Timber frame home homes

Re: Timber frame home homes/SIPs

Structured Insulated Panels,made from two sheets of 4x8 plywood or OSB with urethane insulation sandwiched between the two sheets. So you get a strong insulated panel capable of bearing loads. The whole house, roof included can be built from these and the build process is very fast( you would still have to tile the roof). The outside skin of the house can be finished off with something like cedar clapboards or for a more traditional look use cement fiber board skimmed over with a plaster finish.
I know Kingspan make them( Kingspan Tek Haus), their website explains it better and some crowd in the UK also have a pretty good website, their name is something like 'greenbuilt it.'
You can get a weather tight shell up pretty fast and I think that this has advantages for a self build where you to intend to finish a lot of the internal work.
We are thinking of using the system later on in the year and I would like to get some feedback from people who have already been down the SIP route.
 
Urethane insulation is not so envoirnamentally friendly.
They dont allow you to use it inside your house in Scandinavia any more as it offgases.
I have seen roofs done with the system in Holland at Christmas.
The walls are not breathable which could cause problems with Dampness from within.
What other systems have you considered.
I know a guy who brings Griffner Coillte type houses in from Estonia or Poland for half the price of GC.
 
Timber frame home homes - issues raised as I see 'em

Timber Actually has thermal properties that are over and above the reqd insulation reqd, that is provided by say 150mm Rockwool or Fibreglass, etc,;

Century tend to go after the housing estates, so if your a one-off builder maybe you should go to the smaller companies who tailor their service to suit you. KTF are good, Clarke's in the North, Cygnum are ok.... from what we've heard....

Sips are on the way out in the US now; they're turning to the pre-fab platform type of TF we have here.....

Point to remember about both form (Block & TF)
Any sys is only as good as the labour who fits it, (wether its blocklaying, carpentry, plastering, etc,.!!!)

Block building has no quality system in place and the poor blocky will get out of a job quick, only quality he leaves is the smooth surface of each individual block!!!!
Where as TF is fabricated to CAD design in a quality controlled environment of a factory, fitting is detailed in drawings and alot of the difficult decisions/dimensions/calculations are eliminated for the site erector: - by nature its a better form of construction all around.

NOISE ISSUE: timber frame semi-d can have either (a) a 9" block party wall, or (b) a timber frame party wall (consisting of 2 4" walls 2" apart.)
If you bang a hammer on a block p/w the noise transmits across the solid density of the block and can be heard easily on the other side.
If you bang a hammer on the TF p/w you are only hitting one structural element of 2. Your neighbours wall does not get the impact and so does not transmit the noise.
Poor Sound transmission is a myth among TF buildings, and if you investigate you'll find that its in buildings that the builder provides a Block Party Wall... makes sence when you think about it.

F
 
KTF - Keenan TF in Ardee - Good Factory Manager there - spoke with him a few times, knows his stuff..

Kelly's seem to be like the century guys; money orientated for large developers - gave us a huge quote for our 1off!

Clarke's in North seem good too, know some one who got them and would recomend them, good quality kit.

And i saw a cygnum kit, similar to both above and again people who know what they're at!!!!
 
To be on the safe side-no matter what company- a blower door test should be done and agreed on in the sales contract. Ask your engeneer/architect about the maximum permitted air exchange and check the builders what they have to say about. Any credible builder has his math done and would guarantee to keep the min. specifications.
All the larger timber frame manufacturers score pretty good. So there you get a number, confront the smaller, maybe cheaper builders with these and fix these numbers in the sale contract.
 
Wondering if you have ever come accross this product Heinbloed and would be interested in your opinion.

The main disadvantages with timberframe construction in my opinion are;

1. Airtightness (as important as U-value).
2. Overheating in the summer because the heat makes its way through most mineralwools in a few hours.
3. Lack of Thermal mass so the house cools down quickly when the heat is turned off.
4. Noise.
5. Wood moves and works constantly leaving cracks in plaster and leaking bathrooms.
6. Construction feels very hollow with the plasterboard walls.
7. Building a block/brick wall outside the house.


Softboard technology seems to sort out most of these problems in timberframe construction.


