The future’s in your hands

Don’t say it too loudly, but prefabrication is back. Of course, no one actually wants to use the P-word, which has all the PR value of the Millennium Dome, but the fact remains that homebuilders and registered social landlords are looking at off-site manufacture, advanced production, factory build or whatever the preferred terminology is for twenty-first century homebuilders.

Timber frame, steel frame, concrete panel, pod bathrooms, whole modular houses - all the options are being tested on UK homebuilding sites, although there is a long way to go before anyone can consign brick and block to the history books. “Developers are trying to learn, they are going to other countries, visiting factories, having strategic dialogues,” says Simon Palmer, of consultant The Palmer Partnership, which advised social housing’s large-scale timber frame test, the Amphion initiative.

A few developers have progressed beyond these researches. “We recognised two years ago that more of our output was going to be timber frame,” says David Lawther, group financial director of Wilcon Homes, which has just acquired a timber frame manufacturer. “There are a number of reasons why we pursued timber frame. Part L will clearly have an impact. It is recognised there is a labour skills gap. In the UK historically the defects record for timber frame houses is better, and timber frame allows you to build faster.”

Of all the off-site manufacture options, timber frame currently appears to have the most going for it. It has a market share of 8%, and is being championed by a number of big name homebuilders including Wilcon.

Westbury has announced its intention to set up a new company, Space4, with a 220 000 sq ft factory in Castle Bromwich, that will produce floor cassettes and wall panels with phenolic foam insulation to help give a U-value in excess of new Part L requirements, windows and doors pre-fitted and integral services runs. So far the housebuilder has carried out a demonstration of the build technology in Taunton, and larger-scale autumn trials are planned, before the 5000 unit-a-year capacity plant goes live in 2001.

Beazer last month unveiled the Tee-U-Tec system, (it stands for total energy efficiency upgrading technology), which it has initially developed for the Amphion consortium of 18 housing associations. Tee-U-Tec comprises floor cassettes and 140 mm-stud wall panels, with conduits for services, but without all the extras Westbury is claiming.

“This is very much stage one,” stresses John Cadwallader, managing director of Beazer Partnerships. “It should be coming out of the factory with the doors, windows and plasterboard on within a year.”

Beazer Group has already added to its manufacturing capability in Scotland by setting up a second factory, Torwood2 at Ipswich Docks, and has built one trial Tee-U-Tec house. Amphion is committed to building 2000 homes over four years, but demand for the system is likely to far exceed that. Tee-U-Tec is one of six technologies shortlisted by the Housing Corporation to receive ADP funds ring-fenced for prefabrication, and Beazer’s partnership with Amphion is not exclusive, so the system can be sold to both social and private developers . “We are keen to take it into the private sector - we see it as a way of delivering the quality the consumer requires,” says Cadwallader.

The resurgence of timber frame is expected to benefit other non-traditional build methods. ”With Westbury, Laing and Beazer all moving towards timber frame and some housebuilders now taking a serious look at timber, light steel framing will come into its own as a mainstream alternative,” says David Phillips of the Steel Frame Homes Association.

As with timber frame, manufacturers are suddenly in the unusual position of being courted by developers and builders eager to form alliances. The Forge Company has forged a joint venture with building contractor Llewellyn which has so far resulted in contracts for 300 homes for Oakfern Housing Association in Basingstoke and 65 for Ealing Family Housing Association in Reading. “We find steel good environmentally, the insulation standards that we are able to achieve - by insulating externally as well as in the studwork - are stunning,” says Tim Llewellyn, managing director of Llewellyn.

While many homebuilders are familiar with frame construction, few have yet delved into the less well-known technology of concrete panel and modular build. It is pods that are so far proving to have the ultimate pulling power for developers, with St James Homes, Redrow and Greenwich Millennium Village all recently coming out in favour of their use. The market potential is encouraging Beazer to start manufacturing pods, while bathroom pod manufacturer Gateway, which is supplying 130 bathroom and shower pods to Greenwich Millennium Village, is expanding its product line to include combined kitchen and bathroom pods and kitchen pods.

But homebuilders are moving cautiously, and with justification. After all many have been through it all before, with precast concrete and timber frame, through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Laing Homes explored the potential of manufacturing with its Super Homes company in the 1980s. “It wasn’t right for us,” says Steve Lidgate, chief executive of Laing Homes. “One of the problems with systems is that you need quantity, and we only build 1200 to 1500 units a year.” The company now builds 60-65% of its homes in timber frame, partnering with manufacturer Pinewoods. “The skillbase for timber frame is different,” says Lidgate. “In the 1980s the industry got into trouble because it thought that if you could do carpentry, you could do timber frame. We have always maintained that timber frame erection is a different skill.”

That is a lesson that timber frame practitioners north of the border are keen to see English developers take on board. “Switching to timber frame requires a culture change,”says Hugh Mackay, managing director of Stewart Milne Timber Systems, which is supplying timber frame to Greenwich Millennium Village. “There is a need for control, but people will get used to timber frame,” says Graham Reid, sales director of Lanarkshire-based Nethan Valley Homes, which has just signed a deal for 30 timber-frame houses for West Pennine Housing Association. They don’t have any doubts, however, that the comeback is starting.