Quality is the name of the game at Canadian Timberframes

This Golden area company is serving a growing North American market

Canadian Timberframes Ltd. near Golden, B.C., is renowned throughout North America for its custom-cut timberframes. —Photo courtesy of Canadian Timberframes Ltd.

by Sandra Albers

If you've ever walked on the pedestrian bridge over the Kicking Horse River in Golden, you've seen the work of Canadian Timberframes Ltd. If you've been to the local library in Golden lately, you've seen the work of Canadian Timberframes in the renovations that were done to that building. Ditto for the new Visitor Centre on the Trans-Canada Highway, the Eagle Eye restaurant at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, the day lodge at the resort—all feature work by Canadian Timberframes, located 21 kilometres south of Golden on Highway 95. Kootenay Business caught up with the company's general manager, Laird Pittman, for a chat about the business, which is celebrating its 10th year of operation this year. h3. How did the business get started? The business started in 1999. A group of investors felt there was a market for timberframes in the British Columbia area. At that point, they looked into the technology. They were impressed with the ability of the CNC cutting technology available for it, so they purchased the first Hundegger K2 machine in Canada—it's computer-driven technology is what it is—and they embarked on producing timberframes for the North American marketplace. h3. How has the business changed during the past 10 years? Our markets have expanded over the 10 years we've been in business. I think we've become known for producing quality timberframes in a timely manner. The focus has been on customer service since day one, ensuring that the customers are happy. A lot of the business lately, for the past couple of years, has been between Calgary and Cranbrook, up and down the valley. Having said that, we do ship all over North America—some frames have gone to Hawaii, and all over the United States, including the southern states. Naturally, because of our location, the majority has been in western North America. h3. Can you describe your products and services? We supply Douglas fir frames. We access most of our Douglas fir right in the local area here. We feel that's one of our competitive advantages—the quality of the wood we are able to procure in this area. Both from an esthetic and a structural perspective, it's of superior quality. It grows large enough, yet the growth rings are still tight enough, that it still has good structural and esthetic characteristics. We've got a 25-acre site here and a 20,000-square-foot shop. Plus we've got our own on-site sawmill as part of our operation. What that lends to us is the ability to custom cut every single frame. We keep an inventory of logs on hand, pick the logs for the job and cut the timbers in our sawmill here. It allows us to have a fairly quick turnaround time for our clients. h3. How many workers does Canadian Timberframes employ? We employ upwards of 20 people and we operate 12 months a year. h3. Could you briefly describe your business philosophy? I'd say production of a quality product in a timely manner with customer service right through to delivery. h3. Do you have any particularly exciting projects on the go? Exciting projects? Well, every project lends some degree of excitement, because each one is custom and they're all different. We never see two that are the same; there's never a repetition. We usually cut an average of 100 homes every year, from very traditional architectural designs to extremely modern ones—the entire gamut. We also cut a fair amount of commercial projects…from decorative timbers on storefronts (for example, in downtown Invermere) to larger commercial jobs (such as condo units in Canmore, Alberta, and various projects at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort near Golden). We've also cut large timberframe barns, and everything on a domestic and residential level from small accents to large timberframes on some very, very large executive homes. h3. Anything else you'd care to share with our readers? We work closely with a number of associate representatives in different areas (architects, builders, other timberframers) so it's a business-to-business relationship with a lot of them—we supply to them. We can, but we don't target the end client as much. We have our own in-house design staff, carpentry people, sawmill people and the CNC operators. People are pretty impressed with what happens here.

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