While the trussed rafter sector had its fair share of casualties during the recession – Palgrave Brown, Bullock & Driffill, CR Taylor (Timber), for example – there has been some notable investment too.

Late in 2012, and after recording its best trading year ever in 2011, Scotts of Thrapston announced its intention to expand its trussed rafter and metal-web capacity by opening an additional facility in the West Midlands.

At the helm of the new subsidiary company, Scotts Timber Engineering Ltd, is Richard Evans, former director at Wyckham Blackwell and chairman of the Trussed Rafter Association.

"The rationale was that the upturn was going to happen sooner or later and Scotts wanted to be ready for it," said Mr Evans.

As the Thrapston customer base is predominantly East Anglia and south-east based, the West Midlands location of Scotts Timber Engineering, catering for Birmingham and "all points west of the M1", has worked well.

"Our thinking was that as Birmingham is the UK’s second biggest city, if there was going to be any growth that is where it would be," said Mr Evans. "And that does seem to have been the case – the West Midlands economy is on the up."

Business is going well, with orders being manufactured at the Thrapston site – which is "bursting at the seams" – while the search for a 20,000ft2 manufacturing site goes on for Scotts Timber Engineering.

"It’s difficult to find a site that suits our trade because most modern industrial units don’t have space for outside timber storage and vehicles, which is what we need," said Mr Evans. "But I’m looking at a couple at the moment and we’ll get there before too long."

Manufacturers are considerably busier now than this time last year and, when it came, the upturn was hard to believe, he said.

"I don’t think any of us thought there would be a sudden upturn and that, instead, things would get better gradually," he said. "But when the Help to Buy scheme was implemented it was clear that it was going to kick-start volume housebuilding because there had been so much under-supply in the market and there was so much pent-up demand.

"Confidence is a major factor, not only in the industry but in house purchasers," he continued. "Even if what they hear in the news isn’t affecting them directly in the pocket, if they think their jobs are secure and there are means of getting a mortgage, then prospective house buyers are going to go for it. There is a general feeling of positivity."

Market dynamics
There is plenty of market for the trussed rafter sector to set its sights on, although the dynamics of the customer base shifted during the recession. Mr Evans believes that growth in the construction market will be driven by private housebuilding, with public housebuilding and commercial building – with the exception of care home construction – lagging behind.

There could be a market for panel roof systems to take over from standard trussed rafters in simple room-in-the-roof designs but the competition from this direction is deemed to be pretty small.

"A number of our competitors are looking to develop their own panel roof systems – as is Scotts – but no-one is marketing them with any great vengeance. From a manufacturing point of view there is a lot more work involved with panels than with trussed rafters and I don’t think the margin is there. If the trussed rafter sector really comes back in volume then I think panel roofs will be slightly pushed to one side."

Other unknown quantities include the impact of Building Information Modelling (BIM).

"I’m not sure whether it’s going to be a problem or a potential advantage," said Mr Evans. "As a company we certainly wouldn’t want architects and specifiers to get more involved in truss design – which is what BIM implies – because what differentiates companies is how well they do their design. We would be fairly jealous of protecting our design input.

"However, we may have to get some quite expensive software to meet the requirements and contractors may have to change their supply chain so they can get us on board and involved at an earlier stage. Hopefully those of us that have a good design capability will be able to take advantage of that."

Case studies bring in the votes
A key feature of the Trussed Rafter Association’s website is the facility for members to upload case studies and this year the AGM included a competition for the Project of the Year, voted for by delegates.

The winner was Harlow Timber Systems for a challenging building project with a complex roof constructed using more than 1,800 timber trusses.

The roof was formed using dual, preformed mono-pitched trusses set out in a radial pattern on either side of a 2.5m-wide flat-roofed corridor featuring sun pipes to allow daylight into the accommodation below.

The trusses measured 8m and 7.5m respectively from external to internal wall plate. Spandrel panels were incorporated alongside party walls.

With the trusses fanning out from 300mm centres on the inner curve to 600mm on the outer curve, a key challenge was to bend the bracing to follow the shape of the roof.

A curved retrofit roof by Thomas Armstrong (Construction) and a complex design by Scotts Timber Engineering were also shortlisted.