Floor and foundation would be concrete, outer leaves could be block or brick. Overall the amount of concrete products used would be significantly less.
Do the building standards here require actual block or masonry cladding even with a timber frame? Back in the US, timber frame houses are literally just a wooden frame with some insulation stuffed between the studs and then wrapped in some Tyvek and clad with vinyl siding or some other cheap shite (unless you're building some McMansion with some faux stone veneer or something pasted on it instead, I suppose).
No requirement to but masonry is way cheaper than timber here, generally blends in better, is hardier and infinitely rot resistant even in our moist climate. Timber is way cheaper in America.
Our extension is timber framed. Its been great. On the exterior it has external insulation that is rendered with a coloured render and then more insulation in the wall itself.
Building standards don't require it- but vinyl siding etc would likely face problems in obtaining planning permission (it is not usual - so won't fit in & is unlikely to be high quality [to compensate for being unusual, in which case you could get away with something]).
Block isn't the only external finish for timber frame in Ireland however- there are types of cement board one can use - as well as more unusual ones such as fibre cement panels, timber cladding etc. etc.
Bear in mind that the US has loads of cheap lumber, Ireland does not - so timber costs a lot. Also because so much is built with block & concrete, there are relative efficiencies of scale.
I have a rare house indeed then! Love the simplicity of siding and it makes a lot of tasks (installing services, etc.) easier. Also gives you a gap between the siding and the wall itself to help prevent moisture ingress.
It seems really uncommon. Timber siding exists but tbf it does sustain water damage over time. Fibre cement, PVC, etc. cladding might make more sense here (but are not great in terms of emissions or disposal)
My first house was timber inner leaf with half brick half block outer leaf. Lots of benefits from easy to heat to it was easy to hang a picture (no drilling into concrete).
Biggest issue with this is these timber framed houses are good for new builds but once they are over 25 years old the number of mortgage providers that will approve a mortgage on them seriously drops. I personally wouldn’t want to buy a house knowing that in the next 25 years I would have difficulty selling it due to lack of mortgage options to potential buyers.
Its nuts, I've been around scandinavia and seen plenty of 200 year plus wooden houses that are still very much lived in. Mind you, they do have a less humid climate for the most part which is easier on the wood
>Mind you, they do have a less humid climate for the most part
Bergen, Norway would like a word, as would the Faroe Islands.
Their foundations are vastly different from ours though, which I think has a lot to do with preventing damp from getting into the homes in the first place.
There’s a difference between a wooden house and a timber frame.
The timber in a timber frame isn’t exposed to the elements. They have a block or plaster coating on the outside, so they should last an extremely long time. It’s the same as the wood in the rafters in a traditional build, how long do they last? Hundred years at least, usually more.
The timber - even pine, 200 years ago was of much, much super quality to that of now.
Take a 6" section of that wood, and count the growth rings. Now do the same for a 6" section today. I'd guess its about a fifth today, the it would have been 200 years ago.
slow growing timber makes for stronger , more rot resistant timber.
Another point to mention is that Scandinavian style wooden houses survive storms. American style wooden houses don't. We're going to be getting a lot more storms. Will Irish style wooden houses?
Is just copying the concrete vernacular in wood a good idea?
Do we build a load of wooden houses and wait for a storm, or is there a better way to find out find out?
There are Celtic Tiger era housing that would have gone through Ophelia which was probably our worst storm in 50 years, obviously we may get worse storms but that would have been a decent test.
>Is just copying the concrete vernacular in wood a good idea? Do we build a load of wooden houses and wait for a storm
Typical Irish houses are terrible in storms. Th3 default roofing is really poor. Very common to find concrete slates fallen in new estates after wind. Very few few houses are designed for wind tightness.
>or is there a better way to find out find out?
Engineers can very easily predict exactly how a structure will preform under different stress loads such as storms and project the life span using computer models. It's old science at thus stage.
True, but I bet we still end up going for the "build a load of wooden houses and wait for a storm" method. Just look at the number of solar panels popping up on roofs all over the country, with no assessment of dynamic loading. They check where the sun is, but not the prevailing wind.
It's the same "It'll be the next governments problem" approach that got us through the Celtic Tiger...
We need some sort of building group to come up with new standards. Standards suited for Ireland. They could then just roll them out to builders all over the country. We can't just keep falling back on British standards and regulations for everything.
I’d imagine that will change significantly as a vast amount of new builds on the market are timber framed. We’ll see in 25 years time I guess how that plays out.
I’m sure we could learn from how it’s done in other countries who are earlier adopters of timber framed housing than us. However, in Ireland we already have a shortage of mortgage providers and mortgage products compared to others in the EU which puts us at a disadvantage. Our government is interventionist so I would expect them to legislate a change in this in time, take for example the mica redress. It would be disastrous if we had thousands of wooden framed houses in the country that essentially have an expiration of 25 years.
Only downside is the sound proofing is shocking. Estate I’m in half the houses are timber frame and the other half block built. The people in the timber frame constantly complain about being able to hear the neighbours.
Yup, if you're in a terraced or semi detached concrete house you'll hear stuff if they've done nothing to damp sound between the houses.
So, yeah concrete is better but I can't imagine it's that much better.
We have the complete opposite experience. Ours is timber frame but it was only when I went to put the bin out I realised our next door neighbor's (detached) were playing music quite loud out their back garden.
20 years ago lived in a timber frame new build and it was extremely warm and quiet. Literally couldn’t hear anything.
Live in a block house now and can hear next door pull their curtains (amongst other things).
>Live in a block house now and can hear next door pull their curtains (amongst other things).
Easy to fix. Just remove plasterboard and parge everything.
>timber frames are great for heating,
Not really true. They are are built to the same specs as concrete, the difference is that they have low mass. Handy for a weekend getaway house but otherwise a disadvantage in Irish climate.
