engineer80

Yep I agree. There is a reason for using materials such as wood in places like Canada, so the house can actually respond to the elements. I read this somewhere and it makes sense

exgeordie

Got a chucle out of that one, many years ago, 60ish wimpey meant, we mean to employ more paddies every year, kinda weird acro, but funny

engineer80

I was trying to find the article that I had read on this for you. It was online....when I find it, I'll post the link to it, if it'll help any but I would imagine a house is a house in Canada just as it is in the UK. As long as you get the necessary surveys and checks done to make sure it structurally sound you should be fine. Good luck with finding your home

jimf

Oak in the UK will quite happily last 1000 years. Will the plantation fast growing softwood when treated last as long - of course not but it will last a generation or two maybe even three.

jimf

The real concern I would have with a timber frame house is that the frame is vulnerable to damp either from the inside or outside whilst being hidden from view. Any truly comprehensive survey of the structural timber condition is going to be quite invasive. I would be very careful about looking for signs of any water ingress and any indication that maintenance had been left for a period and then the exterior given a "facelift".

iaink

There are a few from various government agencies...

This is a good place to start learning about canadian housing / maintainence requirements.

http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/co/maho/index.cfm

http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/co/ren...refash_016.cfm

engineer80

Thanks for the links, I might just have a look through myself later

iaink

If anyone RRREAALLLLY cares I did find a link to the CMHC bible on new timber builds. Its 45Mb pdf download though


http://www.easy-share.com/1904011130...nstruction.pdf

MarkG

There was an interesting book published a few years back about what would happen to the world if all the humans vanished overnight; that had a section on how North American-style houses would decay, I think they said the weak point would be metal parts holding the wood together since they'd rust once the roof began to leak.

jimf

Yes - The World Without Us - was quite a good read and there was a TV series as well.

capillano

I have been living in Vancouver for the past 2yrs nearly and have been observing some of the house constructions going on in our neighbourhood and to be honest I would not want to pay the $1M prices being asked for wood frame houses which are being built out here in Western Canada.

Here in Canada or for that matter in North America the price you pay when you buy your house be it new or old you are paying for the land only and infact that is how the local authority property tax is also assessed, the valuation consists of two values, one being the land value and the other being the building and the later is always the lower of the two.

Typical houses are built on a concrete slab type of foundation in many case where there is no basement they simply lay concrete on the floor area of the house and build a wood frame on top it and the walls are made of plywood panels with Jigsaw cut outs of the windows, doors etc and the cover the plywood with a black felt like material to stop any rain water penetrating into the plywood and finally the nail in the sidings which is either vinyl which comes in different colour shades or timber wood panels. On the inside they fill the wall stud partition with insulation and finish it off with plaster boards.

The roof is made of timber panels and they staple over lapping tiles which are made of rubber like material.

And these houses are built by a couple of carpenters who simply staple the timber joists and panels together in less then 2-3 weeks.

These houses do require quite a bit of maintenance because the wood does rot unlike bricks and there is the pest problem, the property needs to be regularly inspected and sprayed with chemicals etc. If you leave any cardboard boxes anywhere in the house you see these wood bugs appearing from nowhere what a nuisance!

Finding handyman is a challenge at best everywhere but here in Vancouver they are pretty rare (good ones) and they charge a fortune even for the smallest of jobs!

The gutters they use here are made from Aluminum, PVC guttering is almost unheard off here and when it rains it makes a lot of noise in the night and the same is true for double glazing they have a preference to fit Aluminum instead of PVC.

IMHO I am not impressed with these woodframe construction methods and if I could afford to buy a plot of land and build I would get a few brickies from the UK and put them up in an apartment and build a proper brick built house instead of these wooden construction.

I talk to people and ask them why they build houses from wood here in Western Canada and the answer is due to the earthquake risk. I am not so sure if this is the only reason. My synical mind tells me because wood is plenty full here and therefore it is being used as a commodity for house building as this contributes to the economy and keeps the trade people busy renovating the properties.

JonboyE

It is not just earthquake risk. 99.9999% (approximately) of new houses in all of North America are wood frame. Why? Because lumber is cheap and plentiful (isn't there an environmental benefit in using local and renewable building materials) and they are best suited to the extremes on the North American climate.

ExKiwilass

That's the same reason they prefer wood frame in NZ. Wood is more flexible in an earthquake than brick, which, from what I remember, tends to just crumble.

THe other thing is that there is a code requirement for energy efficiency in new homes i.e. wood houses used to be built to breathe, like mine; my house has stood for 65 years in this climate and has no rot.

