Timber Construction Magazine Issue 24 Summer 2023

SUMMER 2023

www.timbermedia.co.uk

ISSN 2515–8686 (PRINT)

CONSTRUCTION

VASTERN TIMBER  18

Choosing British larch to bring a high grade locally grown dimension to your project

ALLERTON FIRE AND POLICE STATION  16

Remodelling an iconic building into affordable housing for the over 55s

PASSIVHAUS APPROACH  20

Roderick James Architects on designing and building with sustainability and energy efficiency in mind

02 News

A range of news and views from across the industry.

11 Wood Awards 2023

Submit your wood-centric building, furniture or product entry before 23 June and your work could be recognised as among the best in the UK.

14 New Tools of the Trade

TDUK has launched the Structural Timber Price Index, to help the construction industry better assess changes in the UK timber market.

16 Smart

Reshaping for Over 55s

An iconic Liverpool Fire and Police station has been transformed into an affordable housing development using timber construction for buildability, speed of construction and cost certainty.

18 Cover Story: Vastern Timber

If you’re looking for great quality larch cladding, you don’t have to go far, says Tom Barnes, managing director of Vastern Timber.

20 Homes for the Future

Designing and building energy efficient homes is part of what Peter Smith, Passivhaus designer and partner at Roderick James Architects, does every day using green oak and timber technology.

22 More Options for Zero Carbon Homes

Cala Group, one of the UK’s major homebuilders recently acquired Taylor Lane Timber Frame with the investment reinforcing the homebuilder’s commitment to its climate targets.

28 Building by the Book

New guidance funded by Built by Nature is helping improve understanding of mass timber.

30 Shear

Strength Leads to WikiHouse Switch

One of the country’s leading research universities is expected to verify the findings surrounding the benefits of the WikiHouse offsite building system.

Managing Editor: Terry Hanlon

 terry.hanlon@timbermedia.co.uk

 01925 872371

Artwork: Pete Awad

 artwork@timbermedia.co.uk

Follow Timber Media:

 @Timber_Media

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Company registered in England and Wales. Company Number 10839173.

New Combilift product launch at Ligna

The new Combi-CB70E is a further addition to Combilift’s ever growing range of electric models which offers powerful performance, extensive battery life and unrivalled ergonomics. This model, in the vibrant Combi-green livery first seen on the recently launched Combi-CUBE product, boasts the distinction of being the shortest 7t capacity counterbalance truck on the market whilst also benefitting from multidirectional ability, enabling the versatile space saving handling of both long and bulky loads.

Design features incorporated into the high-capacity Combi-CB70E such as its large super-elastic tyres and compact wheelbase make it ideally suited for the operational demands of the timber industry. With a 7,000kg/15,500lb lift capacity, this model benefits from an impressively small footprint as well as exceptional manoeuvrability meaning that it can easily move bulky loads of timber around in confined spaces.

Combilift’s designers have gone to great lengths to ensure that the latest generation of models are kitted out with top quality components that ensure sophisticated ergonomics for a stress-free incab environment. Features in the spacious cab include generous glazing for excellent all-round visibility, the tilting steering column, hydraulic steering and the Grammer MSG65 seat.

What sets the Combi-CB70E apart from other forklifts is its gas strut suspension cab, which uses components such as those found in large scale industrial machinery with cab suspension. Combined with the super-elastic tyres this guarantees the smoothest of rides over uneven or less than perfect ground conditions such as those typically experienced in lumber yards.

NTS to open fifth manufacturing site at Wolverhampton

National Timber Systems, the engineered wood products division of National Timber Group, is to open a new 70,000sq ft manufacturing site at Wolverhampton. The multi-million pound investment will create one of NTS’s largest manufacturing sites and over 100 jobs.

NTS is a leading supplier of engineered timber and offsite construction products, including the panelised roof system NTSROOF, floor and wall cassettes, engineered joists, roof trusses and spandrel panels. The division currently supplies housebuilders, developers and the modular sector nationally from their four sites across the country at Sheffield, Catterick, Newcastle and Bristol. It has a turnover of almost £50 million and employs 240 people in total.

Nick Kershaw, Managing Director of NTS said: “With the new site at Wolverhampton we are strengthening our geography towards having a true national footprint with sites in Yorkshire, the North East, South West

The truck also features Combilift’s internationally patented and Red Dot awarded independent electric traction which provides all front and rear drive wheels with 100% traction control. This negates the need for differential lock on slippery surfaces and significantly reduces long load momentum twisting when travelling sideways. Each electric drive incorporates parking and regenerative dynamic braking for power efficiency. Roll-out access for major electrical components also simplifies maintenance tasks.

This mix of next-gen performance, extensive battery life and exceptional ergonomics combined with all the advantages of the Combi-CB range, makes this the most powerful compact electric multidirectional forklift to date.

Combilift CEO and Co-Founder Martin McVicar said: “The increased capacities that we are offering in our electric range will answer the demand for ever more powerful products which at the same time help companies to achieve their aims for more sustainable operations. We chose Ligna as the platform for launching the Combi-CB70E due to its innate suitability for customers in the timber sector, but we are confident that this model will be a popular addition to our portfolio for many other industry applications.”

More at  www.combilift.com

and now the Midlands. It also signals a step-change in our manufacturing capability to service the increased level of customer demand generally and for our ranges of new and innovative products. A number of different engineered wood products will be manufactured at Wolverhampton. Turnover from this site alone is expected to exceed £20 million. We will start recruiting soon and the site will be fully operational later this year.”

More at  www.nationaltimbersystems.co.uk

Winners of the TRA’s first Roofscape Design Awards announced

The Trussed Rafter Association’s (TRA) first Roofscape Design Awards winners were announced in April at the TRA Annual General Meeting and Conference at the Kettering Park Hotel. The awards recognise and celebrate the highly technical skills required to design trussed rafter roofs, joists, and panels.

The awards were given in three categories – Residential Project of the Year (for newbuild dwellings), Conversion and Refurbishment Project of the Year (for existing housing projects) and Commercial Project of the Year (for all non-domestic projects). Judges included Nick Boulton, chief executive of the TRA, Liz Male, managing director of Liz Male Consulting, Rob Lockey (former head of training at the NHBC) and Les Fuller, chair of the technical committee of the TRA.

In the Residential Project of the Year category, the judges were impressed with the quality of entries, ultimately it was awarded to DWB Anglia Ltd for their outstanding work on the Stableview and Moldavia project in Tiptree. Crendon Timber Engineering Ltd was highly commended for their exceptional new homes in Cheshire, showcasing their commitment to innovative and sustainable construction practices.

For the Conversion and Refurbishment Project of the Year, Truss Form (Midlands) Ltd was recognised as the winner for their exemplary work on the Plough Maltings Brewery project in Burton on Trent. The judges were impressed with the winning design which was complex and had unusual

shapes which showcases what can be achieved with trussed rafters.

In the Commercial Project of the Year category, the judges had a tough decision to make with several outstanding entries. In the end, Donaldson Timber Engineering was awarded the top spot for their exceptional work on the New Care Home project in Canterbury. Pasquill was highly commended for their Care Home project in Mablethorpe and Minera Roof Trusses Ltd for their innovative contribution to the Laserquest project.

Nick Boulton said: “Trussed rafters are a critical but much underrecognised sustainable roofing system. The entries of the Roofscape Design Awards 2023 demonstrated a vast array of innovative designs that deliver effective and great looking timber roofing solutions.

“The judges had the difficult task of selecting the winners from a high number of exceptional entries. However, after much consideration and deliberation, the winners have been chosen. The winners of the Roofscape Design Awards have demonstrated exceptional creativity, innovation, and

EXPERIENCE OPTIMAL ACOUSTIC COMFORT IN YOUR SPACE

BWF supports industry-wide timber recycling scheme

The British Woodworking Federation (BWF) has joined forces with the Glass and Glazing Federation (GGF) and Community Wood Recycling to support timber window frame recycling across the construction industry. Open to all BWF members, the recycling scheme will collect any waste wood for recycling – including timber frames and off-cuts –where a designated volume has been accumulated.

Through Community Wood Recycling, 100% of the wood supplied is reused or recycled, meaning none of the waste collected will end up in landfill. Not only does this make timber a more sustainable construction material than ever, but the scheme also creates jobs, training, and volunteering opportunities for disadvantaged people.

Helen Hewitt, CEO of the British Woodworking Federation, said: “We know that our members do everything they can to make the most efficient use of their raw material, but we wanted to help them go even further. That’s why we’re delighted to be working with the GGF and Community Wood Recycling over this important initiative.

“Timber is already recognised as a sustainable building material, and this partnership helps make it even more so. By joining the scheme, we’re helping our sector reduce waste and contribute more towards a circular economy. The scheme will allow our members to make a conscious effort to reduce the amount of wood ending up in landfill, while at the same time helping provide local training and employment opportunities.”

Chris Beedel, head of advocacy & stakeholder relations at the GGF, commented: “We have already seen huge success with our PVC-U and aluminium recycling schemes and are now pleased to be able to offer a similar solution for installers of timber frames. We aim to make all our recycling schemes as user-friendly as possible. And with that in mind, waste timber materials can have fixtures and fittings attached and be left in a designated area on site. Waste is collected when 12 yards of timber has accumulated, meaning companies save on expensive skip costs. Community Wood Recycling can also provide a certificate of recycling for additional peace of mind for installers and the end customer.”