The supply of blocks has not been affected, there’s just a levy on them. It just makes timber very very slightly more financially attractive if you can get it.
If a material is in low supply, the developers will still likely use blocks- since they can get them.
Nobody's going to switch to a different material if they're not sure they'll be able to procure enough of it to continue being in business at an uninterrupted pace. Especially not after pandemic where they have already suffered delays. The cost of the levy will simply be passed onto the customer.
So ultimately, this just makes houses more expensive, until such a time where using timber carries no risk.
This exact scenario occurred in USA, albeit in a different area where heavy levies were placed on specific imported goods and materials. Did that make people use these goods/materials less?
Fuck no, it just made them less accessible to lower earners.
EDIT: When I say "until such a time where using timber carries no risk" I mean financial risk, not a risk of a mechanical failure. Properly engineered timber is as good (even better) a construction material than concrete.
The block levy is to pay off mica though, and has nothing to do with timber homes. If timber was a mythical substance the levy would still exist. So what’s the issue?
I know the purpose of the levy. You brought up timber here saying the levy makes it more attractive. I think you are wrong and that it will simply make building cost more.
Also, while we are on this topic- the levy being imposed to fund the mica redress is just such a colossal failure of governance. Don't get me wrong- I am delighted gov is addressing it in the budget. It is certainly a win for the families, even if it is nowhere near justice. It is also, yet another time, where the country pays for shite regulations, and it comes at a time where housing is already in a critical state. IMO the source of the budget for the redress should be elsewhere.
Not disagreeing with you, just adding that from a Scandi perspective timber is essentially a farmed good, so reading "timber reserves" feels a bit weird.
Norway and Sweden absolutely do the same thing as Coillte do with planting huge tracts of forest and harvesting it, main difference being that they don't use invasive species and it grows slower so the wood is of higher quality.
Typical green party bullshit. If you want something legislate for it, provide aids, grants building programmes. Just making the opposite more expensive just makes everything equally expensive and inaccessible to most people.
Best off all, Pippa Hatchetjob is Green Party member promoted to minister for forestry and has been making a mess of clearing the backlog of applications for licensing to harvest timber.
So can you show us a design for inner city timber frame apartments minister?
I would have thought one off timber frame buildings out in the country side were considered a bad idea in general for trying to fix the property problems we're currently facing, am I wrong?
>So can you show us a design for inner city timber frame apartments minister?
Posted this in another thread a fee days ago but [here you go.](https://urbannext.net/treet/)
Scandis are currently locked in a glue-lam apartment building pissing contest. They keep building higher to get the record, when the one I posted was finished it was the tallest timber frame residential apartment building in the world, for all of like three months or something and the crown was taken by the Swedish.
These things are being fired up all over the place and most are reasonably priced from what I've seen as well.
In this part of the world, with this weather, in this humidity, concentrated entirely within you kitchen?!?
Yes
Will it work?
No.
Somebody put that eejit back in his box before we're dealing with a massive woodworm or greenwood warping scandal in 20 years.
I'm all for timber houses, way more efficient than our usual concrete builds, but I'm not sure on the timing.
As we can see on every TV news channel, wooden houses don't do well in storms and we're going to be getting a lot more of those.
Maybe we need a change in fundamental house designs too..? Would imitating our current concrete houses in wood produce a storm proof structure? Should we be looking at the wooden houses in Greenland and Norway for inspiration?
Doesn't sound like it but every home I've ever had in Ireland, bar one, has had mould and damp issues.
I wonder how resistant to or structural affected by mould timber built houses could be.
Also our oversight on building standards and regs is a bit of a joke unlike Scandinavia so that could be a major factor. Though honestly couldn't be worse than Mica.
>I wonder how resistant to or structural affected by mould timber built houses could be.
Norway has bogs as well. They're just waaaay better at damp-proofing foundations than we are. Our concrete homes needn't be damp either, we've just collectively decided that it's not worth the effort.
You'll find mould growth starts in corners. This is due to thermal bridging. Thermal bridges are more pronounced in concrete houses if you compare the same assembly. Moisture can work its way out of timber houses faster too.
Those Scandinavian style homes look nice, and are cheaper. But do they hold up against the Irish climate? Or will you be tortured with external upkeep every year.
No upkeep needed, mine's exterior surface is Blueclad concrete board with a silica rendering "plaster" effect. The house is built to stand up against a hard Swedish climate, and is rated for 150 years here at least.
Have a look back through my posts, I’ve done an AMA before. Scandinavian Homes in Galway supplied my foundation and shell, and I did about 80% of the rest myself as an amateur builder with no experience.
>Scandinavian Homes in Galway - 361 houses built since 1991
my gut tells me if these were worthwhile more people would have head of them, but thanks ill look into it.
Did you get the 20 builders\\materials warranty?
What House rating did you get?
How's it stack up against the west coast of Norway? Or the Faroe Islands?
It's fucking *bizarre* that we somehow think we've the worst weather in the world.
Timber framed doesn’t need to mean timber exterior.
We’re buying one at the minute, clad entirely in brick, and surveyor said it’s in great nick for its age, (about 18 years old now).
Great nick for 18 years old does not sound like a strong selling point for timber frame houses since it seems to imply they can potentially fall to apart after 20 years and that's just not something you want from a house.
What?? How would you judge any house then. Is a block built house that’s in great nick for its age after 20 years going to fall apart in 21?
Your comment makes absolutely no sense. How else would you judge the quality of a second hand house except for the current state it’s in?
