What a year for timber frame – continued market growth, more new manufacturers than you can shake a stick at and a product that people want and need! All of this comes at an opportune time. The government has announced plans to build 3.8 million homes in the next 25 years and the latest Energy White Paper proposes that further changes to Approved Document L will come into effect in 2005.

So, is everything in the garden rosy? Not quite. There have been a couple of notable business failures and a few instances where people have forgotten to follow the lessons of experience and suffered the consequences.

In a growing market, with lots of new entrants, and failures causing a wobble of confidence in some quarters, the need to focus on quality is more important than ever. Everyone involved in the sector has a responsibility to ensure that all those involved with the product have not only received adequate training but are sufficiently motivated to implement it. Those in the brick and block sector, whose markets are under threat from timber frame, will not need encouraging to exploit any weakness – perceived or otherwise.

One of the wise old heads in the timber frame industry once told me that there was only one reason to use timber frame – to improve build quality – and I’m beginning to believe him. If we achieve good quality, consistently, then I’m sure that plenty of the other things we aspire to will, given time, drop into place.

Change in mindset

But a change in mindset is required. Timber frame manufacturers need to take an interest in, and some responsibility for, parts of the building other than the structure they provide. I say this because, as we have learnt through frameCHECK, if something goes wrong on a timber frame building it’s always seen as the frame manufacturer’s fault, regardless of the problem.

Apart from quality, what else is happening? Most manufacturers still produce the same open panel timber frame system that has been used for decades, in factories that might also have been around decades. In some ways this is reassuring, because open panel timber frame is tried and trusted, relatively simple to manufacture and construct – and incredibly robust. However, it does highlight the fact that progress within construction can be painfully slow.

&#8220If we achieve good quality, consistently, then I’m sure that plenty of the other things we aspire to will, given time, drop into place”

Those manufacturers that have invested heavily in automated equipment and developed CAD/CAM systems are beginning to realise the benefits. However, as I think they would readily admit, it’s not been easy and for most, so far, all they’ve managed to do is automate the open panel process. The path towards increased prefabrication and fully developed closed panel systems is more twisty than many thought.

Also, there is no ‘one size fits all’ manufacturing solution and it wouldn’t surprise me to find several new entrants offering a form of timber frame manufactured on site – a process distinct from ‘stick-building’.

Building Regulations

Just when you think the pace of change might ease for a bit and there might be a chance to gather our breath, a new version of Approved Document E comes along. As a result, people will need to change the way they tackle party floors and the spectre of compulsory testing looms large for anyone adopting solutions not contained within the acoustic ‘Pattern Book’. This is an area in which we believe there is scope for new systems providing significantly enhanced performance.

And as if to rub it in, just as we’ve all got our heads around one version of Part L – another one comes along. Part L 2005 threatens to be much more of a shift change than the 2001 version and one predictive document suggests wall U values of 0.25. This can only be good news for timber frame and although it will lead to changes in timber frame technology these will be nothing compared with the hoops the block sector will have to jump through to achieve compliance.

You will no doubt be heartened by the fact that TRADA is close to producing a publication providing advice on how we might meet the challenges of increased thermal performance using timber frame. Obviously, we are not the only ones with an interest in increased thermal performance and the Canadians are beginning to make real progress in the UK with their Super-E system.

So, while not everything is rosy there is plenty to be proud of. The harvest for future years should be good, providing we protect ourselves carefully now.