The UK creates 4.5 million tonnes of waste wood each year. Last year, Community Wood Recycling retrieved nearly 24,000 tonnes of wood, a figure the scheme’s partners aim to increase through this initiative.

Understanding of the FSC logo has more than doubled since pre-lockdown

Awareness of the FSC logo in the UK has increased 45% since 2019, and the proportion of those claiming both good and rough knowledge of the logo has more than doubled, FSC UK has revealed. With data from the Office for National Statistics revealing that nature had supported people’s well-being during lockdowns, perhaps more are becoming interested in and aware of how they can repay some of that support.

The latest FSC UK survey, conducted in March 2023, reveals that 77% of people in the UK now recognise the FSC logo. 25% say they know what it means (+ 5% on 2022), and a further 30% (29% in 2022) say they know roughly what it means. 30% of those who recognise the logo recall buying an FSC-certified product within the past 3 months, 19% within the past month. 41% say they always or usually give preference to FSC-certified products.

Once the meaning of FSC was explained, 71% of all those surveyed, said they would be very or fairly likely to give preference to FSC-certified products in future. 85% of those who said they both recognised and understood the FSC logo, and 81% of those who recognise it and know roughly what it means, said they were likely to give preference to FSC-certified products.

However, only 38% of people claim to look for products that carry certification labels when they shop for forest-based products, suggesting that further promotion of certifications, beyond just labels

such as FSC, may be beneficial to support consumers in meeting their ethical shopping preferences. 51% stated that they would be prepared to pay more for an FSC-certified product, with 28% prepared to pay up to 5% more and 10% prepared to pay up to 10% more.

Half of those surveyed were of the belief that all wood-based products available in the UK should be made from sustainable sources and a further quarter thought at least some should meet this standard. 60% thought that consumers have a responsibility to ensure that the products they buy, and the packaging they use, are responsibly sourced, but 71% held businesses responsible for the sustainability of their products and packaging.

More at  www.fsc-uk.org

Passivhaus specialist Beattie Passive achieves ISO Certifications

Passivhaus pioneer Beattie Passive, a major offsite manufacturer of modular housing and the first company in the UK to be certified for a complete build system by the Passivhaus Institut in Germany, has achieved UKAS ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 certification.

These certifications reaffirm its commitment to quality management, environmental responsibility and occupational health and safety. “We’re incredibly proud to have achieved these certifications because they demonstrate our commitment to quality, sustainability and safety,” says Ron Beattie, managing director of Beattie Passive. “We always strive to provide the highest standards of quality to our customers, while minimising our environmental impact and safeguarding the health and safety of our employees.”

Jack Randall, chief commercial officer at Beattie Passive, added: “These certifications will enable us to work with organisations that demand ISO standards from their partners. We’re also BOPAS approved, and we’re named on Crown Commercial Service’s offsite construction framework and the Offsite Homes Alliance’s modular construction framework.

“Our aim is to increase awareness of Passivhaus and make it more accessible to public sector organisations that want to tackle fuel poverty, raise living standards and achieve their net zero ambitions. Our patented, Passivhaus-certified build system combines all the energy efficiency, comfort and carbon-saving benefits of the Passivhaus standard with the speed and versatility of volumetric modular construction. It’s a very compelling solution to many of the challenges facing the housing sector and the construction industry.”

More at  www.beattiepassive.com

NMITE readies new TED 2 course

NMITE (New Model Institute for Technology & Engineering) is set to welcome a new cohort onto its new Timber Technology Engineering Design 2 (TED 2) CPD course, following the success of its TED 1 courses. Starting from 5 June 2023, the new course is once again delivered in partnership with Timber Development UK and Edinburgh Napier University.

The TED 1 courses ran from September 2022 and January 2023 and were effective in raising awareness around the need for more use of timber, over less sustainable, non-timber products. There was a cohort of eight on the September course and due to peer-to-peer recommendation and word of mouth, this doubled to 16 for January. Both courses had inclusive and diverse cohorts and the intent is to continue that trend going forward to help change construction culture.

The broad appeal of the TED course is due to it having been designed to meet learners where they are in their knowledge base, as it is not a requirement that they have a detailed understanding of how timber works. In addition, the course appeals to a diverse audience due to its mix of learning styles across visual, auditory, practical hands-on and portfolio content curation.

The new TED 2 course is designed to appeal to a wide range of Built Environment Professionals, working in architecture firms and construction companies including designers, architectural assistants or those involved in technical sales. Learners are not required to have completed TED 1 but some prior industry knowledge is expected.

TED 2 runs as a 12-week course held within a virtual learning environment, allowing students to work at their own pace, supported by academic mentorship and support. There are also three on-campus residentials at NMITE in Hereford, within the Centre for Advanced Timber Technology (CATT). This is a purpose built 2,500m2 “Living Lab” hybrid structure which demonstrates advanced timber technologies and acts as an exemplar in the region, aspiring to net zero carbon targets.

Professor Robert Hairstans, Centre for Advanced Timber Technology (CATT) Director, comments: “The launch of our TED 2 course builds on our successful TED 1 course, both of which are designed to help solve the climate crisis problem by championing the use of the natural, renewable capital of timber that we have. TED 1 was a huge success with learners coming away feeling equipped to champion the use of timber in their workplace.

“Fundamental to all NMITE courses is to provide a student-centric approach with a curriculum fuelled by real-world challenges working with external stakeholders, industry practitioners and academic collaborators. I believe this approach is fundamental to our cohorts’ enjoyment and engagement with the course and I suspect is also why we are so successful at attracting diversity on our courses.”

TED 2 includes two design briefs for which students have a chance to construct during the on-campus residentials. The process progresses the TED 1 challenges which went from simple connections to basic supported structures, to integrated design with additional layers within the final structure, for which students exhibit to an invited audience.

In addition to the design element which runs throughout the course, technology and construction are the other modules that are covered in two, six-week blocks. Technology covers off the theory and capacity of computer aided design and manufacture (CAD/CAM), Building Information Modelling, CNC machines for timber, architectural drawings, connectors and fixings of timber, manufacturing of timber components, hybrid solutions such as metal web joists, and future technologies such as Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality and new biogenic based materials.

The construction module covers types of timber constructions, design for manufacture and assembly, safe working practices, sustainable construction practices and working with detailed industry case studies to unpack and apply learnings from the course.

Architectural Assistant at dRMM, Olivia Chan, completed the NMITE TED 1 course earlier this year. Olivia comments: “Within the course, I have been encouraged to develop a detailed material understanding which incorporates the lifecycle of timber. This has included a theoretical and practical understanding of how to sustainably grow, procure, apply, and upcycle timber as well as how to maintain the timber supply chain in a way that ensures our sustainable future.

“The opportunity to connect a theoretical understanding and speak to people in forestry, milling and design has fostered a collaborative learning environment. Practical, material-based lab work has allowed me to learn how to research and detail small-scale timber projects. Hands-on experience like being able to test our own theories within a specialist timber laboratory has helped me build my experience and has improved my confidence in advocating for timber.”

More at  www.nmite.ac.uk

Pasquill reveals huge investment programme

Pasquill, one of the UK’s leading supplier of trussed rafters, has revealed further details of a multi-million-pound strategic investment programme across its UK sites. The investment includes £4.5 million spent in 2022, £3.6 million planned across 2023 and an additional £6 million to be spent in 2024. The outlay aims to upgrade facilities, improve operations, reduce waste and enhance the customer experience.

A £0.5 million machinery upgrade at Stoney Stanton forms a part of the investment and is part of the next phase at the site following the installation of the Hundegger TurboDrive in 2022. Already in place at Pasquill’s Bodmin and Redhill sites, the Hundegger will increase capacity, reliability and quality while reducing waste by 8%, contributing to a better all-around service for customers.

Meanwhile, a fifth £185k new AV Birch Uni-Roll will be installed at the Inverness site. The Uni-Roll has been designed to work in tandem with a planned glulam cutting line and cutting table, ensuring seamless integration within the facility. As a result of the Uni-Roll installation, customers can expect faster order processing, enhanced precision in material handling, and a higher standard of service. In addition to the UniRoll, Pasquill has forecast a circa £600k investment this year for a dedicated JJI Joist line at the Stoney Stanton site. This investment will follow the Uni-roll installation and help Pasquill enhance its production capabilities and meet the increasing demand for joists.

Pasquill has also invested £450k in four electric Combilift forklift trucks at its Redhill site. These versatile, multi-directional forklifts are designed to improve material handling, particularly in tight spaces, and contribute to the company’s commitment to sustainability by reducing carbon emissions.

Gabriel Prior, operations and continuous improvement director at Saint-Gobain Off-Site Solutions, said: “These strategic investments demonstrate Pasquill’s commitment to continuous improvement, enhancing efficiency and creating a more sustainable future for our business as we work to make the world a better home. As we invest in cutting-edge technology and better facilities, we ultimately aim to provide an even higher level of service for our customers, while prioritising the welfare of our colleagues and reducing our environmental impact.”