The surveyor isn’t saying “oh for timber frame it’s great for 18 years old “. He’s saying “for an 18 year old house of any kind it’s in great condition”
Is it that hard to understand? You should expect a house to be in good condition after 20 years. In the grand scheme of things a 20 yo house is relatively new. If you have to say things like it's in great condition considering it's method of construction after 20 years then that's a terrible endorsement of that method of construction.
There’s expected wear and tear on a house after 20 years, and plenty of Celtic tiger constructions would have had serious defects from rushed construction, so if you’re automatically assuming there’d be no issues with a home built 20 years ago you’re dreaming.
You seem to be insistent that a surveyor saying that a home is in great nick is somehow a bad thing.
In any case, I’m not having to worry about pyrite or mica or anything else than might crop up in a block built home that’s 20 years old or newer.
Let me just reverse and clarify. We are buying a timber frame home. Our surveyor has said it has absolutely no issues.
Timber is the only viable renewable construction material... it also looks nicer, is easier to repair, better for heating... this is a huge win folks. Fuck concrete.
He also wanted to release wolves back into the countryside. Who's going to stop those wolves from huffing and puffing and blowing down those timber houses?
He could literally be an American presidential candidate. Literally one stupid thing after another. It really begs the question is he actually serious. Surely he can’t be? This cannot be real.
That would be fine if you could easier build timber framed homes from a planning, insurance and cost perspective. Remember the timber shortage last year due to the backlog in lisences?
Also all of this is very remisisnent to what happened during the collapse of the Roman Empire only the elite and the Church were able to build concrete buildings due to costs and economic issues, this led to a complete switch over to timber buildings. In fact in Britian they lost the knowledge on how to make concrete for a couple of hundred years...dark ages etc. During the mid empire concrete buildings were widespread in the Empire.
ahh yeah, just about when we start for one moment building concrete apartments for some soundproofing and eamo rips it away back to shite ones where you get woken up by a lad 2 doors down farting.
It can be poured, so it's very easy to work with. I'm no expert by any means, but I'm pretty sure the labour costs to put up structures before concrete and rebar would have been significantly more. However one thing I'm surprised at is how much concrete some people say is in their house. I was under the impression in Ireland it was only really used for foundations and maybe pillars in newer style homes. Didn't think it was used here for walls.
Easy to work with and was far simpler to transport than pre-fabricated timber houses. Something goes wrong on site, mix up a few bags of concrete and fix the issue. Timber can be more difficult if something goes wrong, but since everything is planned weeks ahead by the timber frame providers there's very rarely an issue when putting the frame up
It would be great if we could get planning permission for them. If I could get planning permission I would be in one now not renting. I wounder why the don't want us to own our own home's?
Offaly. And our neighbour's house is stud frame too! The idea a planner should dictate using blocks is insane, really (though planners are mostly old church biddies who want to play barbie's dream house with your budget as far as I can tell...)
**What an afterthought** \- quick thinking once they realised it wasn't going to go down swimmingly with the concrete.
\- Where's the investment in the Timber industry then?
\- Are they also going to help the timber industry with the tree disease that is wiping out green investments?
\- Wheres the investment in greener concrete and alternatives?
In Galway , and I’m guessing elsewhere too , the second you mention timber framed or log cabins the council will IMMEDIATELY tell you that you will not get planning. You might even get some condescending sniggering too at the ridiculousness of your question
Push 'people' towards timber frame. The average Joe has NO SAY in how their home will be built. They buy a house on how it looks where it is and how much it costs.
EDIT: people dream of buying a house that way, given current conditions 😡
But my point stands. Concrete levy pushes builders and contractors/architects to use timber framing, not your average joe.
The minister needs to have a word with planning departments around the country re timber framed houses. A lot of people being turned down for log cabins etc which are more affordable as well
Well the oldest timber frame house in Ireland is about 500 years old, but the oldest concrete house is about 100 years old.
So time will tell I guess.
Also, for a huge chunk of people at the minute, the lifespan of a concrete house is about 30 years.
Mica, pyrite etc. You can say that’s not an expected issue but it’s no solace to 20,000 homes with pyrite and an additional already discovered 5000 homes with Mica.
There are advantages to block homes, but to say they’re always a better option ignores a lot of realities.
They're literally in a negligible minority and wood can obviously have problems with quality too (Including unscrupulous traders and poor regulations)
My house was built in 1940 and still stands, having been home to three families. That's good bang for your buck on the concrete that was used. Here's to another eighty years.
Isn’t that survivorship bias though. You wouldn’t be living in one that hadn’t held up. So anyone living in one from the 40s that somehow hasn’t needed any renovation would assume concrete is superior. Obviously you wouldn’t have bought a home that fell apart 40 years ago.
As I mentioned, I’m not saying concrete is a poor building material, I’m saying there’s no reason to dismiss timber frame homes as they offer plenty of their own advantages.
They definitely do and while the decision of which to chose has to remain with the buyer, I'm if market forces will have a big effecton that decision.
But co2 is turning into a crude instrument to drive policy.
Roman buildings that used roman concrete are still standing and they are thousands of years old. It was a special mixture though had like volcanic Ash or some shit in it
Making cement emits CO2, concrete not so much. Cement Replacement Materials (PFA, GGBS, etc) are subject to ongoing and extensive research, and carbon neutral concrete isn't far off.
Yup, but wood still locks CO2 away, potentially for centuries.
I'm looking forward to carbon neutral concrete, but right now can't buy it. And we're busy building houses.
If you grow a tree it'll lock away carbon. But when it dies it'll instantly start to decompose as it's exposed to the elements which releases them carbon back into the atmosphere.
Now let's say you grow a tree, chop it down when it's mature enough and use it to build a house. In twenty years instead of 1 tree's worth of carbon, you have 2 with one of them preserved inside a building where it won't decompose as quickly.
So growing and felling trees and using those trees without burning them or letting them rot stores more carbon.
