Research Proposal
Discuss about the Performance Evaluation Of Mainstream Timber Framed.
The research topic for this research proposal is ‘An investigation into benefits of Timber v Masonary Construction’. This is one of the most debated topics in United Kingdom’s construction industry and the discussion is more prevalent when it is about construction of homes (Bailey, 2016). There are many factors which are in consideration here and each one of them is equally important to qualify which would be better raw method for such usage. When one builds a home there are various aspects which are drawn into it, everybody has some factor or the other under consideration. For some it is about the durability of the method used, for others it is about how the final outcome pleases the eye. Some other factors which are also at play here are cost involved, time involved in building the place, environmental friendliness of the method used. This debate on which method to be used among timber frame or masonry is long running and in this research we will explore the factors which can go in decision making and how one method stands against the other (Blagg, 2016).
It is very important to understand that there is quite marked difference between the two methods. The timber frame is usually prepared in the factory and delivered in the site by means of truck. However masonry is laid on the site of development and all the required material are available locally. Both the construction methods which are in discussion here have their own sets of pro’s and con’s and it is not about which one is better over the other, rather it is about which one is suitable to you the customer. We will be exploring all the said factors and then concluding on the basis of this research.
For this piece of research we will be relying on the combination of qualitative and quantitative. We will be conducting some secondary literature review and see what are the important points under consideration in this industry. Post this we will reach out to developers, manufacturers and customer in this industry with a set questionnaire to understand the pattern. We will be also conducting detailed open interviews with the important people in the industry so that we can get some qualitative insights from the industry. The paper will also explore some research papers on the subject where we can gather some important insights related to the subject. The questionnaire will be circulated via emails to 50 people in the industry and then non-heterogeneous sampling will be applied to analyse and conclude from the information gathered.
Research Methodology
Majority of the houses in United Kingdom has historically adopted Masonry construction and the result is sharply visible in England. As per research around 70% of the new self builds are built with this traditional technique. This number is very high and it shows the kind of incline people have in this region. The key strength of this form of construction is seen in the strength of the whole system, strong internal walls and the capacity to bear the weight of upper floors. Everything in this case is built on site and hence it has a lengthy time attached to the whole process. In harsh external environment like heavy rain or snow, it might become difficult to construct the house (Campbell, Bill, Pan, Baker, Driver, Heaton, Tutton, Wall & Yeomans, 2016). The labours in this space are easily available and skilled labours are easily available. Stage wise development is also good for the cash flow and mortgage can be easily planned and does not involve any major balloon payment. This kind of construction is very forgiving and minor error in engineering design can easily be corrected and does not involve any major cost aspect.
Timber frame method is now highly popular with self-builders and as per estimates 22% of the new homes are built using this method. This kind of construction method is highly popular in the Scotland region. In this kind of construction there is no need to build internal load bearing walls (Dizhur, Giaretton, Giongo & Ingham, 2017. The frame in this kind of construction method is pre-fabricated in the factories and hence weather has no bearing on the construction time-frame. However it is also important to note that construction of these time frames in factories is a time taking process and hence one need to prepare for this initial gestation period. This process also involves highly skilled labour force and also involves initial outlay of cash (Du?u, Sakata & Yamazaki, 2015).
We will be exploring all the important factors under consideration in details for both kinds of methods. In this section we will also explore some other research papers which talk about the kind of durability both the structure presents.
One of the most important points under consideration here is the cost difference between the two methods. It has been historically that major decision in this space considers costs to be one of the most important factors. Over the years it was perceived that timber frame method is little more expensive than the other, however the advocates of the timber frame method has highlighted that most of this extra expense is clawed back as usage of timber frame method reduces the tenor of construction and in turn reducing the overhead and finance cost associated with construction.
Literature review
However this factor has seen a lot of change off late. The main reason for the same is the fact that Blocklayers have become expensive over a time period and hence reducing the cost advantage over the timber frame method. On the other hand the timber frame has lost the speed advantage, as the factories developing the timber frames have lot of order backlog and hence it takes lot of time from an order to the delivery onsite. Hence both cost advantage and speed advantage has nullified each other over the last decade (Du?u, Sakata & Yamazaki, 2017).
