ECO

The most important step that you have made is to consider timber frame for your home.

There are many advantages to timber frame construction, but probably its best know quality is its environmental excellence.

A positive contribution to tackling climate change

When designers and developers decide to build with timber frame construction, they make a positive contribution to tackling climate change.

The benefits don’t stop at the point of a homes completion on site. Using a standard 140mm stud timber frame system achieves U-values of 0.27 using readily available and standard insulation – and using higher performance insulation and insulation breather membranes can boost these figures down as low as 0.15.

This means significant carbon savings in the homes day to day use, as well as financial benefits from lower running costs.

The timber frame home is a warm, comfortable and safe place in which to live – and what more could you ask from a home that is also helping to reduce our carbon footprint.

Timber comes from trees

A thriving timber frame industry means the need for well run, sustainable managed forests, full of trees that soak up carbon dioxide within their core and keep it locked inside.

• 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 which mainly uses softwood.
• Over 90% of all wood consumed in Europe is sourced from European forests.
  Timber frame uses 99% European softwood. The total carbon sequestered in
  those trees throughout Europe’s forests is over 9.5 million tonnes.
• The more wood we use, the more our forests grow, because in Europe we are
  committed to planting more trees than we harvest.
• Forests act as huge carbon sinks. The total carbon sequestered in Europe’s forests is over 9.5 million tonnes.
• Mature trees, however, absorb far less carbon dioxide and produce less oxygen than those at earlier stages of growth. So the harvesting of older trees for construction purposes, and their replacement with saplings – two planted for every one harvested in Scandinavian forests – ensures a constant cycle of CO2 absorption and oxygen production.

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 tonnes
  of CO2 is saved from the atmosphere.
• Processing timber is not a gas-guzzling procedure either. 77% of the energy used
  in the production of wood products comes from wood residues and recovered wood.
• Converting timber into a useable building material takes far less energy and
  creates minimal pollution compared to other mainstream alternatives such as
  aluminium, steel, concrete and brick.
• 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.

Building Energy Rating (B.E.R)

A BER is an objective scale of comparison for the energy performance of a building ranging from A1 to G.

As part of the Energy Performance of Building Directive, a Building Energy Rating (BER) certificate, which is effectively an energy label, will be required at the point of sale or rental of a building, or on completion of a new building. The BER will be accompanied by an “Advisory Report” setting out recommendations for cost-effective improvements to the energy performance of the building. There will be no legal obligation on vendors or prospective purchasers to carry out the recommended improvements. SEI will publish BER certificates on a public BER Register.

As part of our service we have a trained BER consultant in our company, who will give advice on energy savings.