Balloon framing
Balloon framing ran wall studs full height from floor to roof, with floors hung off them. Australia replaced it with platform framing for fire safety and handling.
Ask Chalkline about this →Balloon framing is an older light-timber framing method where the wall studs ran continuously from the bottom plate at the ground floor all the way up to the roof, in a single full-height length, with the intermediate floors hung off the sides of those long studs rather than sitting on top of the wall below.
It has been superseded in Australia by platform framing, where each storey is built as a complete platform before the walls above it go up. Balloon framing went out for two practical reasons. The very long studs are heavy and awkward to handle and source. More importantly, fire: in a balloon frame the wall cavities run uninterrupted from floor to roof, so a fire in the wall has a clear vertical chimney straight up the building. Platform framing breaks that path at every floor line, which is a big part of why it took over.
You will not frame a new house this way, but you will meet balloon framing in renovations and additions to older homes. The thing to watch when you cut into an old balloon-framed wall is exactly that uninterrupted cavity: a renovation is the time to add fire stopping at the floor lines, and to remember the studs are doing more than a platform-frame stud (they carry the floor loads through the wall). See timber framing basics and AS 1684 for current framing.
Also known as: Balloon frame, full-height stud framing.
Category: Framing / Timber.
Related
See also
References
- WoodSolutions: Lightweight Timber Framing Guide (verified 2026-05-24)
- AS 1684 Residential timber-framed construction, Standards Australia (verified 2026-05-24)
Last updated: 2026-05-30. Verified: 2026-05-24. Quarterly review for currency.