Q: How are timber frame houses different from a masonry house?
A: In simple terms, the 'breeze-block' structure in a typical masonary house is replaced with an engineered, millimetre-precise Timber Frame structure. This services better for the overall speed and quality of the build, the homeowner and the environment...
A modern masonry house is normally made of an inner supporting wall of concrete blocks and an outer 'rain shield' wall of brick. A modern timber frame house replaces the inner wall with a timber frame strong enough to carry all the loads of the house. This is usually covered by the plasterboard internally and a brick, stone, or timber 'siding' external finish.
Just as in any other modern building, the external 'skin' acts mainly as a 'rain screen' and to give you the aesthetic appearance you want. But if you use a smart, engineered timber frame to support your building, you can also use this to replace 'wet build' bricks, blocks, stone and render with completely dry - or near dry - external finishes that deliver an identical appearance. This means less delays for bad weather, no drying out and no shrinkage, no efflorescence of salts seeping out of masonry and ruining the appearance of your walls. The lighter structure also means you can choose an alternative foundation system - and that could save you up to 50% on foundation and earthwork costs.
Externally, you won't be able to tell the difference. However, timber frame is naturally energy-efficient (saving the homeowner money), is quicker to build (saving you money) and uses twice as much timber as a masonry house. As every cubic metre of timber used in place of other building materials saves 0.8 tonne of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere, using timber frame to build, say, a house, can save around 4 tonnes of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere. This amount of Carbon is the equivalent of a 1.0 litre car travelling 14,000 miles. This is one of the most practical ways of helping reduce Global Warming.
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'...there was much interest in timber frame construction and - being brick builders - needed to see the difference for ourselves. We set about buying two ajoining peices of land either side of a road. We built one block of flats in timber frame on one side, and an identical block of flats in Brick and Block on the other side of the road.
In the interests of research, we didn't tell the people who were looking around which were which. However, the timber frame block of flats sold out within the first two days, whilst the Brick side took two weeks to sell.
When we asked the customers why they chose their flat over the ones on the other side of the road, they simply replied "I don't know...these just feel warmer"'.
extract from a conversation with a Brick housebuilder
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