iaink

I would go out of my way to AVOID brick in most of canada. The climate here makes it spall and the face of the brick falls off...constant repair needed.

http://www.hgtv.com/home-improvement...cks/index.html

There have been a couple of threads over the years regarding building materials. Cant be too many threads in the canada forum with the word spalling in them if you want to search for them...

Oakvillian

...whereas my parents' thatched cottage is - the frame is hard-as-steel oak beams, but the bits in between are filled with chalk daub and lumps of flint, with bits of straw to bind it all together

Almost Canadian

I meant new builds. Apologies if I didn't make that clear. I would have thought it a tad obvious that Windsor Castle wasn't timber framed

Atlantic Xpat

A pedant writes.....

'But there are many older timber framed houses dating back to medieval times, no?'

Souvy

Oh yeah. The wall wasn't load-bearing. The mere removal of a few feet either side has opened up the place more than I could have imagined. There was an awful lot of wiring in the wall. Fortunately, one of her proteges is a nearly qualified electrician, and he owes her many favours. We had him over on Saturday. Not many electricians work eight hours for a Big Mac.

Drywall replacement is underway. I have no idea how I will retrofit the gaps in the hardwood flooring.

Tangram

What about facing bricks ? We looked at two identical houses, one with facing bricks and one without and went with the one without. Are the facing ones prone to frost damage ?

jimf

There is nothing wrong with wood as a building material. The main advantage it has in Canada is that it is plentiful and cheap.

Supposed problems with masonary such as poor thermal insulation and spalling are not in reality problems. Although wood is a better insulator than brick it is the insulation material provided that provides virtually all of the thermal resistance in a building and that can be good or poor in either form of construction. Spalling can occur but not with structures designed to shed water properly and where the bricks are to the appropriate specification. (Bricks need to have the correct strength and, as for concrete which would have air entrained when at risk of exposure to significant freeze/thaw, have fine air holes distributed within the brick to provide space for water to freeze and expand without damaging the brick. When implemented properly masonary is fine in the Canadian climate.

Buildings for professional clients in Canada in my experience are almost always constructed of masonary. If not masonary then a cheaper system build but infrequently timber. Masonary structures are durable and specified with suitable insulating material to meet all the thermal requirements in the building codes. The drawback of using masonary is the initial cost.

On the UK Energy Savings Trust website there is a good report on construction methods for future carbon neutral construction, drawing on experience around the world. For traditional masonary construction the cavity can simply be widened to suit the level of insulation required. (I forget the numbers but wheras in the old days the cavity would have been 50mm now 150mm is the norm and up to 300mm is quite feasible.) There are also other interesting forms of construction where rigid insulation is used as permanent formwork with a cast in situ concrete structure and many other novel techniques. The timber frame organisations were invited to contribute but declined to do so which is quite revealing.

Timber frame house in the UK have always had the problem of the bad PR from the early days when mistakes were made in the construction of them. I have had a timber frame house in the UK before but never again. It was fine in the winter but in the summer didn't have the benefit of the thermal sink effect which helps to even out temperature differences between night and day. In fact using a thermal sink to store heat is one of the most ancient and sustainable forms of construction particularly suited to climates where there is large diurnal variation in temperature.

I wouldn't be too bothered about houses being wooden in Canada though. Millions of people live in them after all.

paolosmythe

one point to consider regarding wooden houses..... sound insulation!

we live in the basement of a crazy old woman's house. her stamping foot steps can be heard where ever she goes. and she is something of a god botherer too, indulging in her right to prayer for over 2 hours!

such may not be an issue for most, except our lunatic landlady does what she does from about midnight, EVERY NIGHT, directly above where we sleep!

clearly she is deaf as she claims to make no noise at all, but her murmurs are still enough to wake us up! noise pollution can be a major problem in wooden houses.

iaink

I dont know to be honest. Logically, being thinner they are likely to have a more even temperature profile across them and be less stressed, but if they adsorb water then its got to be possibility.

ExKiwilass

Word.

Wood is at least a bit bendy. If you get an older home, made of old-growth fir, it's very strong.

To Paolo: that's not wooden houses necessarily, that's just poor soundproofing (i.e. lack of acoustic tiles etc)

JonboyE

Structural lumber is softwood which is cheap and plentiful in Canada. Furniture is generally made of hardwood which is expensive and imported.

Zhanna

Many thanks to everyone who contributed to this topic!! With such comprehensive information, I have much more confidence now (you are usually scared of what you don't know)!. With so many of you living happily in the houses in question, I am sure I will find them perfectly comfortable as well and not share the destiny of the two little pigs

Simon Legree

My house near Truro, N.S., for which I acted as the general contractor, survived hurricane Juan in 2003 with no problem, not even a lost shingle. Winds were measured at up to 100 m.p.h. Also a violent winter storm, White Juan, in 2004. It's an R2000 spec house and is much more comfortable than my parents place in the UK. They've been building them for for so long and with the climate in mind they are much more practical than the traditional british style brick homes.

MarkG

True: one of my school friends grew up in a fourteenth century house and that's built in the same way. It's older than most of the brick and stone buildings in the town.

Tangram

That answers that question.