Aftermovie Carpentier Academy for garden architects
26/06/2024
Many interested professionals made their way to NOA outdoor living in Kruisem for the Carpentier Academy. Watch the aftermovie here.
With timber-frame construction, the preparation period in the design office and the workshop takes slightly longer, but once on site work progresses faster than with a traditional building method. All walls and floors are produced in advance in the workshop and delivered to the site ready to assemble in kit form. As a result, assembling the timber frame is quick and smooth, giving you a wind- and watertight structure within a short time. This dry building method also allows you to start the further finishing work straight away. Even the painting work can follow on immediately. Overall, timber construction saves around 20 to 25% in time. This is partly because all dimensions are already known in the design phase. That means windows and doors can be ordered in advance. After six months the home is ready, compared with one to one and a half years for a conventional build.
Thanks to the shorter construction time, private builders can move into their new home quickly, allowing them to rent out or sell their current property sooner. For property investors, this means a faster return than with traditional building methods.
Since the timber-frame elements are prefabricated by experienced craftsmen in the workshop, winter weather is no obstacle. The further finishing work on site can also be done quickly and is not delayed by drying-out periods or by weather conditions. With traditional construction, brickwork can sometimes be delayed by rain or frost.
In the conventional construction process, plumbers, electricians and telecom installers chase, drill and grind into the perfect structure. This generates masses of construction waste, is highly labour-intensive and a lot can go wrong. Since the preparations for timber-frame construction take place off-site, zero waste is possible on site. By using BIM models that drive the CNC machines, fewer errors also occur during the construction process.
Thanks to prefabrication in the workshop, fewer machines, fewer loose materials and 50% fewer workers are needed on site. Timber construction therefore means fewer transport movements and thus lower emissions, which is an extra benefit for sustainability. An additional advantage is that local residents experience less nuisance from the construction activities.
In Knokke, a client switched to timber-frame construction because of its many advantages.
Wood naturally has a higher insulating value than brick. Moreover, the timber frame of a timber-frame building offers plenty of room for insulating materials. Because the insulation is integrated into the prefab elements, it is also possible to design a slim structure. And that means more space inside the home. This is especially important on smaller building plots, where you want to lose as little space as possible to wall thickness. In a traditional build, the total wall thickness quickly reaches 50 to 60 cm.
An additional advantage is that, compared with traditional house construction, timber construction has no thermal bridges, which delivers better energy performance and therefore increases the value of the home. But there are even more financial benefits: homes with an E-level of E20 to E30 automatically qualify for a reduction in property tax, and you may also be eligible for an E-level grant from the grid operator. Banks too encourage energy-efficient building with an energy loan. Timber-frame construction is therefore beneficial not only for the climate, but also for your wallet.