As a result of previous investment and subsequent growth, there was also a need for office expansions at Pasquill’s Chorley and Bodmin, costing £1.4 million and £160k respectively. Both projects place colleague welfare at the heart of the investments, with enhanced workspaces and better welfare facilities. A new meeting and training room in Bodmin has also been combined with a private area to show customers a 3D walkthrough of project designs.

Several additional enhancements have been implemented at Pasquill as part of their ongoing commitment to a safety culture ethos. These upgrades include new entryway safety goalposts, designed to protect personnel and reduce damage from forklift trucks and timber products. Machinery updates also feature improved guarding on saws, enhancing colleague safety when operating or working near these saws. Furthermore, the introduction of a vacuum lifter at the Leeds site’s Spandrel area eliminates the need for a two-person team to move boards, effectively reducing potential manual handling issues and trip hazards while achieving a 50% timesaving.

Looking to the future, the team is currently laying the groundwork for the completion of a £6 million project in 2024, this will see the business install a Randek AutoEye line at Pasquill’s Redhill site – which will be the UK’s first automated truss production line. The system streamlines the manufacturing process by visually identifying roof trusses and automatically picking, placing, positioning, and pressing nail plates. The pressing force is precisely adapted to the nail plate and timber thickness. This improves safety and productivity while at the same time ensuring a high-quality truss is produced every time.

“As we continue to innovate and enhance our facilities, we’re excited about our plans to implement the technology for automated truss machinery,” added Gabriel Prior. “This investment underscores our dedication to staying at the forefront of industry advancements and demonstrates our commitment to providing exceptional services to our customers. By embracing the future, we’re confident that Pasquill will remain the go-to supplier of trussed rafters in the UK market.”

More at  www.pasquill.co.uk

STA launches moisture management guidance

New guidance from the Structural Timber Association (STA) is now available to help architects and those in the construction supply chain avoid moisture-related defects during a structural timber building’s construction process and in-service life.

The guidance offers a systematic process based on the RIBA Plan of Work 2020, outlining where time and effort should be given to consider and mitigate the risk of defects that may come from moisture entrapment. Implementation of the guidance will, without doubt, contribute to the successful risk management of a structural timber project for everyone involved, as the STA’s Andrew Orriss explains: “Our aim is to present a more formal and effective process for adoption across the

industry to ensure that durability of structural timber buildings fulfils whole-life and sustainable objectives.

“No building or material is designed to last forever. But potential defects can be a result of how a building was designed and constructed and how, or if it has been maintained. We recommend a moisture management strategy be implemented for all buildings. The point of this guidance is to outline a process that places the question of ‘what if?’ from the outset of a building’s design through its construction and beyond, so all stakeholders are aware of their responsibility.”

Drawing on the collective and wide expertise of the STA Steering Group, the guidance provides the industry with additional knowledge and the benefit of the experience that is needed to connect the ideas of the design team with the outcomes of site installation. It offers best practice advice that can be embedded into the construction process highlighting the opportunity to stop, look and act on designs – and to be aware of warning signs during construction or in-service that indicate if moisture may be causing distress to the structure.

More at  www.structuraltimber.co.uk

W Exhibition rebranded for 2024 event

The UK’s flagship trade show for the furniture manufacturing and joinery industries, formerly W Exhibition, has relaunched as Materials & Finishes Show

Materials & Finishes Show, which will run at the Birmingham NEC from 19-22 May 2024, is the reimagined concept developed by Montgomery Group. The event will continue to provide a platform for manufacturers, processors and installers of timber, components and supporting services, alongside complementary materials such as stone.

Speaking about the relaunch and the enhanced proposition the Materials & Finishes Show will deliver for the furniture manufacturing and joinery industries, event director, David Todd comments: “It gives me great pleasure to announce the launch of Materials & Finishes Show, which aims to build on the success of the W Exhibition. Since the show’s conception in 1974 it has passed from being a woodworking machinery exhibition to covering the full range of technology and materials for industrial woodworking. We aim to take this further providing a more valuable, time and resource effective solution for both our exhibitors and visitors from a more diverse community.

“We’ve conducted an extensive market research exercise and worked closely with our stakeholders which has concluded that there is still a huge appetite, and indeed need, for a platform for the industry, specifically across the UK and Ireland. A lot has changed since the last edition of W Exhibition in 2018 and we have adapted the show’s proposition to reflect the evolving needs of the market both now, and in line with our anticipations for the future.

“Wood and stone are two of the most widely used natural materials in construction in design, often used together in various ways. Whilst wood and timber will remain a core focus for Materials & Finishes Show, it was a

natural progression for us to incorporate stone and broaden the delivery for our community. This more holistic view of the industry paves the way for other products such as stone kitchen countertops and natural stone flooring. The show will deliver a true end-to-end proposition for our visitors.”

All areas of the material journey, from the initial stages of raw processing through to finishing and component supply for completed products, will be represented at Materials & Finishes Show.

Visitors will have the opportunity to see running machinery together with components, materials, technology and services for the manufacturing and processing phases of materials, alongside the latest products and developments for finishes.

David concludes: “As an organisation, Montgomery Group is fully committed to protecting and building on the legacy of W Exhibition and the communities we serve. It’s our responsibility to preserve the long-term success of our platform for the sector, which is why we have been through this extensive period of consultation to reimagine and develop the show to meet the changing needs of the market, culminating in the relaunch with Materials & Finishes Show.”

Materials & Finishes Show will attract buyers from every corner of the industry, from furniture and joinery manufacturers and designers right through retailers, the KBB market, carpenters, joiners, worktop fabricators and stone masons. It will bring together some of the world’s leading suppliers of woodworking and stone machinery, materials, and tooling.

More at  www.materialsandfinishesshow.com

Donaldson Timber Systems partners with West Herts College

Donaldson Timber Systems (DTS) has partnered with West Herts College to offer an apprenticeship programme in support of the next generation of talent in the construction industry for timber frame construction.

The partnership originated with DTS’ appointment to the Hertfordshire OSM framework, which included the commitment to engage with the local College. The 2.5-year programme was open to students on the College’s Level 2 City and Guilds carpentry course.

The apprenticeship will include four days per week on-site, delivered by one of DTS’ service level agreement partners, Bedfordshire-based S.E. Carpentry. One day per week the apprentices will attend the College to work on in-class modules, including an additional module that will focus on modern methods of construction (MMC) for timber frame that was developed in partnership with DTS. This covers an understanding of construction technology: health and safety, an introduction to MMC and understanding construction information, materials and the installation process, together with site/project communications.

Simon Horn, technical development manager at DTS, said: “We were connected to West Herts College through our work supporting a regional consortium of housing providers and Local Authorities, to improve the delivery of housing at a local level and develop local enterprise partnerships. Supporting skills development in the next generation is crucial to the

ongoing evolution of the UK construction industry, and is something we’re committed to at DTS, so working with the College to grow and support talent was a great fit. This apprenticeship programme is a pilot project for DTS and is something we would like to roll out in more areas, with more partners, in time. We’re aiming to provide real opportunities and increase motivation, while simultaneously helping to fill the skills gap in our industry.”

Sian Williams, curriculum director at West Herts College, said: “We’re excited to partner with DTS on this programme to give our learners an opportunity to receive hands-on training and develop their understanding of modern methods of construction. It has been fantastic to work closely with DTS to develop MMC modules that incorporate new design and technologies that enable our learners to gain the most current and update knowledge and skills linking into a variety of curriculum courses.”

Spencer Earl, managing director of S.E. Carpentry, added: “We’re proud to partner with DTS and West Herts College to provide two apprentices with the opportunity to learn from our team and develop their skills. It’s also unquestionably a great benefit for our business, as we will have two qualified installers at the end of the programme who are trained to work on DTS’ timber frame build systems.”

Scandia-Hus chooses Actis Hybrid for latest show home

Timber frame specialist Scandia-Hus has chosen the Actis Hybrid range to insulate a fourth show home – inspired by the impressive energy efficiency performance achieved on the three previous show properties insulated using the same system.

Groundworks on The Lodge – a 1,915sq ft single storey home –began in April at Scandia-Hus HQ in Sussex, with the timber frame element commencing in June. The Scandia-Hus team again hopes to carry out a thermal imaging survey once it’s completed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the products. The company conducted a similar exercise a few years ago after building its first Actis Hybrid-insulated show home, with the results showing an impressive lack of thermal bridging and confirming that Hybrid was the right choice for the bulk of its ongoing projects.

The Lodge will have three bedrooms all with en-suites, a large kitchen/ dining/ living room, snug and utility room as well as a full heat recovery system. The flat-roofed property will use H Control Hybrid, 105 mm Hybris, and Boost R Hybrid in the walls to achieve a U-value of 0.14W/m2K and Actis H Control in the roof.

Previous show homes have been insulated with a combination of vapour control layer Actis H Control Hybrid and 155mm honeycomb design Actis Hybris in the pitched roof and H Control Hybrid and 105mm Hybris in the walls to achieve a U-value of 0.14 in the roof and 0.16 in the walls.

Scandia-Hus is also planning to use its third show home as a space in which to display details of the thermal performance of the current three Actis-insulated show homes. Information will include the U-values

achieved, EPCs and air testing results to underline the energy efficiency of the buildings to potential customers. The other three showhomes are a 3,500sq ft Tudor style property, a 2,755sq ft three-bedroom contemporary property and a 2,800sq ft chalet style house.

