Why timber frame must be part of the Government’s plan for new towns

Brian Adams, Senior Director of Sales and Business Development at Arclin, explains how timber frame and technology such as weather-resistant barriers can help overcome site challenges for faster new home delivery.  

The UK has a housing deficit of 4.3 million homes. To address the issue, the New Towns Taskforce has 100 possible sites for the creation of new towns across the country. Building new towns isn’t a new idea, but new town building fell out of favour in the 1970s and recent proposals have not been successful. Plans to build 10 new ecotowns under the last Labour government resulted in just one small development in Northwest Bicester.  

Today’s new towns seek to provide “affordable housing, vital infrastructure and access to open green spaces and nature, to transform the lives of working people”. Homes must also be sustainable given the impending net zero deadline. To come to fruition, new towns must be built at speed. 

Faster construction is necessary 

Previous governments have consistently fallen short of housing targets. So, to ensure plans to build whole towns are not destined for failure, the UK must transition to timber frame. Outside of Scotland, timber frame construction has not been widely embraced in the UK, which presents a missed opportunity. Timber allows for faster build times and less weather-related disruption. Some sources have referenced the National Home Building Council’s suggestion that building with timber frame using modern methods of construction could reduce construction time by around three months. Multiply this by the 1.5 million homes target for the parliamentary term, and the timescale may become achievable.  

Timber is also sustainable. Trees sequester carbon, removing it from the atmosphere and locking it away in the wood, so making timber very low in embodied carbon. A report by researchers at Aalto University and the Finnish Environment Institute found that if 80% of Europe’s residential buildings were built with wood, they could store up to 55m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. This effectively offsets around half of Europe’s cement industry emissions. 

Timber also helps reduce operational emissions. Energy efficiency regulations will continue getting stricter to meet the UK’s net zero target, but there’s a limit to how wide brick and block cavities can feasibly be built to accommodate the insulation depths needed to meet these targets. Timber-framed systems are more versatile and can accommodate more thermal insulation. Barratt, Taylor Wimpey and Persimmon have all recently made major investments in timber frame manufacturing. 

Barriers address onsite challenges 

While timber buildings are quick to construct, they are vulnerable to water ingress until weathertight. Care

must therefore be taken to protect panels from moisture. This is usually undertaken using housewrap which, when applied on or offsite, can be time consuming to install. The answer lies in new technology that instantly protects OSB boards used in timber frame walls and roofs, SIP systems and cassettes. Integrated weather resistant barriers, such as Arclin’s Arctek Dryshell, can be fused to OSB sheathing boards in the factory.  

Timber frame products arrive on site with the weather-resistant barriers in place, so weathertightness can be achieved more quickly. Once installed, the weather-resistant barrier forms a durable, airtight and windtight layer, providing instant physical protection. They reduce the risk of moisture penetrating timber panels during construction. In addition, the vapour permeability allows incidental vapour to escape the building envelope to avoid interstitial condensation. And, because they’re applied in a continuous layer to the exact size and shape of the sheathing board, there’s no waste on site.  

If the UK is serious about solving its housing crisis and achieving net zero targets, a shift toward timber-based construction must become central to new town development. Timber-frame construction, together with innovations such as weather-resistant barriers, will help ensure the high-performance homes the country needs can be delivered swiftly, sustainably and at scale. 

arctek.arclin.com