1. When you line the inside of the house with softboard you make it airtight the same as using a breather membrane on the inside of your timberframe house and a lot easier, you also get the added benefit of extra insulation with softboard and it is more Eco to produce than the breather membrane.


2. + 3. There was a trial done in Holland where two similar type houses were insulated to the same U-value by 2 different fibrous insulations, glasswool and wood fiber.
The heating was turned off in both houses. The outside temperature varied by + - 30 degrees and the temperature in the glasswool house was + - 6 degrees and the temperature in the woodfibre house was + - 3 degrees. The midday heat took 12 hours to travel through the woodfibre insulation and was released into the building at the time when the outside temperatures were lowest. The wood fiber has a higher mass and acts like an internal brick wall and stores heat. Softboard and granitewool combinations have an even bigger effect.
Most fibrous insulation materials have similar U-values but few have the mass of softboard, woodfibre or granitewool.


4. Softboard used under parquet absorbs 70% of the noise created by wood floors. You can also use softboards between a cross batoning system between floors to drastically cut down on noise from upstairs.


5. Tank all the bathrooms with Mira products. Put floortiles directly onto plasterboard to avoid the cracks you get when the plywood moves.


6. Fermacell or Duraboard give very strong walls.


Softboards cut out the cold bridging that is caused by the timber studs so you get a much higher insulation with the same amount on rockwool. You don't need to put a breather membrane on the roof as the outerlayer of the softboard is impregnated with natural latex acts like a breathable insulated felt.

Softboard goes back to nature when you throw it in the garden.
Softboard is used in 40% of the roofs in Switzerland.
When they build timberframe houses in Ireland they bring palletloads of plasterboard onto site, in Scandinavia they bring palletloads of Softboard.

This is a very simple build which means it is difficult to get it wrong, you can plaster directly onto softboard on the outside and put a few batons on the inside, put on the plaster board and plaster.


http://www.isoplaat.com/

http://naturalbuildingproductscouk.ntitemp.com/pdfs/Isolair_manual.pdf#search='pavatex'
 
I don't understand your point, Touchwood. As far as I know every coin has two sides. No shoe fits all.
I have tried the two links provided by you but there seems to be an upgrading on AAM and there is no direct connection/routing at the moment.
Do you mean by "softboard" a timber fibre product ? It's commonly used around the globe, there are also Irish importers. It can always be added to any building by retrofitting. Any timberframe house should have two windbreaks/vapourbarriers, one on each side of the outside wall, that is common standard. Most standard brick or block constuctions are not airtight, at least not here in Ireland , see the outher threads here on AAM. Some " engineers " insist on having holes in the walls, in the roofs and who knows where else....outside walls are usually punctured with cables, ducts, water pipes, gas pipes, sewer pipes, telecom cables, oil pipes and so on , dozens of holes that are not looked after, that are unnecessary.Chimneys and air ducts as well, holes in the windowsills/frames to let out condensing water , holes in the frames to let in cold air - where does it stop ?
Standard masonry building in Ireland concerning airtightness is crap, nowhere in the EU builders would get away with such " standards " , maybe in GB.
What did you mean with mira products? Was that some sort of advertising ?
Woodfibre insulation is used on the continent since a long time , check the wwweb for a product called " hoiz " , made in Germany and fully accepted around the globe concerning building regulations, in fact the first Irish timberframe house- a hotel in Cork - was insulated with peat fibre. Which is another form of cellulose, like shredded news paper as well and so many others. Natural insulation products have several advantages but also disadvantages, as I said above.
Hey, in France they sell now goose feathers for timberframe insulation , leftovers from the foie grass industry.
You see, there is much more available than the standard bog type of building. But it depends what we make of it. And we make already the worsed of what we have. See my comment about the standard concrete block construction.
 
I have no commercial connection with Mira or any other products I mention.
Do I need to have an agenda everytime I mention something.

That company is Mira Denmark not the shower people.

Softboard technology should revolutionise timberframe construction in my opinion because of its windbreaking properties, its insulating properties, its ability to be used as an external windbreaking cladding, its ability to supress noise, its ability to make a house airtight internally, its breathability and its biodegradeability.
When it is used with Rockwool in the roof it doubles the effect of the Rockwool I'm told.
I have no commercial interest in this product just curiosity.
Try cutting and pasting the links.