Actis regional sales manager Liane Bayliss is attending two open days at Scandia-Hus HQ this year – 17 June and 2 September – when she will be talking about Actis products and available to answer technical questions, she said: “Actis Hybrid products are particularly popular with timber frame manufacturers. And Scandia-Hus is clearly smitten by the thermal properties they offer.” Scandia-Hus MD Derek Dawson added: “Using Actis reduced installation time by up to 30%. Other benefits are minimal wastage and site cleanliness. And as if that is not benefit enough, the Hybrid range does not produce irritant and messy dust when installing.”

More at  www.insulation-actis.com

Timber cladders should heed ventilation warning

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Timber cladding is installed as a rainscreen on buildings in the UK. This means the cladding should be fitted over a drained and ventilated cavity, to allow air to flow and moisture to escape – giving it the longest possible service life.

Ventilation provision should be allowed for at the top and bottom of the cladding, while support battens – one or two layers depending on the orientation of the cladding – create a continuous drainage plane over a waterproof breather membrane.

Earlier in the year, NHBC reported that it ‘has recent experience with the design life of timber cladding being less than intended, leading to loss of performance and claims’. It cites ‘lack of detailing to enable drainage and ventilation’ as one of the key problems, as well as the use of ‘unsuitable film-forming coatings that can trap moisture’ and ‘fixings issues’. These are all crucial factors that builders, specifiers and tradespeople must get right to avoid future problems arising.

“Fixings issues are a bug bear of the TDCA in respect to both timber cladding and decking,” explains Janet Sycamore, Director of TDCA. “Most of the problem cases we see feature the use of the wrong type of fixing, for example: fixings made of unsuitable material or incorrect placement and poor application. If you get it wrong the result could be at best, dark and unsightly rust stains or, at worst, boards becoming detached from the wall and potentially causing harm.”

The good news is that these problems are easily avoided by following good practice guidance available from the TDCA. You can find practical information in The Timber Cladding Handbook, which is freely available online at  www.tdca.org.uk

A recent flurry of cladding inspection requests received by the Timber Decking and Cladding Association (TDCA) has revealed that basic, fundamental installation principles for timber cladding are being ignored.

Wood Awards Open for Entries

There’s still time to enter the 2023 Wood Awards competition. Submit your wood-centric building, furniture or product before 23 June and your work could be recognised as among the best in the UK.

Contractors, structural engineers, architects and anyone else who has worked on an exceptional timber project can enter the structure for the 2023 Wood Awards competition for the chance to receive a highly coveted award. The Wood Awards has been the UK’s premier timber design competition since 1971. Created to drive positive change in the built environment by encouraging more use of timber, the Wood Awards recognises and rewards outstanding timber design, craftsmanship and installations, showcasing the many ways that timber can transform and enrich our lives.

Submissions are split into Buildings and Furniture & Product, with categories including Commercial & Leisure, Education & Public Sector, Interiors, Private, Small Project, as well as Bespoke, Production, and Student, respectively. An additional category has also been introduced –Restoration and Reuse – which recognises the ways timber is preserving and enhancing our architectural heritage and helping to reduce the carbon emissions created by the construction industry.

The Wood Awards is a not-for-profit initiative that aims to recognise excellence. It also features an elite independent judging panel that carefully assesses all submitted entries and visits each shortlisted project in person. This makes the Wood Awards an exceptionally rigorous competition. Judging panels are led by Jim Greaves of Hopkins Architects, for the Buildings categories, and design critic, curator and journalist, Corinne Julius, for the Furniture & Product categories.

The Wood Awards are organised by Timber Development UK (TDUK). CEO David Hopkins says: “Timber Development UK are delighted to be leading on the Wood Awards 2023 after a stellar first year of organisation for 2022. We want to encourage more people to use wood in all kinds of design projects to try and decarbonise the material world – and believe that the first step to doing this is to inspire people with incredible designs.”

The winner of winners

The prestigious Wood Awards Gold Award is given to the standout project that the Judges deem to be the overall winner-of-winners. Other awards that can be given at the Judges’ discretion include the Structural Award and, for the first time this year, a Sustainability Award has been introduced.

Previous Wood Awards winners have included some incredible timber buildings including the ABBA Arena and Magdalene College Library in Cambridge.

The 2022 Gold Award was won by Homerton College Dining Hall at Cambridge University. Built using sweet chestnut glulam for the frame and internally lined with ash, the award-winning Homerton College Dining Hall by architect Feilden Fowles celebrates the structural capability and natural beauty of timber by forging a modern response to traditional forms of construction.

Soaring long-span butterfly trusses in the dining hall, consisting of large beams and columns of engineered sweet chestnut, echo

traditional collegiate halls, albeit inverting the typical pitch into a valleyshaped roof. This structure was crucial to the design from the outset, enabling a wide, open space with no interrupting supports.

Sponsors

As a not-for-profit competition, the Wood Awards can only happen with collaborative industry sponsorship. Major Sponsors of the Wood Awards 2023 include Carpenters Company, American Hardwood Export Council and Timber Development UK.

Conditions of entry

Anyone associated with a building or product that has been completed in the last two years can enter, provided they have permission from the building or structure’s owner. Buildings must be located within the UK, and furniture and other products must have been either designed or manufactured in the UK. Fitted furniture must also be in the UK. There are no restrictions on the size or budget of a project. Entrants are also welcome to submit more than one project.

The 2023 shortlist will be announced in September and showcased at a specially commissioned exhibition. The Wood Awards has ambitious plans for an exciting finale to the competition, further details on both will be announced in due course.

The Homerton College Dining Hall at Cambridge University won the Gold, Structural, and Education & Public Sector Awards in 2022. Image © Jim Stephenson

New Tools of the Trade

The Structural Price Index displays the monthly price of structural timber stretching back to 2018, giving users the ability to compare today’s timber prices to those seen five years ago. The figures seen in 2018 were pre-Brexit, pre-Covid and pre-War in Ukraine, making them arguably the most recent ‘normal’ year we have experienced and therefore a sensible point for comparison.

TDUK’s head of technical and trade policy, Nick Boulton, explains: “The TDUK Structural Timber Price Index is a powerful new tool for the construction industry to understand the state of the timber market in the UK. As you can see from this first iteration, now online for public use, the price of structural timber has been on a rollercoaster journey over the past three years – in between major events like Brexit, Covid, and the invasion of Ukraine.

“Timber is a globally traded commodity, and the UK is a major importer of structural timbers, so large geopolitical events can ripple across the trade. The abnormal structural timber prices we have seen over the past three years reflect the abnormal market we have all lived through.

“However, the three most recent months shown on the index – from November 2022 to January 2023 – are among the most stable price periods we’ve seen since 2019 – which likely reflects the balance between supply, demand, and price. While no one can predict the future, the commodity market for structural timbers has historically been a steady, and dependable one. We will be watching the market carefully to see whether this trend will be re-established.”

This latest tool is part of TDUK’s ongoing mission to provide comprehensive market data to help the timber supply chain navigate

the changing economic climate. This includes monthly timber import statistics, quarterly reports on UK timber demand and supply, and weekly economic and construction updates from the Construction Products Association.

Conflict timber still a problem

TDUK is also warning members to remain on high alert for illegal imports of conflict timber from Russia and Belarus, amid reports that Russian birch plywood is still being exported to the market via third-party countries. New reports suggest that Russian birch plywood and other conflict timbers are being exported into America and other countries, including the UK, disguised as having originated in areas such as Vietnam, Asia and China.

Belarus into a third-party country, where it is then repackaged and reported as originating from that country instead.

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) says Russian birch plywood is being routed through Asia before being shipped to America, and that most birch products currently being exported from Vietnam to the United States in fact originate in Russia. According to Vietnam customs data, roughly 40,000m3 of birch plywood is transported every month from Russia and China into Vietnam, where it is assembled into furniture and plywood and repackaged, with these countries then listed as the country of origin.

TDUK is urging its members to carry out their due diligence and make sure they know the timber’s country of origin before purchasing from new sources. Buying or selling sanctioned Russian wood products in the UK or EU can result in severe consequences for the businesses involved, even if this was done unintentionally.

The import of wood products from Russia to the EU and UK was banned in 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when wood products in that area were classified as ‘conflict timber’.

Since then, importing any timber originating from Russia, Belarus, and certain parts of Ukraine to the EU and UK is considered illegal under the EU/UK Timber Regulations. This also includes timber products indirectly imported to the EU/UK via third-party countries. However, this ban is being evaded by some, who are transporting their products from Russia and

Nick Boulton adds: “We would ask all our members to continue remaining vigilant against any organisations offering to supply Birch Plywood to the UK from the Far East or countries like Turkey, Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan. Should Russian timber products be found in the UK/EU market, the importer and all customers who have purchased these products may be subject to legal action, fines and reputational damage, which would also impact their trading partners in the manufacturing country. Always do your due diligence with any potential new suppliers, especially when dealing with products that could potentially be considered conflict timber.” More

Timber Development UK (TDUK) has launched the Structural Timber Price Index, as a way to help the construction industry assess changes in the UK timber market.

Smart Reshaping for Over 55s

The redevelopment and conversion of an iconic Liverpool Fire and Police station into an affordable housing development has used timber construction for buildability, speed of construction and cost certainty.