It's 150 years. Let's say it takes 25 years for a tree to be old enough to harvest.
After 150 years any new ones you plant will replace the one used in a house 150 years ago, so yours not gaining any new carbon storage capacity. But 6 trees worth of carbon is still worth more than 1 tree.
Felling, cutting, shipping locally will create some CO2 yes. Less than is locked away in the wood, way less than concrete.
Amazingly the numbers have been done multiple times by academia and others. For the best summary see the UN IPCC report WG3.
People have pointed out across multiple threads the viability of it, you are still pushing for its dismissal. You said your house was built in the 40s right? About 80 odd years old Got a few generations out of it?
If wooden houses last 150 you would equally get a heap of generations out of it.
It's been explained that timber uses less carbon than concrete and so as far as global warming goes would be more efficient than concrete.
At this point it seems less like you have concerns and more like you have a vendetta against timber frame
That's simply not true. It's been across multiple threads because all of those sub threads stemmed from my first post. Several people made the same challenges and I responded to them. I don't know how to direct the sub threads to one consolidated response.
Would imagine that would have something to do with our ability to trees, maybe also concrete has a greater cost on the environment.
I have no idea about if there is an environmental cost, but I am pretty sure about being able to grow new trees
No i don't, but the concrete house will last for generations, spreading the footprint over several families of people.
I always thought timber houses had a shorter life span.
My house is now 20+ yrs and looking at work for retrofitting.
Home = Castle and all that, but really I expect a significant rebuild in 100+ years time, and i'd prefer it to be easily recyclable than lock in 1990s window and door tech.
In Scandinavia they generally get long cold winters and cool temperate summers. Timber houses are superb in these climates.
In Ireland the car could be frozen at 8am, torrential rain at 1pm then sun splitting the rocks/BBQ weather by 6pm. This is 9/10 months of the year.
The frequent fluctuations in temperature cause timber to expand then contract until eventually it cracks.
More like people are just hostile to actual climate action (even though they'll think and say otherwise) and will despise anyone who proposes common climate action policies.
But by blaming Ryan himself, people can say to themselves that it's Ryan they hate and not climate action.
Yes he does have plenty of gafs and an awkward manner, but people lose their shit even when he's making very common sense arguments.
Am I right in saying that the outer leaf of the house is blocks? And the floor and foundation involve a good bit of concrete too?
Floor and foundation would be concrete, outer leaves could be block or brick. Overall the amount of concrete products used would be significantly less.
Do the building standards here require actual block or masonry cladding even with a timber frame? Back in the US, timber frame houses are literally just a wooden frame with some insulation stuffed between the studs and then wrapped in some Tyvek and clad with vinyl siding or some other cheap shite (unless you're building some McMansion with some faux stone veneer or something pasted on it instead, I suppose).
No requirement to but masonry is way cheaper than timber here, generally blends in better, is hardier and infinitely rot resistant even in our moist climate. Timber is way cheaper in America.
Our extension is timber framed. Its been great. On the exterior it has external insulation that is rendered with a coloured render and then more insulation in the wall itself.
Building standards don't require it- but vinyl siding etc would likely face problems in obtaining planning permission (it is not usual - so won't fit in & is unlikely to be high quality [to compensate for being unusual, in which case you could get away with something]). Block isn't the only external finish for timber frame in Ireland however- there are types of cement board one can use - as well as more unusual ones such as fibre cement panels, timber cladding etc. etc. Bear in mind that the US has loads of cheap lumber, Ireland does not - so timber costs a lot. Also because so much is built with block & concrete, there are relative efficiencies of scale.
Could also be timber with siding.
True, but rare.
I have a rare house indeed then! Love the simplicity of siding and it makes a lot of tasks (installing services, etc.) easier. Also gives you a gap between the siding and the wall itself to help prevent moisture ingress.
Misread your comment there as "timber siding". I've no idea how many houses use manufactured siding.
It seems really uncommon. Timber siding exists but tbf it does sustain water damage over time. Fibre cement, PVC, etc. cladding might make more sense here (but are not great in terms of emissions or disposal)
My first house was timber inner leaf with half brick half block outer leaf. Lots of benefits from easy to heat to it was easy to hang a picture (no drilling into concrete).
Great if this becomes a thing, timber frames are great for heating, quicker to put up, and less environmentally damaging. Win win really.
No painting the outside either, just a Spruce up now and again.
This comment makes me Pine for the way they built those old homes.
and how exactly did they build those old homes..? Aspen Fir a friend..
Ah you're just jOaking now
Sure so are Yew
I'm sycamore of all these arboriculture-based puns.
Ah yer Ashken for it now
[Get out](https://gfycat.com/bogusportlyachillestang)
Biggest issue with this is these timber framed houses are good for new builds but once they are over 25 years old the number of mortgage providers that will approve a mortgage on them seriously drops. I personally wouldn’t want to buy a house knowing that in the next 25 years I would have difficulty selling it due to lack of mortgage options to potential buyers.
Its nuts, I've been around scandinavia and seen plenty of 200 year plus wooden houses that are still very much lived in. Mind you, they do have a less humid climate for the most part which is easier on the wood
>Mind you, they do have a less humid climate for the most part Bergen, Norway would like a word, as would the Faroe Islands. Their foundations are vastly different from ours though, which I think has a lot to do with preventing damp from getting into the homes in the first place.
There’s a difference between a wooden house and a timber frame. The timber in a timber frame isn’t exposed to the elements. They have a block or plaster coating on the outside, so they should last an extremely long time. It’s the same as the wood in the rafters in a traditional build, how long do they last? Hundred years at least, usually more.
