Fast growth has been a feature of the timber frame industry in recent years and a crop of new entrants to the market has sprung up to service the needs of a construction industry steadily switching on to the benefits of timber.
Rochdale-based Chandos Timber Engineering is certainly a company which fits in this category.
Formed just five years ago, the ambitious timber frame manufacturer chalked up a turnover of £7.5m in 2005 and is targeting £9-10m by the end of the year. By 2010 it aims to reach £20m.
It’s an exciting time for managing director Paul Abbott, who prior to starting Chandos with colleagues worked for Howarth Timber.
The company has just started work on a new factory building at the Rochdale premises which, when complete, will expand Chandos’ manufacturing space to 41,000ft2.
Mr Abbott said he is considering using the building, scheduled for completion at the end of November, to expand its floor cassette operation. A further production facility operates from Kidderminster, servicing the Midlands and southern England. Such investment has been a characteristic of the young company and, Mr Abbott said, reflected its ethos of ploughing profits back into the business.
Chandos has also begun erecting one of its most prestigious contracts to date – a £500,000 six-storey apartment development in Sharston, Manchester. The job, for contractor Haigh and Haigh, involves Chandos using super dry timber Ultrajoist for the first time.
“We are going out to target new clients and have taken on extra sales representatives,” said Mr Abbott. “A lot more developers are doing timber frame for housing associations.”
He added that the main area of growth was apartments, driven by factors such as land shortages and property prices. This sort of work suits Chandos fine because it means only one roof is required, whereas with houses many are needed.
Current contracts
Other current contracts of note include a £350,000 contract in Blackburn, due to start on site soon, plus a £250,000 job for Cawder Construction at Skipton and a £600,000 contract for McInerney Homes at Stalybridge.
Mr Abbott said that business has been “quieter” during the first half of 2006, but he expected the pace to pick up during the coming months. Timber frame, he maintained, was becoming the “common sense” solution for developers, due to such factors as the shortage of traditional building skills and a realisation of the speed afforded by timber construction.
“Block homes dictate the pace of development. Everything points to timber frame buildings.”
Controlling the build process as much as possible is an important feature for Chandos. It supplies the structural timber frame, internal stud walls, roof trusses and floor cassettes. “We want to try and control all the components that we are responsible for. The more you can control things the easier it is,” said Mr Abbott.
But he acknowledged “frustration” at not being able to control issues such as I-joist supply and scaffolding, having tried a variety of I-joist suppliers/distributors and finding varying levels of service.
I-joists were quality products and availability was not a problem, said Mr Abbott, the issue was one of management: of merchants getting the product to site at the right time A typical scenario, he added, could involve an I-joist section missing when delivered on site.
“We have a crane sitting there costing about £900 a day and joiners costing anything up to £1,000 a day. And the merchant says they can’t get there until tomorrow.
“One of the problems is that our houses are bespoke. They all have to be designed and manufactured, whereas the bigger housebuilders have certain standard house types.”
Traditional merchant share
As someone with a background in the timber trade, Mr Abbott has seen traditional merchants lose business in the brick and block construction industry, due to factors such as increasing use of engineered floor joists, more metal system internal partitioning and MDF commonly used for skirting boards and architraves.
“The business has changed, they do not deal with housebuilders so much.”
Chandos currently sources its timber direct through specialists like Woodbridge or the likes of Crown and VIDA but Mr Abbott said merchants could regain business in the timber frame arena by becoming more involved in engineered timber solutions and improving their just-in-time service.
Something Mr Abbott would like to see more of in the timber frame industry is better promotion. But he does not believe bad news like the recent fire involving two timber frame apartment blocks which were under construction in London will affect the timber frame industry too much, despite the inevitable mud-slinging from the brick and block industry. “I think we’re a lot further down the road now,” he said.