Allerton Fire and Police Station has been redeveloped by contractor HMS with the former Fire Station being transformed into two 3-bedroom and three 4-bedroom townhouses, two 3-bedroom semi-detached homes, all of which are available via shared ownership.

The Torus owned development will also see the conversion of the former police station into a 40-unit independent living scheme for over 55s, with all apartments available via affordable rent. A key design feature is the mansard roof which required an offsite manufactured ‘room in roof’ solution with the contractor specifying Smartroof as the company able to deliver and meet their requirements.

Whilst a Smartroof system typically averages 100sq m in size, the contractor HMS required a roof 25 times larger at 2,500sq m. Initially this raised concerns for the Smartroof team in terms of logistics of the roof within the scale of the project. The old police station was refurb and new build, which added challenges for the Smartroof team due to different slab levels throughout the building. The team also had to work with the existing structure of the building, such as steel that was not previously considered. This resulted in a numerous site visits to reconfigure the design to make it possible. Smartroof’s nationwide contracts managers are site based and work closely with site/project managers.

The advantage of the Smartroof system is that everything is produced in a factory control environment so the challenges experienced at this redevelopment can be overcome in the factory, instead of operatives working at height when a roof is being built.

Tom Wright, design & technical director at Smartroof said: “We worked very closely with the HMS team and also developed a great working relationship with the architect and engineers in order to overcome these design challenges. Such was the success of the system and our involvement, our Smartroof solution saved 16 weeks compared to if HMS used traditional methods of construction.”

The Smartroof system is a complete roof solution, designed to offer housebuilders and developers a way to exploit a new home’s full

potential by creating rooms in roofs. Comprising a series of factory produced panels incorporating insulated roof panels, spandrel wall panels, dormers, roof windows, decorative chimneys, soffit and fascia, it is delivered to site and craned into place. The system has many benefits – less waste, better control of quality, safer to install – and meets the industry’s demand for solutions that allow us to build better quality homes, more efficiently.

The controlled environment of the Smartroof offsite fabrication facility meant the technical team could achieve the mansard roof design with millimetre precision both in terms of cutting and fabrication. Manufactured at the Smartroof factory in Derbyshire, the prefabricated ‘room in roof’ systems were then delivered to the Allerton site, craned into place and installed by the Smartroof team.

At a time when housebuilders need to embrace new and faster methods of construction as well as comply with more stringent energy efficiency demands, the offsite fabrication of the roofs at the Allerton Police Station redevelopment offered huge benefits in terms of health and safety, speed of construction and quality control.

John Barrow, construction director at HMS said: “Allerton is the second large-scale refurb and new build project HMS has undertaken and as a team, we were keen to implement learnings from previous developments in order to progress the build quickly, yet efficiently. Smartroof and their team offered a complete solution that not only saved us time but embedded greener technologies into the heart of our development programme and one which is now leading the way for how we use innovative build techniques going forward.”

Smartroof has fabricated and installed a complex and highperformance roofing system which has enabled the developer Torus to reduce costs and build times as well as health and safety risks on site. The room in roof system has also ensured the iconic police station development remains on track for completion in the spring of 2023.

More at  www.smartroof.co.uk

Larch: Using the Best of British

British larch cladding is a great alternative to the Siberian larch, originating in Russia. Not only is it free of any sanctions or trade bans, but it also has a lighter environmental impact and will cost you less. When you buy British wood, you’ll also be supporting the management and upkeep of local woodlands too. Win-win.

British-grown larch grows more quickly than Siberian larch but, when it comes to external timber cladding, it performs just as well. Its durability and density are on a par – and we’ve purposely set the grading rules to match Russian larch, so you’ll never need to compromise.

The benefits of buying local

At Vastern Timber, we’re specialists in locally grown wood, and we’re proud to be the UK’s largest hardwood sawmill. Since the war in Ukraine, I’ve been able to make an even stronger case for homegrown larch. The thing is, we have beautiful wood growing right here on our doorstep – and there are so many reasons for choosing it.

To start with, British larch is durable, affordable, and obtainable. What’s more, when you choose wood that’s grown in British woodlands, there’s no risk of conflict timber entering your supply chain.

Siberian larch has been classified as conflict timber since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, which obviously has huge legal and ethical problems for timber merchants. We’ve not imported any Siberian larch since that time and we’ve found many customers are happy to use British-grown wood instead. Not least because they avoid any associated reputational risks or worries that go along with buying Siberian larch today.

Sourcing locally can reduce emissions from timber transport as well. It helps to lower the carbon impact of construction and supports ongoing investment in local woodlands.

Knotty but nice

I know many people associate British larch with knotty timber. In truth, knotty cladding will last just as long as cleaner versions, but many customers do prefer the cleaner look of less knotty wood. That’s why we offer ‘Grade-A’ British larch.

Our ‘Grade A’ larch is sourced from English and Welsh woodlands where the larch grows big and clean. We select the best of these British

Larch cladding supplied by Vastern Timber for a new build by Hetreed Ross Architects

If you’re looking for great quality larch cladding, you don’t have to go far. Tom Barnes, managing director of Vastern Timber discusses the many benefits of British larch.

larch logs – then we get even more picky. We only use the ‘butt’ end of the tree, which contains the fewest knots. To ensure the smoothest look, we take extra time to produce our larch cladding, allowing the larch timbers to dry slowly and naturally. It’s worth the wait, because the end result not only looks great, it’s also more stable than Siberian larch.

I believe this grade of British larch is unique in the industry. British larch (Larix decidua) looks closer to Douglas Fir than Siberian larch and, in my opinion, it’s more attractive than Siberian larch (Larix siberica), which looks similar to pine.

In being selective and creating beautiful homegrown larch cladding, I hope to encourage more builders to use the best British materials. Our ‘Grade A’ British larch is a popular alternative for Siberian larch. And for those on a budget, our ‘B grade’ larch is available from £15/m2.

See the results for yourself

We could tell you about the benefits of British larch all day, but, as they say, seeing is believing. One of our customers recently used our British larch cladding for their detached family home. Here’s what they had to say. “The exterior of the house is clad with British larch, laid vertically with alternating widths of cladding. We wanted a native timber sourced locally and we haven’t looked back. The cladding complements the setting and style of the property perfectly.”

Local larch was a bargain

Another customer opted for our cost-effective ‘Grade B’ larch cladding for their renovation and extension project. “We chose British larch because

it’s good value, it doesn’t require maintenance, and it’s local. We wanted to work with suppliers based nearby who can handle the quantities we need, and to source local grown wood where possible.”

Where does the wood come from?

Vastern Timber specialises in locally grown wood, and we actively encourage buyers to ask where our wood comes from. Our British-grown larch is usually sourced within 100 miles of our sawmill. And it always comes from well managed woodland like Hen’s Wood in Wiltshire. So, if you’re looking for affordable, convenient, lower impact larch that supports British woodland, you don’t have to go too far. Ask us, or your local sawmill, about British larch. You won’t be disappointed.

Larch logs at Hen’s Wood, Wiltshire

Larch cladding from Vastern Timber on the Lockhouse on the Kennet & Avon canal

“We chose British larch because it’s good value, it doesn’t require maintenance, and it’s local. ”

Homes for the Future

Designing and building energy efficient homes is part of what Peter Smith, Passivhaus designer and partner at Roderick James Architects, does every day using green oak and timber technology.

RRoderick James Architects (RJA) has been in existence for many years and was founded in the early 1980s by Roderick James and grew out of his pioneering involvement with the creation of the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT). The main focus of the practice is to celebrate space and light within its designs and to express the structure of its buildings, using timber frame.

“Coming from a tradition of working with existing oak framed barns, the natural progression for the office was to develop these skills and adapt to using other timbers such as Douglas Fir, Larch and subsequently glulam,” says Peter. “To this day the use of timber as a sustainable building material remains core to our ethos, which can be seen in the wide variety of timber framed designs on our website.”

Green oak and UK timber

The practice specialises in using green oak – which is simply fresh oak that hasn’t been seasoned and dried out. This means it is much easier to work with. “Seasoned oak can be as hard and durable as steel,” says Peter. “As architects, we need to allow for potential movement and shrinkage in the oak frame as it dries. This involves employing some very useful ‘tricks of the trade’, such as separating the structural elements from glazing and plasterboard, creating shadow gaps which allow for the movement in the frame.

“Packers between the oak frame and wall panels allow the plasterboard finishes to sail past the oak and avoid cracks appearing in the plaster if the oak moves. Airtightness membranes are positioned

to the outside of these packers and taped back to the wall and roof panels to ensure continuity around the entire building envelope. So provided you know how to deal with it, shrinkage and movement in the oak isn’t necessarily a problem – it adds to the character of the building.”

Homegrown UK timber is regularly used for RJA projects for the structural frames, external cladding and internal lining boards and often specify Douglas fir and larch, and spruce glulam for frames, with oak, ash, beech, pine and spruce amongst the many options for internal finishes and fittings. Peter says: “Our clients often ask for homegrown options, which can be cheaper and lower carbon than imported oak from France or Germany or birch, spruce and pine from Scandinavia or Siberia. Indeed, many of our clients can source their own timber locally, either from their own trees on-site, or from local sawmills and suppliers. Our COP26 House is a prime example of how we can make use of the timber readily available in this country, using clever design and technology to deal with the limitations of structural grading options or durability.”

