Timber Industry Receives a Shot in the Arm with Shapps' Zero Carbon Homes Plans

The timber frame industry throughout the U.K. is represented by the U.K. Timber Frame Association, UKTFA, which announced that timber frame is established as the construction method of choice for an industry striving to achieve a more carbon efficient future.

Housing Minister Grant Shapps, in an effort to give the timber frame construction a big boost has assured the industry that future building regulations will focus essentially on the basic fabric of the building. This seems to augur well for the timber frame.

Condemning leaky and poorly built homes with fancy renewable energy systems, Shapps insisted that the basic fabric must be the pivot around which the construction industry revolves. He went on to add that one had only to look at the social housing market to be able to appreciate this point as social housing, which regularly achieved Code 4, while plus homes achieved Code levels 5 were all timber frame.

“The future of house building is firmly in the hands of local decision making and local delivery and this is a very positive move, said Shapps, as it gave developers enough flexibility to achieve the 2016 target.

Setting up of standards was no big deal, if realistic delivery of zero carbon homes was not led by local decision makers. For now, the priority was for developers to get behind Shapps’ vision that the path was well and truly laid for timber frame.

The UKTFA is committed to the ongoing promotion of timber as the ultimate sustainable building material, and actively seeks to raise awareness of the proven advantages of timber frame across all sectors of the UK construction industry.More than 300 member companies had already benefited from UKTFA’s expertise and insight, whose primary purpose is to provide help and support for industry insiders, who are eager to achieve high standards in energy efficiency and building design in a cost-Effective manner.

Knowledge about sustainable construction methods has been gained by UKTFA by conducting extensive research about all aspects of timber frame. To its credit, it has used this to educated industry about the benefits of timber frame encouraging builders and developers to look at it from all possible perspectives.

It represents more than 85percent of the sector’s key manufacturers and suppliers, from architects to engineers; builders to contractors; erectors to other trade associations.