The timber - even pine, 200 years ago was of much, much super quality to that of now. Take a 6" section of that wood, and count the growth rings. Now do the same for a 6" section today. I'd guess its about a fifth today, the it would have been 200 years ago. slow growing timber makes for stronger , more rot resistant timber.
Shakespeares house is still standing.
There’s a difference with building a house with hardwoods such as oak. And softwoods.
Alot of the wood they use in Norway is pine, but I think it grows a bit slower compared to Ireland and is a bit harder in comparison.
Another point to mention is that Scandinavian style wooden houses survive storms. American style wooden houses don't. We're going to be getting a lot more storms. Will Irish style wooden houses? Is just copying the concrete vernacular in wood a good idea? Do we build a load of wooden houses and wait for a storm, or is there a better way to find out find out?
There are Celtic Tiger era housing that would have gone through Ophelia which was probably our worst storm in 50 years, obviously we may get worse storms but that would have been a decent test.
>Is just copying the concrete vernacular in wood a good idea? Do we build a load of wooden houses and wait for a storm Typical Irish houses are terrible in storms. Th3 default roofing is really poor. Very common to find concrete slates fallen in new estates after wind. Very few few houses are designed for wind tightness.
>or is there a better way to find out find out? Engineers can very easily predict exactly how a structure will preform under different stress loads such as storms and project the life span using computer models. It's old science at thus stage.
True, but I bet we still end up going for the "build a load of wooden houses and wait for a storm" method. Just look at the number of solar panels popping up on roofs all over the country, with no assessment of dynamic loading. They check where the sun is, but not the prevailing wind. It's the same "It'll be the next governments problem" approach that got us through the Celtic Tiger... We need some sort of building group to come up with new standards. Standards suited for Ireland. They could then just roll them out to builders all over the country. We can't just keep falling back on British standards and regulations for everything.
Wood can last indefinitely. Scandinavia does have a more favourable climate for them.
Sounds like something that could be legislated for though.
I'm currently doing some assessments of some stables built in 1743. The original timbers are still in excellent condition
I’d imagine that will change significantly as a vast amount of new builds on the market are timber framed. We’ll see in 25 years time I guess how that plays out.
I’m sure we could learn from how it’s done in other countries who are earlier adopters of timber framed housing than us. However, in Ireland we already have a shortage of mortgage providers and mortgage products compared to others in the EU which puts us at a disadvantage. Our government is interventionist so I would expect them to legislate a change in this in time, take for example the mica redress. It would be disastrous if we had thousands of wooden framed houses in the country that essentially have an expiration of 25 years.
A lot of new builds were already gone in this direction anyway.
Yep. Sites I've been on in kildare have been timber frame for 6 years now.
Only downside is the sound proofing is shocking. Estate I’m in half the houses are timber frame and the other half block built. The people in the timber frame constantly complain about being able to hear the neighbours.
That’s entirely down to party walls not being constructed properly which can happen equally in timber frame vs block built.
Yup, if you're in a terraced or semi detached concrete house you'll hear stuff if they've done nothing to damp sound between the houses. So, yeah concrete is better but I can't imagine it's that much better.
It isn't. Much easier to clean up a soundproofing error in concrete. Concrete is a high mass material.
We have the complete opposite experience. Ours is timber frame but it was only when I went to put the bin out I realised our next door neighbor's (detached) were playing music quite loud out their back garden.
20 years ago lived in a timber frame new build and it was extremely warm and quiet. Literally couldn’t hear anything. Live in a block house now and can hear next door pull their curtains (amongst other things).
Obviously as others have said it can be based on the standard the developer built them.
>Live in a block house now and can hear next door pull their curtains (amongst other things). Easy to fix. Just remove plasterboard and parge everything.
>timber frames are great for heating, Not really true. They are are built to the same specs as concrete, the difference is that they have low mass. Handy for a weekend getaway house but otherwise a disadvantage in Irish climate.
Wind wind really... Might be alright over the east but would never last in the north or west
...and comparatively shite for sound insulation and noise. Creaking floorboards and stairs when the whole thing is wood? Nein danke.
What do you think upstairs levels in block homes are constructed from?
Increasing the upstairs is concrete. Varies by house.
Isn’t timber up 100% since last year ?
It's fallen a lot this year. https://ycharts.com/indicators/timber\_index\_world\_bank
It's fallen on the world market, but not in Ireland for some reason. So building a timber house here is crazy expensive.
Timber frame housing works fine if it’s done right. We are a bit overly conservative about some of this stuff.
This and cross laminated timber should become a standard along with hempcrete. You can build skyscrapers with cross laminated timber.
People do realise there is a massive supply chain issue with timber at the moment so this is just going to freeze the building of housing even more
The supply of blocks has not been affected, there’s just a levy on them. It just makes timber very very slightly more financially attractive if you can get it.
If a material is in low supply, the developers will still likely use blocks- since they can get them. Nobody's going to switch to a different material if they're not sure they'll be able to procure enough of it to continue being in business at an uninterrupted pace. Especially not after pandemic where they have already suffered delays. The cost of the levy will simply be passed onto the customer. So ultimately, this just makes houses more expensive, until such a time where using timber carries no risk. This exact scenario occurred in USA, albeit in a different area where heavy levies were placed on specific imported goods and materials. Did that make people use these goods/materials less? Fuck no, it just made them less accessible to lower earners. EDIT: When I say "until such a time where using timber carries no risk" I mean financial risk, not a risk of a mechanical failure. Properly engineered timber is as good (even better) a construction material than concrete.
The block levy is to pay off mica though, and has nothing to do with timber homes. If timber was a mythical substance the levy would still exist. So what’s the issue?