Energy efficient to the core

Passivhaus design entails a rigorous approach to energy efficiency and is easily achievable from a self-build perspective. According to Peter, its basic tenets are based on five main principles during the design and build process – insulation, airtightness, ventilation with heat recovery, passivhaus windows for solar gain, and the avoidance of thermal bridges.

“Achieving Passivhaus levels is all about paying attention to these principles and taking care during construction that the details are done right,” says Peter. “It is not difficult, but everyone involved in the process needs to be on-board and play their part in achieving the goal. There is time and money associated with the attention to detail and additional materials (thicker walls with more insulation). But the investment pays for itself in the long run through reduced energy costs. Achieving Passivhaus status is also effectively an assurance of build quality, as you cannot achieve it without careful detailing and construction.”

Energy efficiency and an overall better understanding of sustainability has seen an upswing in the interest in timber design commercially, but also within the self-build sector. Of course, when it comes to timber frame projects, this approach has always been far more popular in Scotland than across the rest of the UK. But with volume housebuilders including Barratt Homes adopting more timber for their newbuild homes via Oregon Timber Frame, is this changing?

“I’m based in Scotland,” says Peter. “Where we have a strong tradition of building with timber – in fact most of our houses are built with at least a timber internal leaf to the walls, with either blockwork and render or timber cladding to the outside. Internal walls and roofs are predominantly timber construction. According to Wood for Good, 85% of all new homes in Scotland are built using wood. That’s almost three times more than in England and Wales. With recent advances in technology and supply chain issues, coupled with a sharp focus on embodied carbon, we have certainly seen an increase in the use of timber throughout the UK – especially so in our Devon and Salisbury offices. This has not confined itself to the self-build sector, with housing associations and commercial clients across the spectrum of the building industry looking to change to timber for construction.”

Standout schemes

What has been a standout home/scheme that you have been involved in personally and why? “The COP26 House, which itself was an adaptation of many previous RJA house designs (like our BAARN

houses and other recent affordable housing projects), is definitely a standout project for me. Mostly because of the learning process we went through, looking in detail at every single component of the building with embodied carbon in mind – and how to reduce it to an absolute minimum. Another aspect of the project which made it special for me was the level of collaboration we achieved between more than 25 different companies who helped to deliver the house in time for COP26, to prove to the world that we can build beautiful zero carbon houses right now, with the materials we have readily available.”

With sustainability and environmental concerns within the built environment so important, RJA has a ‘RJA ZERO’ sustainability policy that is part of the overall aims of achieving the 2050 net zero targets. “RJA ZERO is a natural progression for what we have been doing as a company since our inception nearly 40 years ago,” adds Peter. “We continually push beyond the ‘norm’ of building regulations and common practice, to find better and more efficient ways of designing and constructing our buildings.

“Since I started with RJA in 2010, we have been building with timber of course, using the Fabric First approach of insulation and airtightness, but also insulating with natural, breathable, and recycled materials such as hemp, woodfibre and cellulose. As a Passivhaus designer, I can advise clients on how they can reduce future energy bills to an absolute minimum. We are now also focusing on circular economy and retrofit as ways of reducing embodied carbon in our designs. Achieving net zero as a country by 2050 is certainly attainable, we are aiming for 2030 as a business and also with our designs.”

2023 is looking busy for the practice with projects in store ranging from a tiny 24sqm Bothy in the Cairngorms to a multi-functional commercial project comprising a golf club, aparthotel, café, exhibition spaces and restaurant, as well as several brand new oak framed family homes

More at  www.roderickjamesarchitects.com

More Options for Zero Carbon Homes

Cala Group, one of the UK’s major homebuilders recently acquired Taylor Lane Timber Frame with the investment reinforcing the homebuilder’s commitment to its climate targets.

ICala Group announced the 100% acquisition of Taylor Lane Timber Frame Ltd in May with the investment helping drive Cala’s progress towards their sustainability targets and support delivery of the group’s ambitious growth plans in the South of England. Led by an experienced existing management team, Taylor Lane will continue to pursue the vision of their original founders, to deliver high quality products and excellent customer service to scale.

Cala started as the City of Aberdeen Land Association in 1875 and was the first Scottish company listed on the London Stock Market. Today, Cala Group is a subsidiary of Legal & General and comprises the Cala Homes and Legal & General Homes brands. Its carbon reduction strategy sets out their transition to timber frame across all the homes they build in England, where possible.

In Scotland, Cala has been using timber frame construction for over 40 years, and around 80% of Cala’s homes there are built using this method. The investment in Taylor Lane will help Cala to increase the use of timber frame in England to c.1,500 new homes per annum, over the next five years.

Fresh horizons

Taylor Lane Timber Frame was started in 1982 by co-founders Colin Taylor and Barrie Lane and operate from Hereford and a second manufacturing facility in Nantyglo, South Wales. The company produces around 2,000 timber frame units per year and employs over 175 people. Taylor Lane will supply Cala’s five English businesses in the Cotswolds and South of England, while continuing to service existing customers and grow their presence in the wider market.

“Taylor Lane is a successful business with an experienced management team and talented workforce, who share Cala’s passion for quality and service,” said Kevin Whitaker, CEO at Cala Group. “We

look forward to working with the Taylor Lane team, supporting them as they continue to develop and grow their business to achieve the ambition of their original founders to deliver to scale.

“For Cala, this also demonstrates our clear commitment to delivering our climate targets. The investment in Taylor Lane sets out our path to transitioning to timber frame across our English developments, a key element of our sustainability strategy. The positive arguments for timber frame construction have never been more compelling. Generating up to 20% less embodied carbon than a typical masonry build and offering the benefits of speed and efficiency of construction and superior factory-built quality, the advantages of using timber strongly support our decision to invest in timber frame and grow our use in the future.”

The investment illustrates Cala’s confidence in Taylor Lane’s potential and provides a strong platform for continued growth, while ensuring both consistency and stability for Taylor Lane’s employees, customers and operations.

“This marks the start of an exciting new chapter for Taylor Lane and is a fantastic endorsement of our potential from a highly respected UK homebuilder,” adds Jonathan Lane, Managing Director at Taylor Lane. “We are delighted to being moving forward with Cala as our new owners. Over the past 40 years we have successfully grown Taylor Lane to a £30m turnover business delivering around 2,000 timber frame units per year, to a wide variety of sectors. This is testament to the vision of our cofounders, Colin Taylor and Barrie Lane, and the hard work and commitment of our employees alongside the quality of our product and our approach to customer service. We have robust growth plans in place, a loyal customer base and a talented team. We also have the security of Cala’s ownership and a pipeline of additional future growth to come from their transition to timber frame construction in England.”

Cala progresses towards carbon reduction targets

Taylor Lane and Cala Homes ensures that all timber sourced is either PEFC or FSC certified, promoting sustainable forest management via timber certification and Cala is also making positive progress towards achieving its targets of building homes for its customers that are operationally net zero carbon enabled from 2030, and reaching net zero total greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. Cala’s Carbon reduction data for the year ending 31 December 2022 shows absolute

operational carbon emissions of 9,175t CO2e, down 8% against 2021. This reduction was achieved despite a 4% increase in the number of new homes completed in the year. The homebuilder also confirmed their Science Based Target (SBT), of achieving a 42% absolute reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030, has been formally ratified. Being owned by Legal and General, Cala’s SBT falls under the Legal and General target. In 2022, Cala made strong headway, with an absolute reduction of 16% in scopes 1 and 2 (against a 2021 baseline).

Building regulations, environmental impact and rising fuel prices have driven the demand for a genuine fabric first approach to low energy buildings. In response, Timber Innovations has launched a new innovative, systemised proposition – The Larsen ‘Kit of Parts’. This technical manual will assist anybody engaged in the design or procurement of low energy buildings and is available as an e-book.

Timber Innovations originally developed their low energy ‘Larsen System’ for relatively niche clients building Passivhaus certified houses but over the last couple of years the market for such has

rapidly evolved. David Himmons, managing director of Timber Innovations said: “Clients have a greater understanding and need for buildings to perform. The spectrum of market sectors now demanding and understanding efficient building envelopes is such that it really is the new norm.”

A flagship project for the Larsen System is the new innovative Museum of Land Speed on Pendine Seafront. Together with the Caban, an affordable 14 room hotel which was also built using the Larsen System, they are part of the brand-new Tourism Attractor facility at Pendine Seafront, Carmarthenshire.

The Larsen system has a unique twin stud design to virtually eliminate cold bridging through the envelope and is flexible to achieve almost any required U value with a wide choice of insulation materials. “What we’ve done is harness all of our experience from many years of low energy and Passiv projects to develop a systemised approach for our clients so they can eliminate common pitfalls and build with confidence.” comments Gareth Lloyd, technical director.

More at  www.timberframe.co.uk

The Larsen Kit of Parts can be found at  online.fliphtml5.com/ywlrr/maws/#p=1

 Larsen Kit of Parts

Time to Talk Timber

Boost your timber business profile and benefit from special discounted deals on all shell scheme exhibitors with extra show promotion and coverage inside Timber Media’s publications.