However, in new construction, the emphasis is on keeping heat in/not allowing homes to breathe for energy efficiency. This has created problems with mold etc. so they moved to rainscreening to try and prevent water even penetrating the envelope, but yes, it does mean houses require more maintenance in this wet climate. In my brand new townhome we had to run a fan 4 hours a day, every day to remove moisture from the air.

FYI, even if you brought over brickies, you'd still have to obey BC building codes

Alan2005

That's right - here in Vancouver those extremes are all too familiar. It's like being in the arctic circle in winter and the sahara in the summer; no wonder those wooden houses I've been looking at on mls seem to always look like they are falling to bits once they get more than 30 or 40 years old. Either that or they've had 7 new walls and three new roofs or something.

(I've got nothing against wooden houses, but lets be honest, the first reason you gave is the only real reason).

airbornesapper

I followed the growth of a sub-divison in the UK, Elvetham Heath, Fleet in Hampshire.

I am sure that many of the owners have no clue that many of their homes (brick clad) were in fact timber framed.

Notwithstanding that a great many the oldest homes still standing in the UK are centuries old timber framed, Granted they are framed with honking great chunks of oak.

I find the issue here is that some of the carpenters just aren't trained to the level that we were in the UK (years ago at least, full on carpenters and joiners). I followed the build of a new home in BC shortly after I arrived in 87. It was terrible, I even asked the carpenters what qualifications they had...the answer came freely, NONE, but I knew that. When it went on sale, I went to the open house with a builders square and level. The real estate agent nearly died. I had fun.

At the end of the day many homes in the UK are just junk plastered over to hide all manner of poor workmanship. The same happens here, just drywall is the camouflage of choice. A friend who left the army in the UK went into the building trade working for various UK builders; interesting stories. Good folks laying down good money just don't have a clue.

Want a castle build it yourself and commit many hours, following every step of the build. That applies to here and the UK.

Anyway, seems timber framing is gaining ground in the UK......

UK timber frame association website.

http://www.timber-frame.org/index.ph...b40d1ca4e6dba6

UK market statistics*

Update 2008 taken from report published May 09
Timber Frame Market share advances in the midst of recession
24.9% - market share estimate


Timber Frame defies the trend of fewer homes built in 2007
22.2% - market share of Timber Frame in New Housing
+ 3.3% - Growth of all Timber Frames Built
+ 11.2% - Growth in 1 to 2- storey Timber Frame Homes
- 4.4% - Decline of all New Homes Started in the UK
- 6.4%- Decline of Non- Timber Frame Homes Started
+ 27.9% - Increase in Timber Frame
+ 10.1% - Rise in the Industry Turnover to £601 million
. * taken from UKTFA Interim Market Report April 08

Wood is good
Timber is an organic, non-toxic and naturally renewable building material.
Although worldwide, deforestation remains a significant issue, it is not caused by the European construction industry which mainly uses softwood.
Over 90% of all wood consumed in Europe is sourced from European forests.
UK timber frame uses 99% European softwood.
The more wood we use, the more our forests grow, because in Europe we are committed to planting more trees than we harvest.
Every year our forests grow by over 3,500 square miles – equivalent to an area the size of Cyprus.
Forests act as huge carbon sinks. The total carbon sequestered in Europe’s forests is over 9.5 million tonnes.
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Whole life performance

Wood is effectively a carbon-neutral material (even allowing for transport).
Timber frame has the lowest CO2 cost of any commercially available building material.
For every cubic metre of wood used instead of other building materials, 0.8 tonne of CO2 is saved from the atmosphere.
77% of the energy used in the production of wood products comes from wood residues and recovered wood.
Strength for strength, concrete uses 5 times (and steel uses 6 times) more energy to produce than timber.
Waste and ‘end of life’ wood can be easily recycled.
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Eco-friendly homes

A typical 100 square metre two-storey detached timber frame home contains 5-6 cubic metres more wood than the equivalent masonry house.
Consequently, every timber frame home saves about 4 tonnes of CO2 (about the amount produced by driving 14,000 miles).
In addition to these CO2 savings, the operational cost of a house can be reduced due to timber’s thermal efficiency.
If all UK houses built since 1945 had been timber frame, then over 300 million tonnes of CO2 would have been saved.
Most wood products, from timber frame systems to joinery, can help designers and developers improve their EcoHomes ratings.
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Construction efficiency

Timber frame has 30% shorter, more predictable construction time than brick and block.
This means a faster return on investment, reduced disruption to local communities, and tidier, safer and more efficient sites.
A typical timber frame house can be weather-tight in less than 5 days.
Timber frame construction helps to promote greater partnering, better control and project savings through improved supply chain integration.

http://www.merronbrook.co.uk/product...s/timber_frame

The link above shows some pretty substantial timber frame construction by this Harley Whitney based company.