Grid beam where to buy

Civil Engineering Books. View Plans. Enter pincode. Usually delivered in 8 days? Jergenson Phil. JaroBooks 2. Grid beam is a modular, reusable building system that is fast, easy, affordable, and virtually goof-proof. Ordinary people with few skills and even fewer tools all you need is a wrench! Grid beam's modular pieces and bolt-together construction make the system fast and straightforward to work with.

It has all the advantages of an industrial building system: standard, modular sizes; uniform materials; and interchangeable parts.

Projects knock flat and are easy to transport. Since the pieces can be used over and over again, grid beam is easy both on your wallet and on the environment-the authors have been using some of their components for over thirty years.

How to Build with Grid Beam includes hundreds of photos of real projects built over a sixty-year period, showing the many uses of grid beam, from shelves for college students to projects involving alternative energy. The Grid Beam design is not new. The Jergenson brothers have been working with grid beams since the late s, when Phil says he found the beginnings of the concept in a book by Ken Isaacs, " How to Build Your Own Living Structures.

He tinkered with the design of a new, modular building system. It was called box beam initially, changed to grid beam in As the Maker movement took off a few years ago, the concept began to get some traction among construction geeks.

At Maker Faire he threw in a few wheels as well. It's not a great deal in terms of cost per foot for cheap lumber which it is , but for a harried dad without easy access to a drill press and a jig to make his own beams, it looks like a good investment.

I bought a kit, but was one of only three people at the fair who did, Phil told me. They did sell more of their new book, though, " How to Build with Grid Beam. When or if I need more building material, I may buy it from the Jergensons, or I could make it myself at a place like TechShop , if I can muster the effort.

Low tech but still geeky Ironically, Grid Beam is made off the grid. Phil Jergenson moved to Northern California Mendocino in , bought 20 acres, and established himself as an independent solar fanatic, in his words. It's all solar," he says. Right now he's buying lumber locally for the kits, and cutting and drilling in his facility, but he's designing a full mill to take in raw wood and produce Grid Beam.

Solar power aside, it's just not a high-tech operation. At the fair, which was the first time the Jergensons offered kits for sale, they weren't even equipped to take credit card orders. What's that? At the moment, it's cash or check. E-mail the company if you want to place an order before the new site comes up, due in June. Or you can call, but Jergenson's card has a phone number without an area code listed.

To say he's not of the tech world is an understatement. Yet the Jergensons do have open source in their bones. The raw material is easy to acquire at a lumber yard, and the key design point is to drill holes that are precisely as far apart as the beams are wide. That's it. Constructions made of Grid Beam are also easy to copy. Just look at a photo and count the holes between connections. Can Grid Beam make actual money, then? It likely can.

The packages of pre-drilled beams are convenient ways for people to get into the system, and as experts on Grid Beam, the Jergensons can make money selling expertise, in the way of books or other media. Grid Beam could do more. I wasn't the only person at the show talking about how IKEA could open a line of design-it-yourself furniture using Grid Beam concepts or products.

Grid Beam sizes down Speaking of littler kits, the Grid Beam concept is also available in a smaller size. Jason Huggins has been working on a Lego-scale version of the concept, called Bitbeam.