He’ll huff and he’ll puff

You all know the classic tale. Three little pigs build houses made of wood, straw and brick to stop a big bad wolf from eating them all up.

Armed with big teeth and bad breath, the wolf huffs and puffs and blows the straw and wooden houses down. His luck runs out at the brick house and he ends up being boiled alive. Your typical wolf-meets-pig-meets-death plot.

Whether the “Three little Pigs” is the industry’s best seller for promoting brick and block is unclear. But, in years to come the fairytale may have to be rewritten as news spreads of the popularity and strength of timber frame buildings. (The rumour mill also suggests there is a growing interest in straw construction.) The big bad wolf wouldn’t stand a chance today!

Against the odds, the timber frame market is starting to boom. With an annual turnover of more than £300m, it’s doubled its market in five years and is on the rise.

One firm hoping to get a bigger piece of the pie is Irish-based firm Goodwins Timber Frame. Already well established in Ireland, it is now expanding its business into Newport, Wales.

The state-of-the-art plant is housed on an eight-acre site, previously owned by a steel company. CM got to sneak around before its grand opening this month.

The hub of activity is set in a very high and 200m long room. This is where all the fancy computerised machines will cut, drill and do all sorts to provide walls, floor cassettes and roof trusses for clients. (See ‘The house that Goodwins built’) When CM visits, work on the plant is still underway, but when fully operational, it will have the capacity to produce 50 new homes per week.

Also on site is an in-house team of designers, structural engineers and technicians who will provide drawings and technical support for clients. All homes are custom built and sold directly to housebuilders, developers and housing associations. Prices vary, but a four detached house costs between £15-20k.

Work is already starting to trickle in. Homes are being supplied for a small development in Swansea and there’s also potential meetings with Bovis and Wimpey. A new sales team has just been appointed, and the feeling in Goodwins is that the potential for success is huge.

The emergence of factories like this - there are more than 60 timber manufacturers registered with the UK – is good news for the industry, following a disastrous slump back in the 1980s.

In fact, 1983 was not a good year for timber. A World in Action TV programme investigating the sector claimed timber homes could not last, showing rot in the frames of a nine-year-old home and poor practice on site which was prevalent not just in this sector, but throughout the industry.

Research by the BRE discredited the claims of lack of durability, stating that timber-frame homes give satisfactory long term performance. But the damage was done. Housebuilders cancelled orders and reverted to brick and block methods. The sector, which was once claiming 20 per cent of the market, fell apart.

Professor Michael Benfield, managing director of Benfield ATT, that manufactures timber recalls: “This programme did severe damage to the advancement of UK construction, setting back volume builder and public sector client interest in all forms of alternative methods of construction for almost 20 years.”

Like the big bad wolf, this show blew the timber frame market right off its foundations. The formerly booming market was now responsible for just five per cent of new homes.

No one seems able to stop the popularity of timber. its market share is 16% and rising

It was not until the 1990s that attitudes changed. In 1999, housebuilders like Bellway Homes felt comfortable to re-enter the market after a 10-year hiatus.

Consumers were also demanding environmentally friendly homes - something timber could easily fulfil. This form of construction also fitted in with government plans for affordable housing. Former construction minister Nick Raynsford remarked that timber frames were contributing to government aims to reduce CO2 emissions - a comment that many interpreted as an endorsement.

It also provides good insulation and this could have major implications for the industry, as building regulations attempt to drive down u-values or rate of heat loss. There is an argument that traditional construction will struggle to meet these targets (believed to be 0.27) by the end of the year. Timber has no trouble in meeting these needs. Benfield says if you take a 300mm external wall width, brick and block delivers a rating of 0.35 where as he can do it in 0.08. The Brick Development Association (BDA) says any construction system can attain a high u-value by having a lot of insulation, resulting in thicker construction.

The Egan Report “Rethinking Construction” also revived the timber cause. It called on the industry to improve efficiency and get control of time and cost predictability.

Timber offsite manufacturing is one way to do this. Buildings can be put up a lot faster and its not uncommon for units to be put up in just a few days. Precise dimensions allows doors and windows to be fitted easily. Some buildings may even include windows, doors and staircases.

So does this means brick and block construction should watch out?

George Demetri of the BDA says that brick will be around for the long haul. He maintains that it is as sustainable and versatile as any of its counterparts. It can be used with concrete blocks for cavity walls, as well as externally for steel and timber frame constructions, he says.

Lightweight construction, such as timber frames may also be susceptible to climate change. A study by Arup found that the masonry house was able to remain cooler in higher temperatures, whereas timber heated up to more than 28 degrees. If temperatures do soar as expected by 2080, this could have a serious impact on the materials used to build homes in the future.

But at present, no one seems able to stop the popularity of timber. With a 16 per cent and rising slice of the UK market, it is already widely used in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Scotland has the lion’s share of the market. Out of the 24,500 homes the country builds each year, a staggering 16,000 are timber frame.

But these figures are dwarfed by our overseas counterparts. In the United States and Canada, 90 per cent of low-rise buildings have timber frames. The UK has a long way to go before it comes anyway near this figure.

But that doesn’t mean it can’t catch up. Benfield suggests that it will take at least 10 years before Britain enjoys the same quality and low cost as other parts of the world.

It will also need the support of housebuilders. The UK Timber Frame Association is already interviewing housebuilders to see how they view timber frame.

Therefore the signs should now be clear. Anyone attempting to repeat the feat of the big bad wolf, better think again - or as a timber enthusiast would say: “Not on the hair of my chinny-chinny chin.”