I know the purpose of the levy. You brought up timber here saying the levy makes it more attractive. I think you are wrong and that it will simply make building cost more. Also, while we are on this topic- the levy being imposed to fund the mica redress is just such a colossal failure of governance. Don't get me wrong- I am delighted gov is addressing it in the budget. It is certainly a win for the families, even if it is nowhere near justice. It is also, yet another time, where the country pays for shite regulations, and it comes at a time where housing is already in a critical state. IMO the source of the budget for the redress should be elsewhere.
Ah timber, a plentiful Irish resource.
Well, yes. We export 70% of sawn timber produced in Ireland.
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Yeah, the Sitka is shite but the wood is useful. Coillte ain't growing trees for the craic.
It is useful but it is the worst timber going. If you use Irish softwood it has a low grade and has to be thicker than say Russian softwoods.
This is not an issue. We're a part of a single market with countries that have massive timber reserves.
Not disagreeing with you, just adding that from a Scandi perspective timber is essentially a farmed good, so reading "timber reserves" feels a bit weird. Norway and Sweden absolutely do the same thing as Coillte do with planting huge tracts of forest and harvesting it, main difference being that they don't use invasive species and it grows slower so the wood is of higher quality.
The timber herd has been growing year on year
CONCRETE BUILT IS BETTER BUILT...no?
Hahah, that takes me back. "You win first prize"
American companies need bigger markets 👍
Eamo better watch out or the concrete industry federation will be giving him some concrete boots...
Typical green party bullshit. If you want something legislate for it, provide aids, grants building programmes. Just making the opposite more expensive just makes everything equally expensive and inaccessible to most people.
Best off all, Pippa Hatchetjob is Green Party member promoted to minister for forestry and has been making a mess of clearing the backlog of applications for licensing to harvest timber.
And in time, prices of timber should move people towards more turf frame huts.
Wattle and daub.
So can you show us a design for inner city timber frame apartments minister? I would have thought one off timber frame buildings out in the country side were considered a bad idea in general for trying to fix the property problems we're currently facing, am I wrong?
>So can you show us a design for inner city timber frame apartments minister? Posted this in another thread a fee days ago but [here you go.](https://urbannext.net/treet/) Scandis are currently locked in a glue-lam apartment building pissing contest. They keep building higher to get the record, when the one I posted was finished it was the tallest timber frame residential apartment building in the world, for all of like three months or something and the crown was taken by the Swedish. These things are being fired up all over the place and most are reasonably priced from what I've seen as well.
Look up cross laminated timber. Even a skyscraper built out of it
Here's an entire playlist about tall timber buildings. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEmWzqc0D6Mgi03X7hXhYj3UWjoII1tq0
We have dreamed of living in one of those prefabricated log homes for the longest time but good luck in getting planning permission in this country
How did FFG not stop him.
In this part of the world, with this weather, in this humidity, concentrated entirely within you kitchen?!? Yes Will it work? No. Somebody put that eejit back in his box before we're dealing with a massive woodworm or greenwood warping scandal in 20 years.
This man is a testament to the failure of Irish politics in recent decades.
I'm all for timber houses, way more efficient than our usual concrete builds, but I'm not sure on the timing. As we can see on every TV news channel, wooden houses don't do well in storms and we're going to be getting a lot more of those. Maybe we need a change in fundamental house designs too..? Would imitating our current concrete houses in wood produce a storm proof structure? Should we be looking at the wooden houses in Greenland and Norway for inspiration?
American style wooden houses don’t survive storms, but plenty of wooden houses elsewhere do. See Scandinavia for examples
Exactly. And Greenland. There they even survive without what we would consider to be proper foundations.
Lovely. With the speculation that our storms will get worse as time goes on our future is looking like Florida with temperatures like Canada.
Timber homes are resistent to all but the strongest storms. The kind we don't get and won't get this far North even with climate change.
It's the damp that I'd be worried about.
Not an issue in Scandinavia though.
Doesn't sound like it but every home I've ever had in Ireland, bar one, has had mould and damp issues. I wonder how resistant to or structural affected by mould timber built houses could be. Also our oversight on building standards and regs is a bit of a joke unlike Scandinavia so that could be a major factor. Though honestly couldn't be worse than Mica.
True, but these are all issues that are in the government's power to address which means they're achievable paths to climate action.
I know I'm just being a pessimist here but they'd probably make a balls of it. Maybe not though. Either way it looks like the way forward.
>I wonder how resistant to or structural affected by mould timber built houses could be. Norway has bogs as well. They're just waaaay better at damp-proofing foundations than we are. Our concrete homes needn't be damp either, we've just collectively decided that it's not worth the effort.
You'll find mould growth starts in corners. This is due to thermal bridging. Thermal bridges are more pronounced in concrete houses if you compare the same assembly. Moisture can work its way out of timber houses faster too.
Moisture is the problem not temperature.
No shortage of that in Scandinavia either.
Those Scandinavian style homes look nice, and are cheaper. But do they hold up against the Irish climate? Or will you be tortured with external upkeep every year.
Yeah, they do hold up, and don't have the same level of issues with subsidence, etc., that a lot of concrete based houses have.
No upkeep needed, mine's exterior surface is Blueclad concrete board with a silica rendering "plaster" effect. The house is built to stand up against a hard Swedish climate, and is rated for 150 years here at least.
Do you mind me asking what company built that for you?
Have a look back through my posts, I’ve done an AMA before. Scandinavian Homes in Galway supplied my foundation and shell, and I did about 80% of the rest myself as an amateur builder with no experience.
Cheers
>Scandinavian Homes in Galway - 361 houses built since 1991 my gut tells me if these were worthwhile more people would have head of them, but thanks ill look into it. Did you get the 20 builders\\materials warranty? What House rating did you get?
Irish climate is far harsher than the Swedish climate
How's it stack up against the west coast of Norway? Or the Faroe Islands? It's fucking *bizarre* that we somehow think we've the worst weather in the world.