Now one can easily state that there is no such cost difference between the two methods nowadays, hence this factor has lost its relevance over the period of time. As a thumb rule it has been seen in the industry that masonry fixes and sits better behind a brick or a stone skin and timber frame sits and fits better with lightweight external timber skin.
As seen in the earlier section, most of the said time advantage has been nullified. However there are certain situations when one can still create some advantage points. It has been seen that factory-produced homes are erected on the site in matter of few days. Once erection of these homes is done, internal finishes work can be started right away. However as timber has lost some time advantage, it takes lot of time to get the timber frame ready in factories which can lead to lengthy delays in the project. However the NHBC, still estimates that one can save three month of time if he/she chooses timber of masonry method (Dutu, Sakata, Yamazaki & Shindo, 2015).
The availability of the product is also very critical in determining which method one should choose and at times for few decision makers it might become one of the single most important determinants. All the items that are required for masonry method are available with local merchants who trade in construction products. When one talks about buildability, it is not only the availability of the raw material; it is also about the awareness of the workers with the method. Most of the labour work forces in construction industry are much more aware about the masonry method and hence they themselves push for this method. Timber frame is only more prevalent in the area of Scotland in the whole of United Kingdom (Dutu, Yamazaki & Sakata, 2018).
Cost difference between the two methods
As per members of Halifax Valuation and Surveying services, they are of the view that properly constructed timber frame houses with proper external cladding are as good as the house which has been built by brick and block. The organisation further goes on to say that they make no differentiation in their lending policy for either form of construction. For guarantee purposes NHBC and few municipalities it has been said that timber frame method is preferred. As per the insurance regulator, insurance companies don’t draw any distinction between the two methods.
As per a recent survey by SmartLIFE, there are set of public attitudes observed for the determination of selling price of the property. These set of attitudes which were observed in the survey are listed below:
- Among few homebuyers, sentiments are very strong for brick made houses. This also explains why so many home builders end up choosing brick exterior on houses which are built on frames.
- Majority of the public surveyed had no idea on which form of construction has been used at their house.
- If one is offered spacious, energy efficient home at an affordable price, people don’t care on what their home is built on.
This is also one of the factors which impact decision making in the form of construction to be chosen. In case of timber frame homes a contract need to be in place with the manufacturer few months before the delivery of the frames. This contract also requires hefty amount to be paid in advance and hence put a very heavy initial strain on the cash flow. This will impact the way in which one plans to set up his/her mortgage. So the decision making in setting up mortgage is also a function of the kind of construction you desire (Galassi, Ruggieri & Tempesta, 2015).
This argument used to exist two decades back and this discussion has moved on in the industry. Various aspects of research has shown it is now not an important factor for discussion. Energy efficiency of a home is a function of good insulation, design aspects and the various on-site building practises adopted and many other things. The difference between wall performance has now marginalised to larger extent and this factor is no more of importance and discussion, however some mis-selling happen in the industry to the not so informed customer by talking about this factor and making it a selling point (Giaretton, Dizhur, da Porto & Ingham, 2017).
The oldest cliché which exist in this industry that timber frame home are exposed to more risk of fire and hence should not be considered. However modern day housing regulations and strict fireproofing methods along with dry lining has now made fire a non-issue. The government has gone out on record and mentioned that people should not worry about the wrongly stated fact that timber frame presents more risk of fire. It has also been seen that rot and infestation is also not a concern, if the wet wood of the house if any is allowed to dry down properly (Gonçalves, Ferreira, Guerreiro & Branco, 2015). As per industry standards and observation, it has been seen that rot and infestation can only occur if the wet content of any wood piece is more than 20%.
Speed of construction
Author (Khatib, 2016) explores about seismic vulnerability of some historical masonry mosques in Bangladesh. As per the paper, ancient masonry structures are vulnerable to dynamic action especially the one seismic in nature. In the last few decades we have seen no major earthquakes in the region; however in the past major earthquakes the masonry structures of the region didn’t seemed durable. The method involved in this method includes immediate screening of some mosques in the region of Bangladesh and see how the same has behaved and what durability quotient is there (Kouris, Kappos, 2014). The geometrical data gathered during the research threw up interesting aspects which are important in the decision making process. The research concluded that ancient masonry structures are dynamically vulnerable to such dynamic loads and can have large time bearing impacts on the durability of the structure (Kouris, Kappos, 2015).
