The Environment

Timber Frames Carbon Credentials

There are many advantages to timber frame construction, but probably its best-known quality is its environmental excellence.

Timber frame has long held prime position in the eco-builders hall of fame. Housebuilders, developers and designers all know timber frame is a lot more green than grey...

But did you know:

A typical 100 square metre two-storey detached timber frame home built to the latest Building Regulations contains 5-6 cubic metres more wood than the equivalent masonry house. This means that every timber frame home we build saves about 4 tonnes of carbon dioxide (about the same amount produced by driving 14,000 miles)
If all new houses built in the UK since 1945 had been timber frame, then more than 300 million tonnes of carbon dioxide would have been saved. To put this into context, consider the fact that, at current rates, it will take us another 200 years to achieve this sort of saving using the Governments latest energy regulations for new homes.

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A positive contribution to tackling climate change

When designers and developers decide to build with timber frame construction, they make a positive contribution to tackling climate change.

The benefits dont stop at the point of a homes completion on site. Using a standard 140mm stud timber frame system achieves U-values between 0.30 and 0.27 using readily available and standard insulation - and using higher performance insulation and insulating breather membranes can boost these figures even more.

This means significant carbon savings in the homes day to day use, as well as financial benefits from lower running costs.

A timber frame home is a warm, comfortable and safe place in which to live - and what more could you ask from a home that is also helping to reduce our carbon footprint.

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Timber comes from trees!

A thriving timber frame industry means the need for well run, sustainably managed forests, full of trees that soak up carbon dioxide within their core and keep it locked inside.

Timber is an organic, non-toxic and naturally renewable building material.
Although worldwide, deforestation remains a significant issue, it is not caused by the European construction industry which mainly uses softwood.
Over 90% of all wood consumed in Europe is sourced from European forests.
UK timber frame uses 99% European softwood. The total carbon sequestered in those trees throughout Europes forests is over 9.5 million tonnes.
The more wood we use, the more our forests grow, because in Europe we are committed to planting more trees than we harvest.
Every year our forests grow by over 3,500 square miles – equivalent to an area the size of Cyprus.
Forests act as huge carbon sinks. The total carbon sequestered in Europe’s forests is over 9.5 million tonnes.
Mature trees, however, absorb far less carbon dioxide and produce less oxygen than those at earlier stages of growth. So the harvesting of older trees for construction purposes, and their replacement with saplings - two planted for every one harvested in Scandinavian forests - ensures a constant cycle of CO2 absorption and oxygen production.

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Whole life performance

Wood is effectively a carbon-neutral material (even allowing for transport).
Timber frame has the lowest CO2 cost of any commercially available building material.
For every cubic metre of wood used instead of other building materials, 0.8 tonne of CO2 is saved from the atmosphere.
Processing timber is not a gas-guzzling procedure either. 77% of the energy used in the production of wood products comes from wood residues and recovered wood.
Coverting timber into a useable building material takes far less energy and creates minimal pollution compared to other mainstream alternatives such as aluminium, steel, concrete and brick.
Strength for strength, concrete uses 5 times (and steel uses 6 times) more energy to produce than timber.
Waste and ‘end of life’ wood can be easily recycled.

"If you have to build something - and theres going to be 1 billion people on earth one day and they will all want nice houses to live in - theyve got to be built in timber frame."

Dr David Bellamy