Public Attitudes to Timber Frame

Among design-conscious and environmentally aware home buyers, contemporary timber frame housing is incredibly popular. It’s a lifestyle choice – a preference for light, airy homes with inbuilt design flexibility and fantastic environmental credentials.

It’s no surprise that the most popular buildings in Channel 4’s ‘Grand Designs’ series were timber frame homes. “The audience is always biggest when we have a timber building” says the show’s presenter, Kevin McCloud.

Recent research among the top 10 housebuilders has shown that the majority perceive there is no customer resistance to timber frame homes.

In fact, timber frame homes tend to deliver very satisfied customers, particularly as they tend to have fewer defects than brick and block homes and generate fewer complaints to the NHBC. In particular, home owners like the fact that the use of plasterboard dry-lining inside the house instead of wet plaster can help to minimise drying-out shrinkage cracking.

But once location is dealt with, what people really care about comes down to issues such as layout, good natural light, room sizes, price and energy efficiency.

Current research by SmartLIFE, an innovative housing project in Cambridge, confirms this summary of public attitudes:

• There is a sentimentality for brick among some home buyers (which may also explain why so many housebuilders choose to put a brick exterior on frame-built homes).
  
• Many people think that modern methods of construction (such as timber and steel frame homes) would probably deliver higher quality housing.
  
• But most people have no idea what form of construction has been used for their homes.
  
• And unsurprisingly most people don’t really care – if you offer someone a spacious, energy efficient home at an affordable price close to local services, it doesn’t matter how that home is built!