Company Report: Lloyds Timber Frames
Lloyds Timber Frames: Made to measure housing Lloyds Timber Frames is a part of CGL Developments, a housing and development group headquartered in Oswestry, Shropshire. As a group, CLG tends to operate regionally, but Lloyds Timber Frames is a national operator and an innovative leader in the growing off-site housing construction market

We tend to think of timber framed houses in terms of the wooden structures, often kit-built from Scandinavian or Canadian suppliers, that crop up from time to time, are striking when they do appear, but which in this country are seen as a rarity. However a house does not need to look like a log cabin or a tithe barn to be of basic timber construction. "The timber frame is the structural, load-bearing part of the house," says Lloyd's Marketing Director Duncan Dibble, "but you can have any kind of external finish you like - brick, block, wood or a combination of these. Basically there is no way of telling from the outside whether a house is timber-framed or not." However timber frame construction offers many advantages over brick, both for the end customer and for Lloyds Timber Frames' direct customer, the contractor.

Advantages of timber
The benefits of off-site prefabrication are becoming more widely recognised throughout the construction industry, says Dibble. For the designer, the timber frame method offers flexible planning, energy efficiency, economic use of materials and a wide range of external finishes. Compared with masonry construction, timber frame is more accurate and the lower overall dead weight of the structure, particularly if light cladding is used, may permit lighter foundations.

For the contractor, timber framed construction reduces site work and allows fast completion, avoiding most of the drying out time necessary with masonry construction and reducing the remedial 'snagging' required. For the client or occupant of the house, the high level of insulation possible can reduce the cost of heating. Comfortable room temperatures are quickly reached and economically maintained when the heating is on. Dry construction means that decoration can be carried out soon after completion of the building without risk of cracking and deterioration of finishes. Timber framed buildings are also easy to customise and extend.

Energy saving
The industry has been given a boost by very recent official pronouncements about the need to conserve energy in the domestic arena. Within days of Tony Blair's retirement announcement his successor Gordon Brown was stressing the need to encourage low energy housing, and as Duncan Dibble points out, this can be delivered on many levels by timber construction. "There is no mainstream building material that has a lower carbon coefficient than timber. Steel is our closest competitor, but it takes a lot of energy to produce steel, even recycled steel, and steel is an efficient heat conductor unlike wood."

The U-value is the measure for heat loss through walls - the lower the better. In the building industry 27 is considered rather good, but even with standard insulation Lloyds Timber Frames consistently achieves a figure of 23, and can easily bring that down to 11 by using high performance insulation products. "There is a lot of research going into insulation. Recycled paper is a really good insulation material, and I have even seen houses in which untreated sheepswool was used." You can get the U-value of a wall close to zero that way, though it's too costly for commercial use, he admits.

All the timber used is sourced through a local supplier and is accredited to Canadian Lumber Standard levels. This is a guarantee of fitness for purpose rather than sustainability, which is assured through the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes. PEFC timber is from sustainably managed forests whose management implements performance standards based on internationally agreed environmental, social and economic requirements. "Fundamentally, this means that for every tree that is cut down at least two are planted," says Dibble. "But I think everybody realises these days that timber is the most environmentally friendly way to build."
For developers, there are grants and tax incentives for choosing energy saving construction materials and systems. In December Gordon Brown announced that newly built zero-carbon homes will be exempt from stamp duty from April for at least three years. The problem for the growing number of ethical consumers is that there is no carbon-zero home in Britain at present and the handful of carbon-neutral developments in existence have run into teething problems. It may be years before there are sufficient carbon-free homes to have any impact on tackling climate change.
Encouraged from above
"That move was supposed to give impetus to investment into zero-carbon communities," says Duncan Dibble. "But you need critical mass to create such a community - around 200 houses." Nevertheless 27 percent of carbon emissions in Britain come from homes

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