Timber Expo 2023 will see the 11th edition of the event and is co-located with UK Construction Week – the UK’s leading trade event for the industry, attracting 30,000 visitors.

So where can we help?

Timber Media has teamed up with Media 10 and will play an active part in promoting the 2023 show. Timber Expo will be supported by a heavyweight national trade marketing campaign. The co-location with UK Construction Week ensures a guaranteed audience, and the targeted messaging through digital advertising and trade press will deliver those trade professionals who specify or buy timber products.

Timber Media can exclusively offer an ‘all in one stand package’ on the 6sqm and 15sqm shell scheme stands to make it easier and cheaper for companies to get involved. For both size stands this includes:

• Carpet, walling and nameboard

• x1 data capture device

• x1 table and x4 chairs

• Lockable cupboard and literature rack

• Track with spotlights with x1 electrical socket

• Visitor data captured and delivered to you

• x3 month company profile on: www.ukconstructionweek.com

Costs: 6sqm stand - £3,000+vat and 15sqm stand - £7,000+vat

Should you wish to book a specific stand outside the ‘all in one package’ we can give you a discount of 15% off all sizes of shell scheme stands, but with the ‘all in one package’ it’s just turn up and start exhibiting…EASY! We will also be sending fortnightly visitor promotion e-shots to our database of 5,000 dedication timber professionals

“As businesses start to move on past the pandemic, there is a lot more interest in meeting face-to-face to discuss plans for the future and understand how timber plays such an important part in achieving the 2050 net zero carbon targets. There has never been a better time to get together and talk timber so please get in touch to find out more.” Terry Hanlon, managing director, Timber Media.

Timber Expo is the UK’s largest and only dedicated showcase event for timber in construction. Backed by trade bodies including the Timber Development UK (TDUK), the Structural Timber Association (STA), the Builders Merchant Federation (BMF), it is the most comprehensive representation of the timber industry anywhere in the UK.

Timber Expo brings together award-winning architects with clients and contractors to showcase best practice in timber construction projects. It is the must-attend annual event for anyone working with timber products in the built environment. The exhibitor profile includes structural timber frame, sawmills, merchants, glulam, SIPs, CLT, fixings and fastenings, timber cladding, doors and windows, mouldings, skirtings and flooring products.

All of Timber Media’s visitor promotion activity is in addition to that of the show organiser, Media 10. Throughout the year you can follow developments on Timber Expo in all the Timber Media publications and there is a range of joint advertiser/show exhibitor options that can be discussed.

To discuss your involvement in the show in more detail get in touch now with Terry Hanlon at  terry.hanlon@timbermedia.co.uk

Building by the Book

New funding from Built by Nature will see a €200,000 grant help develop a Commercial Timber Guidebook.

To foster cross-sector industry alignment on solutions to ensure the widespread adoption of largescale mass timber offices, the Built by Nature Fund has awarded a €200,000 grant to a diverse UK consortium focused on unlocking the barriers to structural timber through the development of a technical Commercial Timber Guidebook.

The project lead is engineering consultancy Elliott Wood, joined by implementing partners Waugh Thistleton Architects, fire engineers OFR Consultants and insurance specialists Lignum Risk Partners – technical and design experts in the built environment known for their advocacy of structural timber.

The development of the Commercial Timber Guidebook has additional backing and input from some of the largest investors, developers and asset owners in the UK including Stanhope PLC, Related Argent, Lendlease, British Land, Derwent London, Landsec, MUSE, Berkeley Estate Asset Management (BEAM) and Hines.

The involvement of developers is significant, as the Guidebook seeks to show that a wide-ranging coalition of the biggest industry stakeholders in the UK can reach consensus on how to mitigate risks of large and complex timber developments, while demonstrating the industry’s technical competency to insurers and developers.

The Guidebook will establish common ground and a realistic route for the wider adoption of structural timber in commercial buildings through consensus on defined design principles, mass timber building typologies and technical design measures. With agreed guidelines and clear framework in place as to how risk can be quantified and mitigated, the Guidebook can address the challenges and costs around insuring timber structures, the single largest barrier to mass timber construction in the UK.

The project will also complement existing projects targeting insurance barriers through direct engagement and leverage recognised industry networks such as the UK Green Building Council, Better Buildings Partnership and the Institution of Structural Engineers for dissemination of the Guidebook.

Built by Nature is a network and grant-making fund accelerating the timber building transformation, connecting key actors across the built environment and forest communities to spark city-scale projects and amplify stories of ground-breaking timber and biobased projects and solutions. Through collaboration with its major partners and frontrunners, Built by Nature aims to change perceptions around timber construction and reshape the built environment system. The Built by Nature Fund awards grants to the teams and solutions that can increase the uptake of sustainable timber and improve its climate impact, overcoming some of the most challenging barriers.

Built by Nature CEO Amanda Sturgeon said: “This is an exciting, important project given the scope of its cross-sector collaboration and the involvement

of major UK developers. The Guidebook can be a milestone on the roadmap to wider acceptance of timber by creating a clear, peer-reviewed framework for overcoming the insurance barriers. And by securing the endorsements from major developers, asset owners and designers in the UK, we can create better policy conditions for mass timber offices and bring the market significantly closer to large-scale insurability.”

According to James Souter, Structural engineering director at Elliott Wood: “The scale of the opportunity we’re addressing is huge, and we need to bring all the right people together to address the different facets collectively. Gaining the backing of Built by Nature is a major step forward in making the guide a reality, we’re over the moon to be taking this project forward.”

 Mass Timber Insurance Playbook

ASBP and partners have released new guidance to enable a collaborative approach between construction teams and insurers, opening the door to more equitable insurance for mass timber buildings. Mass timber has the potential to reduce the embodied impact of construction versus more conventional materials such as concrete and steel. But, since the Grenfell disaster, mass timber projects have sometimes faced difficulty securing insurance.

The Mass Timber Insurance Playbook is a direct response to the challenges developers have faced, providing guidance for all parties involved in arranging insurance – for both development and operation of projects.

The Playbook was written by insurance and building resilience specialists, to help stakeholders in the insurance and construction industries to understand each other’s priorities and language. The aim is to enable constructive communication, to help overcome gaps in understanding that sometimes hold back mass timber construction. It provides succinct background and context to the insurance market on what is relevant for underwriters and on the responsibilities of developers and contracting parties towards risk identification and mitigation when executing a project.

ASBP was awarded a grant for development from the Accelerator Fund from Built by Nature. The Playbook is now available as a free download from the ASBP and Built by Nature websites. There is an in-person ‘Meet the authors’ event on 21 June at Zurich Insurance, London with the Playbook’s authors and contributors.

Shear Strength Leads to WikiHouse Switch

A programme of testing being carried out by one of the country’s leading research universities is expected to verify the team’s early findings around the WikiHouse offsite building system.

WikiHouse has been developed to provide an economic and sustainable means of constructing low-rise housing and other accommodation which is straightforward to manufacture and erect. The testing has indicated that SterlingOSB Zero panels offer superior performance benefits for the production of their large format blocks, beams and other components. The material’s compressive and shear strength have proved key to the successful outcomes.

A switch from imported plywood to UK-produced SterlingOSB Zero, which uses only renewable energy and has no added formaldehyde, is seen as increasing the successful housebuilding system’s environmental credentials.

Originally prototyped in 2011, WikiHouse is a zero-carbon building system, maintained in the UK by Open Systems Lab, and offers a comprehensive selection of key components which can be shared as code and produced in small local workshops, rather than a large factory. Crucially, the WikiHouse blocks are produced to an accuracy of 0.1mm and can be rapidly assembled by a small site team, requiring none of the traditional trade skills.

“The main idea of the system is that we are proposing these blocks –fabricated for beams, columns and other elements – that, when you join them, characterise the structural system of your house,” says WikiHouse’s engineering lead, Gabriele Granello. “Up until now, we have been working with plywood but there is no UK-produced plywood, so the question for us was, could we switch and still span six or seven metres as we are now?

“We suspect it can as the way the system works is that it relies much more on the compressive and shear strength of the material, rather than its tensile strength. We have done analytical modelling for the SterlingOSB Zero and because it is made up of myriad of non-directional strands, instead of alternately orientated plys, at a microscopic level, there is no single shear plane along which the OSB will fail.

“We have already carried out some preliminary testing of the joints in isolation, where the OSB actually performed better than plywood, so now we are engaging with Imperial College in London for one of their final year Masters students to conduct a programme of full-scale

experiments.” The work at Imperial College’s laboratories is expected to continue for three months, with London-based Hub Workshop being the supply chain partner responsible for supplying the actual WikiBlocks.

The Founder of Hub Workshop, Drew Munden, says: “As a specialist sub-contractor in CNC machining, we serve various client sectors including garden rooms, bespoke furniture and architectural structures,

WikiHouse is an open source, zero-carbon timber building system that can be written and shared as code. Instead of requiring a large factory setup, it can be digitally manufactured in small, local micro-factories.

WikiHouse blocks are fabricated to 0.1mm precision using a CNCmachine, and transported to site, where they can be rapidly assembled in hours by a small team, without traditional construction skills.