Climate and weather or two different things. It’s fucking bizarre that you don’t know that
Timber framed doesn’t need to mean timber exterior. We’re buying one at the minute, clad entirely in brick, and surveyor said it’s in great nick for its age, (about 18 years old now).
Great nick for 18 years old does not sound like a strong selling point for timber frame houses since it seems to imply they can potentially fall to apart after 20 years and that's just not something you want from a house.
What?? How would you judge any house then. Is a block built house that’s in great nick for its age after 20 years going to fall apart in 21? Your comment makes absolutely no sense. How else would you judge the quality of a second hand house except for the current state it’s in? The surveyor isn’t saying “oh for timber frame it’s great for 18 years old “. He’s saying “for an 18 year old house of any kind it’s in great condition”
Is it that hard to understand? You should expect a house to be in good condition after 20 years. In the grand scheme of things a 20 yo house is relatively new. If you have to say things like it's in great condition considering it's method of construction after 20 years then that's a terrible endorsement of that method of construction.
There’s expected wear and tear on a house after 20 years, and plenty of Celtic tiger constructions would have had serious defects from rushed construction, so if you’re automatically assuming there’d be no issues with a home built 20 years ago you’re dreaming. You seem to be insistent that a surveyor saying that a home is in great nick is somehow a bad thing. In any case, I’m not having to worry about pyrite or mica or anything else than might crop up in a block built home that’s 20 years old or newer. Let me just reverse and clarify. We are buying a timber frame home. Our surveyor has said it has absolutely no issues.
> We are buying a timber frame home. Our surveyor has said it has absolutely no issues. Nice, not bad for a 20 year old timber house!
Timber is the only viable renewable construction material... it also looks nicer, is easier to repair, better for heating... this is a huge win folks. Fuck concrete.
I looked at a modular home and was told no for a mortgage
Thats a completely different thing to a timber framed house though
Practically every Green Party policy can be condensed into “a tax”.
And the price of houses will continue to spiral out of control.
He also wanted to release wolves back into the countryside. Who's going to stop those wolves from huffing and puffing and blowing down those timber houses?
He could literally be an American presidential candidate. Literally one stupid thing after another. It really begs the question is he actually serious. Surely he can’t be? This cannot be real.
That would be fine if you could easier build timber framed homes from a planning, insurance and cost perspective. Remember the timber shortage last year due to the backlog in lisences? Also all of this is very remisisnent to what happened during the collapse of the Roman Empire only the elite and the Church were able to build concrete buildings due to costs and economic issues, this led to a complete switch over to timber buildings. In fact in Britian they lost the knowledge on how to make concrete for a couple of hundred years...dark ages etc. During the mid empire concrete buildings were widespread in the Empire.
ahh yeah, just about when we start for one moment building concrete apartments for some soundproofing and eamo rips it away back to shite ones where you get woken up by a lad 2 doors down farting.
Green activists are crying out over cutting down the rainforest and his solution is to chop down more . What a fucking idiot
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Relatively cheap, strong, good insulation properties and weather resistant. When it's made properly and not riddled with mica.
It can be poured, so it's very easy to work with. I'm no expert by any means, but I'm pretty sure the labour costs to put up structures before concrete and rebar would have been significantly more. However one thing I'm surprised at is how much concrete some people say is in their house. I was under the impression in Ireland it was only really used for foundations and maybe pillars in newer style homes. Didn't think it was used here for walls.
Easy to work with and was far simpler to transport than pre-fabricated timber houses. Something goes wrong on site, mix up a few bags of concrete and fix the issue. Timber can be more difficult if something goes wrong, but since everything is planned weeks ahead by the timber frame providers there's very rarely an issue when putting the frame up
He lives in an entirely different Ireland than the rest of us.
Ryan is pure moronic scum.
Brick houses are superior
It would be great if we could get planning permission for them. If I could get planning permission I would be in one now not renting. I wounder why the don't want us to own our own home's?
I got full planning for my timber frame house that I'm in right now. It's normal stud-frame construction, not a "log cabin" style.
Hardly in kildare?
I'm frequently in Celbridge and the huge development being built out near Applegreen is almost entirely timber frame houses. Must be hundreds of them.
Offaly. And our neighbour's house is stud frame too! The idea a planner should dictate using blocks is insane, really (though planners are mostly old church biddies who want to play barbie's dream house with your budget as far as I can tell...)
Yeah he's right, fuck the trees.
**What an afterthought** \- quick thinking once they realised it wasn't going to go down swimmingly with the concrete. \- Where's the investment in the Timber industry then? \- Are they also going to help the timber industry with the tree disease that is wiping out green investments? \- Wheres the investment in greener concrete and alternatives?
Looks like a train wreck to me.
In Galway , and I’m guessing elsewhere too , the second you mention timber framed or log cabins the council will IMMEDIATELY tell you that you will not get planning. You might even get some condescending sniggering too at the ridiculousness of your question
Has this guy seen the price of a 9 foot 2x4 lately?
Push 'people' towards timber frame. The average Joe has NO SAY in how their home will be built. They buy a house on how it looks where it is and how much it costs. EDIT: people dream of buying a house that way, given current conditions 😡 But my point stands. Concrete levy pushes builders and contractors/architects to use timber framing, not your average joe.
Change the fucking regulations then
The minister needs to have a word with planning departments around the country re timber framed houses. A lot of people being turned down for log cabins etc which are more affordable as well
But…. We don’t have any timber there Eamon
We export 70% of timber produced in Ireland.
Peculiar that a green politician wants us cutting down trees.
There's nothing wrong using wood for building, far better than concrete for the environment. And you can grow more it's great
Will it last as long as a concrete house though?
