Exterior daytime shot from the walkway in front of a mid-rise condominium development

Light-frame construction

Riverport Flats Phase II | Photo credit: WoodWorks BC
Light-frame construction beams and roof trusses shown being installed on low-rise residential structure by construction worker with nail gun and fall arrest harness

What is light-frame construction?

The go-to method for building single-family and low-rise multifamily homes in North America, light-frame wood construction is now being used to construct a more diverse range of larger and taller building types from schools and health care facilities to commercial office and mixed-use retail and residential projects. Light-frame construction is made up of dimensional lumber and engineered wood that is regularly spaced and fastened together with nails to create floor, wall, stair and roof assemblies. As they are fastened together the wood components form the structure of a building, much like a skeleton.

Photo credit: Nik West

Daytime exterior shot of the construction of a light-wood-frame, multi-storey, multi-unit residential building

Components of light-frame systems

Since the latter part of the 20th century, platform framing has been widely used in single-family, multifamily, commercial, and light industrial buildings. Platform framing features the construction of each floor on top of the one beneath.

Engineered floor and ceiling joists

Platform framing starts with a floor frame attached to a foundation, and walls are raised and fastened to the floor frame. A floor is constructed of wood joists and sub-flooring. Ceiling joists are wood members that serve a function similar to floor joists, framing the ceiling of the top building story and the floor above.

Stud wall frames

The floor serves a working platform on which stud wall frames are constructed in sections and lifted in place. Studs are vertical wood members, spaced evenly apart, and attached to both bottom and top of the floor frames. The walls of the storey beneath each new level bear the load from above.

Roof framing

Roof trusses offer pitched, sloped or flat roof configurations, while also providing clearance for insulation, ventilation, electrical, plumbing, heating and air conditioning services between the chords. A pitched roof is formed of sloping joists (rafters) or trusses attached to the top story walls. Rafters are diagonal wood members, spaced uniformly apart, and topped with roof sheathing. More frequently, modern light-frame construction is built with roof trusses, a prefabricated, engineered wood assembly that includes diagonal top chords, a horizontal bottom chord, and vertical and/or diagonal webs or braces between the top and bottom chords. Each adjacent wood component is connected using metal toothed plates.

Sheathing

Sheathing is an engineered wood product—plywood or oriented-strand board—fastened to floor, wall and roof assemblies. Roof sheathing is structural, providing lateral bracing of roof framing members, and it carries both live and dead loads from above to the rafters and trusses below.

Photo credit: KK Law

The construction of Library square, a six-storey, wood-frame multi-family building

Podium buildings

Podium buildings are comprised of multiple stories of light-frame wood construction over one, or in some cases, two levels of concrete podium construction. Often, the concrete podium comprises one-storey above grade, with two or more parking levels below grade. The podium slab is the building’s structural floor, transferring loads from above and working as a horizontal fire separation.

Library Square | Photo credit: Stephanie Tracey

Exterior afternoon shoreline view looking up at modular passive house / high performance Bella Bella Staff Housing, built with 12 prefabricated modules including solid-sawn heavy timber and oriented strand board (OSB)

Prefabrication of light-frame systems

Increasingly components of light-frame wood construction are prefabricated offsite in a factory-setting and delivered to the site as panels or modules. The degree of prefabrication varies project-to-project and in some cases, entire multi-story buildings are manufactured as cubic modules, shipped to the site complete with plumbing, electrical, paint, flooring fixtures, cabinets, and appliances.

Bella Bella Staff Housing | Photo credit: Jaden Nyberg

A close-up of a gloved hand sorting pieces of lumber

Get technical support on your next timber-built project

For information about the WoodWorks BC initiative or its free technical assistance call toll-free 1 877 929-WOOD (9663) or visit wood-works.ca/bc.

A walkway inside the UBC Orchard Commons building: glulam beams support nail-laminated timber roof panels, and two men walk across passageway above a common study area

Looking for wood products?

Find environmentally responsible wood products from sustainably managed forests.

Download our grading guide

A close-up of a gloved hand sorting pieces of lumber

Get acquainted with the most commonly produced and exported lumber grades in boards and structural dimension lumber from B.C.’s coastal species. Take the guess work out with our 117-page visual guide.

Opens in new tab