Created by Open Systems Lab, a non-profit R&D lab whose purpose is to, “research, design, test and deploy the everyday infrastructure for

a new economy: to collaboratively develop new ways of doing, and get them into the hands of every citizen, community, business and government. In the next decade we need to fundamentally change the way we construct buildings, moving from the slow, laborious, wasteful, poor-performing and hugely carbon-intensive methods we still use today, to carbon-negative, ‘circular’ methods that make the most of manufacturing technology.”

and are one of half a dozen fabricators for the WikiHouse system in the UK. Buying from merchants, the SterlingOSB Zero is half the price of spruce plywood and it machines perfectly well. For the WikiHouse Blocks, we are using a variety of tooling including various drills, an ‘engraving router’ and a compression cutters router which leaves a very clean-cut face on the 18mm OSB.”

Mel Esquerre at Open System Labs, adds: “We already have a single-storey structure using SterlingOSB Zero – a cabin, that has been completed by a private client to use as a rental property – but our road map for the system very much involves the housing associations and other affordable housing providers, to scale up the operations, and SterlingOSB Zero will very much be part of those conversations.”

Available in thicknesses of 18 and 22mm, the 2400mm length boards come in widths of 590 and 1200mm, while being manufactured using UK grown timber and with Zero added formaldehyde, SterlingOSB Zero has outstanding environmental credentials. Both the 18 and 22mm thick panels are strong enough to meet most loadbearing applications, are BBA Approved and recognised under the NHBC Technical Standard for housing applications. SterlingOSB Zero T&G also bears the coveted UKTFA Q-mark, a quality certification which provides a benchmark for manufacturers, and offers confidence to designers and end-users across the UK.

More at  uk.westfraser.com

Enhancing Living Spaces with Rothoblaas Acoustic Comfort Solutions

Whether it’s the clamour of urban traffic, the disturbance of neighboring activities, or the echoes within our own living or working spaces, unwanted noise can be detrimental to our well-being and overall quality of life. Here we will delve into the significance of acoustic comfort and explore how Rothoblaas Acoustic Comfort solutions can transform your living spaces into peaceful and tranquil havens.

Understanding the Significance of Acoustic Comfort

Acoustic comfort plays a crucial role in our everyday lives, influencing our productivity, concentration, and overall sense of wellbeing. Unwanted noise can disrupt sleep, hinder communication, and increase stress levels. Whether it’s a residential, commercial, or public space, ensuring an environment that promotes tranquility and reduces noise disturbances is essential.

Rothoblaas Acoustic Comfort Solutions

Rothoblaas offers a comprehensive range of innovative acoustic solutions designed to address various noise-related challenges. These

solutions are meticulously engineered to provide effective sound insulation, absorption, and diffusion, creating spaces that are both aesthetically pleasing and acoustically comfortable.

From soundproofing materials and systems to acoustic panels and diffusers, Rothoblaas provides customisable solutions to meet the unique needs of different environments. By incorporating these solutions, you can create spaces that allow for clear communication, improved concentration, and enhanced relaxation.

Benefits of Rothoblaas Acoustic Comfort Solutions

By implementing Rothoblaas Acoustic Comfort solutions, you can experience a multitude of benefits. These solutions effectively reduce airborne and impact noise, improving the overall acoustic quality of your spaces. By minimising noise disturbances, you can enhance productivity, promote better sleep, and create an environment that fosters well-being. Additionally, Rothoblaas Acoustic Comfort solutions are designed with a focus on aesthetics, seamlessly integrating with various architectural styles and interior designs. They offer a balance between functionality and visual appeal, ensuring that your spaces not only sound great but also look inviting.

Conclusion

Acoustic comfort is a vital aspect of creating harmonious living and working environments. With Rothoblaas Acoustic Comfort solutions, you can mitigate noise disturbances, enhance productivity, and promote overall well-being. By investing in these innovative solutions, you can transform your spaces into peaceful retreats that offer tranquility and a respite from the noise-filled world.

More at  www.rothoblaas.com/acoustic-comfort

In our modern world, noise pollution has become an increasingly prevalent issue that affects our daily lives. Recognising the importance of acoustic comfort, Rothoblaas has developed innovative solutions to address these challenges.

Aim to a new Acoustic Comfort, with the right soundproofing solutions

SterlingOSB Zero ‘Primed for Action’ across the board

All musicians know this, especially those playing wooden instruments. Often, however, builders commissioning a timber house neglect sound insulation because they consider it unnecessary and perhaps expensive. Becoming aware of the issue of acoustics always comes too late. When the client realises that noise from the street, from upstairs neighbours and from the stairwell is a constant accompaniment, the damage is done. Just because acoustic comfort is one of the most neglected details, but in the end also one of the most relevant, Rothoblaas decided to put a new thematic catalogue on the market. “SOUNDPROOFING SOLUTIONS” is a 150-page in-depth look at sound propagation, types of noise and the right products to drastically reduce it. The solutions presented are different depending on the type of construction material (timber, steel, masonry), load and height.

Soundproofing: a multidisciplinary and certified approach

Sound insulation in timber constructions is complex. This is the reason why Rothoblaas has invested significantly in research and development. The products in the new “SOUNDPROOFING SOLUTIONS” catalogue have undergone hundreds of tests and studies in cooperation with prestigious institutions (ETH Zurich, Institute of Structural Engineering & Swiss Timber Solutions AG, Universities of Bologna, Graz and Innsbruck). The result? A selection of products that provide different acoustic performance depending on the context and have also been tested for fire and moisture resistance. Laboratory measurements, static tests, durability tests, moisture checks and fire behaviour studies provide designers with consistent data that corresponds to actual site conditions. The material is available in the catalogue, technical manuals and MyProject design software. The programme automatically calculates natural frequency, sound transmission and damping.

https://issuu.com/rothoblaas/docs/soundproofing-solutions-en?mode=embed

Panel product manufacturer, West Fraser, has introduced a new ready-primed version of its industry-leading SterlingOSB Zero board which is ideal for use in a wide range of situations from site hoardings through to building exhibition stands and other installations where appearance is important. SterlingOSB Zero PrimedPlus is being produced in 18mm thick, square-edged sheets measuring 1220 mm wide by 2440mm long. The top face is primed with a UV putty and the sides are sealed to reduce water ingress, leaving the sheets ready for decoration or the application of graphics. The high-quality surface is smooth while the structure is free from knots or voids and from an environmental perspective the ‘Zero’ in the name assures specifiers that the product contains no added formaldehyde.

SterlingOSB Zero PrimedPlus is CE-marked and complies with the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) and BBA Agrement requirements. The boards are supplied in packs of 50 to cover a total area of approximately 150m². Right across its range, West Fraser has been making substantial investment in reducing the environmental impact of its production processes including signing new contracts with its energy suppliers to ensure that all its power comes from renewable sources that are covered by REGO (Renewable Energy of Guaranteed Origins) certification.

For further information, call 01786 812 921 or visit https://uk.westfraser.com/

Sustainable Accoya® saves historic Welsh station

International Timber and Peter Cox Ltd recently joined forces to restore a 155-year-old signal box in Wales, utilising sustainable Accoya® to ensure longevity and maintain the structure’s historic charm.

Found in Anglesey, the Valley Station signal box dates back to 1867 and was in desperate need of restoration following decades of decay. Faulty drainage had led to wet rot taking hold of the timber, making it likely that the structure would not have survived if refurbishments had not taken place.

The signal box is a historic landmark in the area and was given Grade II status by the Welsh Government in 1998. It was originally built as one of 15 new huts along the Chester and Holyhead Railway and has stood the test of time for over 155 years. Peter Cox Ltd was commissioned to

assess how the structure could be saved and called on the expertise of the local International Timber team.

Picking the timber of choice

Keen to utilise a high-performance solution, the surveyors selected Accoya as the timber of choice to replace the historic, internal structural timber frames. The product could be cut to the specific needs of the build, while providing huge sustainability and durability qualities that will benefit the structure for years to come.

The International Timber team took precise measurements to calculate the volume of timber required, replacing individual sections of the damaged wood rather than complete removal. The structure has also maintained its signature look throughout the entire build. Peter Cox Ltd added stainless steel splice

plates to the adjoining half-lap joint timber to strengthen and maintain the building’s structure.

The customer benefitted from a dependable supply chain, with all timber supplied to the precise specification and on time, ensuring the project ran to schedule. Additionally, Western Red Cedar was supplied, which was used to pattern cladding in the build. All timber was treated with fungicidal fluid to help prevent the growth of wet rot fungus in the future and so preserve the structure for generations.

Completing restorations

With the timber supplied, Peter Cox Ltd got to work, removing and replacing internal structural timber frames in the signal box structure. Work was completed without any disruption to the railways. The signal box is now restored to its former self,

with sustainable Accoya ready to face the elements.

Paul Martin from International Timber said: “It was a pleasure to be involved in such a rewarding project, especially when it is helping to preserve a great piece of Welsh history. This is an excellent example of the potential of our sustainable Accoya timber, which will help this signal box continue to stand the test of time. This collaboration has also seen us supply timber for several other similar projects throughout the North Wales area.”

For more information, visit www.internationaltimber.com.

Timber is an excellent sound conductor

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Each delivery is accompanied with documentation stating; Supplier, Imported, Graded in accordance with BS 5534, Sizes, Type of treatment.

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