Reservations
Builders merchants see themselves as the servants of their builder customers and have a good track record of adapting to new developments in construction. That said, many have reservations about whether timber frame ever will dominate new housing in England, although it has already established a recognised place in the Scottish market.
While timber frame housing has certain merits – speed of construction on site in particular and alleged better heat conservation – there are many difficulties with prefabrication. These include lack of design flexibility, poor fire resistance, lower noise insulation within the house and difficulty in making adaptations such as adding a conservatory or even putting up bookshelves. English private house buyers have usually plumped for traditionally built homes when given a choice, as demonstrated by recent MORI research. It is amusing to note that housebuilders can be slow to tell potential buyers that a house is timber (or steel) frame. Such houses generally have a brick skin so that they look like traditional housing, although this concealment will change with the government's proposed introduction of the sellers' pack.
Building societies and banks, together with other property professionals, also appear to be underwhelmed by timber frame. This is possibly due to its shorter design life compared with brick and block.
What perplexes merchants are the grandiose plans of some housebuilders to assemble all the materials (now called components) in a factory and deliver them to site on flatbeds and pallets. Much of this material now goes directly to housebuilders' sites from suppliers, so merchants will not necessarily lose business if timber frame's market share increases. But as past Builders Merchant Federation president Ted Adams (former managing director of Travis Perkins) said at our conference last year, "why should a housebuilder want all the trouble of breaking bulk and distributing the thousands of products that go into a house"? The assembly of building products for delivery to site at the right time for the construction process is the professional business of the merchant, and it is not a straightforward task.
The assembly of building products for delivery to site at the right time for the construction process is not a straightforward task
Complex business
From their experience of supplying sites now, merchants know that however good the design and the builder's planning process, unexpected problems and specific site conditions mean that the timing of deliveries is always a complex business. When the "house factories" take on this task they may regret the extra burden and overhead cost that it produces.
Housebuilders themselves appear undecided as to whether the plans for preconstruction and timber frame will take off. Some companies that build upmarket properties have been dismissive. For social housing it may be more appropriate, although consumer and planner resistance will play a role here too.
Some builders merchants are adapting to the trend by developing timber prefabrication facilities. The national merchants companies will certainly be keen to work with housebuilders to assemble materials on pallets for each housing plot.
A consumer decision
Ultimately, the consumer will decide whether timber frame will be the new technology for housebuilding. The vociferous argument that has been stimulated between the Traditional Housing Bureau and the Timber Frame Industry Association about the relative merits of the construction methods will have to be tested in the marketplace.
Source
Construction Manager