A common form course includes contracting in experts and exchanges to outline and construct your home, with a primary contractual worker in charge of the structure. The option for self-developers is bundle organizations, who will do a few/the greater part of the procedure for you. You can pick the level of contribution you need, and diverse organizations work with various form frameworks and have distinctive outlines: some will just form in green oak, while others offer a scope of frameworks, for example, Potton, which incorporates SIPs (Kingspan TEK) in its more extensive scope of timber outlines. One or more of this framework is that plan charges are generally incorporated into the cost, keeping the in advance expenses to a base, and you don’t have to get impeded in sourcing subcontractors in the event that you would prefer not to. Expenses change as per the plan, framework and materials, and furthermore the level of administration you require. Numerous timber-outline organizations will take the house to water-tight, while others offer a more entire bundle (Mouzakis, Adami, Karapitta & Vintzileou, 2018). The upside of working with bundle organizations is that they are utilized to little scale extends, and will have the capacity to offer assistance and counsel, and additionally give you a nitty gritty bill of amounts at an early stage, helping your spending remain on track. On the off chance that you need to have a functioning part in the construct let them know right off the bat to ensure that the two sides of the assemble are upbeat. Bundle manufactures are amazingly prominent with ‘time-poor’ self-developers, as they take a decent lot of the worry of the procedure (Robson, 2015). Timber frame method is now highly popular with self-builders and as per estimates 22% of the new homes are built using this method. This kind of construction method is highly popular in the Scotland region. In this kind of construction there is no need to build internal load bearing walls. The frame in this kind of construction method is pre-fabricated in the factories and hence weather has no bearing on the construction time-frame. However it is also important to note that construction of these time frames in factories is a time taking process and hence one need to prepare for this initial gestation period. This process also involves highly skilled labour force and also involves initial outlay of cash (Ruggieri, Sandhaas & Ceccotti, 2016).
Availability
Effective timber outline homes require a persistent dampness penetrable layer to within dividers and large amounts of protection to convey the perfect of a fixed, warm holding envelope. The dividers of a square house with a depression of 100mm will be thicker to suit the measure of protection to make this genuine. In any case, there are staggering advances in lightweight Aercrete square, basic protected boards (SIP), and outer protection changing the substance of both new forms and redesign to bring second-hand square houses to warm new life. Thick square manufactured dividers are delightfully cool in summer. Timber outline homes being significantly lighter, are more responsive to standard radiator encouraged warming frameworks, however are said to chill off more rapidly than the warm mass of simply brick work cases (Steinhardt, Manley, 2016). Majority of the houses in United Kingdom has historically adopted Masonry construction and the result is sharply visible in England. As per research around 70% of the new self builds are built with this traditional technique. This number is very high and it shows the kind of incline people have in this region. The key strength of this form of construction is seen in the strength of the whole system, strong internal walls and the capacity to bear the weight of upper floors. Everything in this case is built on site and hence it has a lengthy time attached to the whole process. In harsh external environment like heavy rain or snow, it might become difficult to construct the house. The labours in this space are easily available and skilled labours are easily available. Nonetheless, this is deceiving, as robust components, for example, stone hearths set at the focal point of open arrangement zones and poured solid ground surface can convey an extra inactive ‘warmth store’ for surrounding and sun powered pick up in a timber outline house.
Conclusion
Both these set of methods has their own set of pros and cons and each one of them is a very important while doing decision making. All these factors impact in one way or the other, and it is important that decision making in this regard is done in an informed manner. If the end consumers are informed in this regard, they won’t be taken for a ride by the industry participants. A right decision making process is very important and customers at end should understand how each factor can impact the whole process. Either of these methods has bearing on different aspect of consideration and neither of them is wrong or right in any manner. It is about which made is suitable to customer and the one he/she adopts. The primary research and detailed secondary research in the whole paper will throw more light and may bring up other important bearing factors which might have been missed in the synopsis. The primary research will also throw up light on what we have perceived by studying the secondary literature.
