and an 84 foot glulam beam line in our new Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) building in Farmington, NY (the first complete CLT building in New York State!).

Using some experience from previous projects, the support of my colleagues, and a little book knowledge I picked up at the Timber Framers Guild conference, I got started.

The challenge was set: take a well-loved 1980’s family home and transform both aesthetics and functionality. Our design and build teams embraced the challenge with gusto. Ty Allen, head of our Design/Build groups and our in-house Architect, gave us the cliff notes.

The homeowners built their family lake home over 25 years ago. They raised their children and made countless memories. Yet, the 1980’s contemporary design was no longer meeting all of their needs and had become dated in style. We were building a new timber frame home on a neighboring lake and we’re told that project was part of the inspiration for couple to join our community and incorporate timber framing into their lives.

Ty explained, “I think 80’s contemporary homes are the best type of existing home to transform. They are often a clean slate with open volumes and simple details.” Remodeling requires balance – the changes for this home would be bold. “We wanted to respect the integrity of the existing home, using what was already existing as a springboard to modernizing how the home looks, feels, and works.”

Jim & Rebecca came to us with a dream for a timber frame barn that would be a centerpiece to their hilltop property in Castle Rock, CO. What a spot to call home! Our timber frame team arrived from Oregon to spend three weeks on-site raising the frame and enclosing the barn – all while soaking in the scenery.

Over the next few weeks, the team learned that Jim had fallen in love with timber frames in Ohio and made it a goal to call one his own. That’s our kinda’ goal; our thanks to Jim & Rebecca for enlisting us to build this 80′ by 32′ rough sawn Douglas fir timber frame barn.

The barn doesn’t use any true trusses, but has plenty of traditional mortise and tenon joinery crafted in our McMinnville, OR shop by Darren, Mike, Jimmy, Todd, and David. A clerestory brings light into the structure while a ‘tower’ adds dynamic space.

“I’ll give you the whole story if you share those with me.” I glanced at the white box with orange fish dancing across the outside. Crackers for information, the deal of the day. With a smile I handed the box over to Pete, one of our design group architects and the design leader on our current Canandaigua Lake general contracting project.

“So Megan,” Pete began in his usual serious-but-joking-and-easygoing manner, “You want to know about the Canandaigua Family Retreat? Well, Dan & Laurie have been looking for the right site for about three years now. They gave us a call and asked if we’d come check out the spot they’d found. They felt really good about it, but wanted our take, which I thought was pretty cool. I like being involved from the beginning, especially because I had a good idea of what they wanted their project encompass.”

“Had their three year search reached an end?” I asked as the crackers disappeared with unnatural speed.

“It had,” he confirmed. “We knew our design plans would be influenced by stringent site constraints associated with being near the water (height restrictions, erosion/sediment concerns, set-backs, etc) and the nature of the narrow, deeply sloping land. But it was perfect for Dan & Laurie’s home.”

What is that big yellow, blue, and red tool? It is our Hundegger, a large CNC capable of cutting timbers with joinery. We have always liked the combination of technology with traditional craftsmanship. The marriage of both allows us to produce more efficiently, work with larger outputs, and helps our co-workers have a long career practicing their craft.

The CNCs in each of our shops rough cut timbers and joinery before the pieces head to layout and hand fitting/finishing. Andy is our main Hundegger operator on the east coast. He’s been a part of our team for a decade, starting as a timber framer, learning the trade from our master timber framers in the shop and then traveling around the nation to raise the frames he helped craft. Andy told us he liked the travel (before he had kids). He was up for a new challenge and went for the opportunity to learn the Hundegger technology. Most days he can be found standing at the main control station for the Hundgger between bouts loading the platform with raw timbers.