Timber is rapidly being identified as a sustainable approach to overcoming the UK’s housing crisis. This is mainly due to facilitating cost effective, more efficient and in some cases, more attractive construction, in comparison to conventional alternatives such as structural steel, concrete and brick.
Daltons Wadkin explore and explain the numerous benefits that utilising timber in housing construction has. From reducing environmental impact by having the lowest CO2 cost of any commercially available building material, to allowing enhanced efficiency by reducing construction time, there are many positive elements offered by timber.
Sustainability
Like most other sectors and industries, the government and the housebuilding industry are facing environmental pressures.
Building with high-quality, sustainably sourced timber can help combat issues relating to sustainability and the environment. One main benefit of using this light, versatile and sustainable wood is that it is renewable, organic and non-toxic. This allows a positive contribution when it comes to finding alternative ways of doing something to tackle climate change.
Sustainably sourced timber is also harvested responsibly, and is often taken from forests which are continually replenished.
Modular homes
In an attempt to fix the UK’s broken housing market, in 2017, the Government announced that they will work towards diversifying the housing market. A part of this involved promoting more modular and factory built homes in the private rented sector.
Timber framing is a traditional method of building and creating structures and is incorporated into building modular homes. By eliminating structural elements such as concrete or steel the carbon footprint is dramatically reduced.
One of the main draws of modular construction is that it has the potential to lead to savings in time, materials and labour; making it a sustainable alternative. It isn’t discussed much, but the building sector is one of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions and modular buildings are slowly making a difference. Especially when sustainable timber in incorporated into the construction of modular homes.
Reduced construction time
Construction is typically faster, less expensive and less disruptive when timber is used. Unlike stone or steel-based materials, timber is light, versatile and is easy to handle, manoeuvre and install. This also reduces labour costs, due to the reduced time frame needed to complete the construction.
As the modular units are built in a controlled environment, the likelihood of waste is reduced due to a more controlled environment, the effects of poor weather are removed, the risk of theft is reduced, and unused surplus materials are often recycled in-house; all of which will contribute to keeping costs down.
By Alex Dalton, Managing Director at Daltons Wadkin