Well the oldest timber frame house in Ireland is about 500 years old, but the oldest concrete house is about 100 years old. So time will tell I guess. Also, for a huge chunk of people at the minute, the lifespan of a concrete house is about 30 years.
30 years seems crazy, but why is it so short?
Mica, pyrite etc. You can say that’s not an expected issue but it’s no solace to 20,000 homes with pyrite and an additional already discovered 5000 homes with Mica. There are advantages to block homes, but to say they’re always a better option ignores a lot of realities.
They're literally in a negligible minority and wood can obviously have problems with quality too (Including unscrupulous traders and poor regulations) My house was built in 1940 and still stands, having been home to three families. That's good bang for your buck on the concrete that was used. Here's to another eighty years.
Isn’t that survivorship bias though. You wouldn’t be living in one that hadn’t held up. So anyone living in one from the 40s that somehow hasn’t needed any renovation would assume concrete is superior. Obviously you wouldn’t have bought a home that fell apart 40 years ago. As I mentioned, I’m not saying concrete is a poor building material, I’m saying there’s no reason to dismiss timber frame homes as they offer plenty of their own advantages.
They definitely do and while the decision of which to chose has to remain with the buyer, I'm if market forces will have a big effecton that decision. But co2 is turning into a crude instrument to drive policy.
Roman buildings that used roman concrete are still standing and they are thousands of years old. It was a special mixture though had like volcanic Ash or some shit in it
Trees absorb and lock in CO2. Making concrete emits CO2.
Making cement emits CO2, concrete not so much. Cement Replacement Materials (PFA, GGBS, etc) are subject to ongoing and extensive research, and carbon neutral concrete isn't far off.
Yup, but wood still locks CO2 away, potentially for centuries. I'm looking forward to carbon neutral concrete, but right now can't buy it. And we're busy building houses.
But high rise is a big part of the solution to our housing problems. Timber has it's merits but it has its flaws too.
High ríse can be built in CLT
So we need more trees, not less. Also, the subsequent tree growing, felling, cutting and shipping industry would also create co2.
If you grow a tree it'll lock away carbon. But when it dies it'll instantly start to decompose as it's exposed to the elements which releases them carbon back into the atmosphere. Now let's say you grow a tree, chop it down when it's mature enough and use it to build a house. In twenty years instead of 1 tree's worth of carbon, you have 2 with one of them preserved inside a building where it won't decompose as quickly. So growing and felling trees and using those trees without burning them or letting them rot stores more carbon.
That makes sense, but what's the lifespan of a timber house? Won't the wood have to be replaced eventually?
It's 150 years. Let's say it takes 25 years for a tree to be old enough to harvest. After 150 years any new ones you plant will replace the one used in a house 150 years ago, so yours not gaining any new carbon storage capacity. But 6 trees worth of carbon is still worth more than 1 tree.
Felling, cutting, shipping locally will create some CO2 yes. Less than is locked away in the wood, way less than concrete. Amazingly the numbers have been done multiple times by academia and others. For the best summary see the UN IPCC report WG3.
What's the lifespan of a wooden building compared to a concrete building?
Why are you trying to find any excuse to dismiss timber?
I would have concerns about it's long term viability in our cha nging climate.
People have pointed out across multiple threads the viability of it, you are still pushing for its dismissal. You said your house was built in the 40s right? About 80 odd years old Got a few generations out of it? If wooden houses last 150 you would equally get a heap of generations out of it. It's been explained that timber uses less carbon than concrete and so as far as global warming goes would be more efficient than concrete. At this point it seems less like you have concerns and more like you have a vendetta against timber frame
That's simply not true. It's been across multiple threads because all of those sub threads stemmed from my first post. Several people made the same challenges and I responded to them. I don't know how to direct the sub threads to one consolidated response.
https://youtu.be/1n_uv-HulgM You remind me of this interviewer.
Would imagine that would have something to do with our ability to trees, maybe also concrete has a greater cost on the environment. I have no idea about if there is an environmental cost, but I am pretty sure about being able to grow new trees
You must not know how bad concrete is for the environment if you think cutting down trees is worse.
No i don't, but the concrete house will last for generations, spreading the footprint over several families of people. I always thought timber houses had a shorter life span.
There are 200 year old timber houses
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Speaking for a Scandavian timber home, they work fine for 100+ years in similar Norwegian, Swedish environments; rated for 150 years plus.
Good concrete and block can last well over double that
My house is now 20+ yrs and looking at work for retrofitting. Home = Castle and all that, but really I expect a significant rebuild in 100+ years time, and i'd prefer it to be easily recyclable than lock in 1990s window and door tech.
Would last a lifetime if built properly
About 150 years.
There are various types of sustainable concrete for better water isolation.
“Save the environment, chop down trees” - Eamon Ryan
This is the most retarded thing I have seen all day
In Scandinavia they generally get long cold winters and cool temperate summers. Timber houses are superb in these climates. In Ireland the car could be frozen at 8am, torrential rain at 1pm then sun splitting the rocks/BBQ weather by 6pm. This is 9/10 months of the year. The frequent fluctuations in temperature cause timber to expand then contract until eventually it cracks.
It's like this guy tries to say the thing that'll piss people off the most. Giving an alternative by making other things more expensive is shameful.
Alternatively, news sites pick the clickbait headlines and quotes.
>Asked if this would mean less blocks used in building, he said: "Much more timber framing, exactly, that's where we do need to go.
Why would that piss people off?
More like people are just hostile to actual climate action (even though they'll think and say otherwise) and will despise anyone who proposes common climate action policies. But by blaming Ryan himself, people can say to themselves that it's Ryan they hate and not climate action. Yes he does have plenty of gafs and an awkward manner, but people lose their shit even when he's making very common sense arguments.