Insurance of the house and which one is preferred more while selling it
References:
Bailey, D., 2016. A performance evaluation of mainstream timber framed and traditional masonry housing in the UK(Doctoral dissertation, University of Nottingham).
Blagg, T.F.C., 2016. 13. First-century Roman houses in Gaul and Britain. The early Roman empire in the west, p.194.
Campbell, J., Bill, N., Pan, Y., Baker, N., Driver, M., Heaton, M., Tutton, M., Wall, C. and Yeomans, D., 2016. Further Studies in the History of Construction: the Proceedings of the Third Annual Conference of the Construction History Society: The Proceedings of the Third Annual Conference of the Construction History Society. Lulu. com.
Dizhur, D.Y., Giaretton, M., Giongo, I. and Ingham, J.M., 2017. Seismic retrofit of masonry walls using timber strong-backs. SESOC Journal, 30(2), p.30.
Du?u, A., Sakata, H. and Yamazaki, Y., 2015. Experimental study on timber-framed masonry structures. In Historical Earthquake-Resistant Timber Frames in the Mediterranean Area (pp. 67-81). Springer, Cham.
Du?u, A., Sakata, H. and Yamazaki, Y., 2017. Comparison between different types of connections and their influence on timber frames with masonry infill structures’ seismic behavior. In 16th world conference on earthquake engineering, 16WCEE.
Dutu, A., Sakata, H., Yamazaki, Y. and Shindo, T., 2015. In-plane behavior of timber frames with masonry infills under static cyclic loading. Journal of Structural Engineering, 142(2), p.04015140.
Dutu, A., Yamazaki, Y. and Sakata, H., 2018. Shear spring model proposed for seismic evaluation of a timber framed masonry infilled wall. Engineering Structures, 167, pp.671-682.
Galassi, S., Ruggieri, N. and Tempesta, G., 2015. Seismic Performance Evaluation of Timber—Framed Masonry Walls Experimental Tests and Numerical Modelling. In Historical Earthquake-Resistant Timber Frames in the Mediterranean Area (pp. 95-103). Springer, Cham.
Giaretton, M., Dizhur, D., da Porto, F. and Ingham, J.M., 2016, May. Construction details and observed earthquake performance of unreinforced clay brick masonry cavity-walls. In Structures (Vol. 6, pp. 159-169). Elsevier.
Gonçalves, A., Ferreira, J., Guerreiro, L. and Branco, F., 2015. Experimental characterization of timber framed masonry walls cyclic behavior. Struct Eng Mech, Int J, 53(2).
Khatib, J. ed., 2016. Sustainability of construction materials. Woodhead Publishing.
Kouris, L.A.S. and Kappos, A.J., 2014. A practice-oriented model for pushover analysis of a class of timber-framed masonry buildings. Engineering Structures, 75, pp.489-506.
Kouris, L.A.S. and Kappos, A.J., 2015. Numerical Investigation and Empirical Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of Timber-Framed Masonry Buildings. In Handbook of Research on Seismic Assessment and Rehabilitation of Historic Structures (pp. 60-84). IGI Global.
Mouzakis, C., Adami, C.E., Karapitta, L. and Vintzileou, E., 2018. Seismic behaviour of timber-laced stone masonry buildings before and after interventions: shaking table tests on a two-storey masonry model. Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering, 16(2), pp.803-829.
Robson, P., 2015. Structural appraisal of traditional buildings. Routledge.
Ruggieri, N., Sandhaas, C. and Ceccotti, A., 2016. Seismic Vulnerability of Borbone Masonry Reinforced with Timber Frames. In Historical Earthquake-Resistant Timber Framing in the Mediterranean Area (pp. 193-204). Springer, Cham.
Steinhardt, D.A. and Manley, K., 2016. Adoption of prefabricated housing–the role of country context. Sustainable cities and society, 22, pp.126-135.
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