I agree with your comments on airtightness but what other options do you have if you don't want to spend 5k on a heat exchange unit. Have you seen the valves they use on chimneys to turn them off when not in use.

Is perlite similar to LWA? check this link [broken link removed]
250mm of LWA used under your ground floor gives you a U-value of 0.25 which reaches the regulations and needs no compaction.
As perlite is in the new Poroton blocks does it have a cement based binding agent?
Does this make it less bio.
What is the w/m2 of the new block?
Is it less breathable?
 
A heat exchanger is not a heat pump. The price of €5000 you sugested would be far over the top a heat exchanger, what I have in mind is a few hundred for the material , not more than a thousand with some designer air grids incl.the VAT.
Perlite is a natural mineral, it contains no cement binder within the poroton F8 block. Perlite is not an expanded clay. Perlite is gained with the aid of diggers, similar to pumice. Then it's filled into the prefabricated poroton blocks and heated/baked with a gas torch which causes it to expand and so it sits tightly within the cavitys of the block. A pure physical process. F8 stands-as far as I understand the numbering system of poroton- for a k-value of 0.08W/mK. Similar to the other numbers/names of the poroton blocks.
Sorry for doubting your independency(smiley), but when some one says that only the one and only product/work process is good then I always react like that. I'm a criticall consumer, used to read beween the lines.
 
I got a quote of 4k for a heat exchanger (supply only) from Allvent in Kerry.
There is a price of 5.5k for a heat exchanger on the Scandinavian Homes website.
If you know of a supplier who can supply at the above price I would be greatful for the info.

Thanks for the info on the Perlite/Poroton block it looks very interesting any idea of the price.
At that U-value it beats the Ytong Aircrete block which comes at 0.09 W/(mK).
But these are also being insulated externally in Central Europe.

http://www.xella.com/html/com/en/ytong_products.php?area_code=2

What U-Values do you have to reach to make a house passive?

After reading the links have you any comments on using Softboard on the roof, LWA under the floor as insulation and Paroc Granitewool externally on Poroton block walls as a reasonable priced passive Eco-house.
 
Ytong is a long established company , they pass all the necessary tests to get accreditation . Relatives of mine build a house back in the early 70s with blocks of that material. But then there were also reports in the middle of the 90s that some Ytong blocks contained asbestos . It was discovered by concerned parents which had it got tested or discovered test results made for the German health and safety authorities, I cant remember who was first, how it came out. The large blocks had been used for sculpturing in schools.
First the company denied it but then their own tests revealed the same results. It was an unwanted impurity and as far as I understood it was only in the large blocks and most likely had been rectified since then.
To ask me (thanks for considering my opinion) what I think are the right materials for an eco-house would need an explanation first: what is an eco-house?
Are the demands of the occupant more important than the impact of the structure/construction on the global environment?
Living in a small flat in a well designed city centre (infrastructure!) in a multi storey apartment designed to use as little energy as possible during construction and habitation would be the least damaging way for the global environment, for global social structures. But only if one has a job there as well, a reason to live there.
Importing materials from around the globe to build an energy consuming home in a place far away from the everyday demands would be the opposite. Buildings like that are getting architectural prices. And that is how we build nowadays.
An expensive method of building –I’m talking of money- has to answer the question how much “grey energy” is invested, how much destruction is caused earning to pay the total sum. And when we look at “Ms./Mr. Average” here in Ireland how inefficient they use resources to make a living, an income, at the waste of resources to produce the wanted wealth, then there is no simple answer to the question how an eco home should be made.
For every penny spend/earned on reproduceable products exactly the same amount of energy- translated in terms of money- has to be spend. And it’s the demand for energy that is causing havoc to civilisation .
So building cheap is a must for those concerned about mans future. The less we spend in terms of money the less we have to earn- the less our impact is. Or as they say in the lonely planet books: take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints.

But I think that isn’t exactly what you had in mind when asking me how to construct an eco- home? Now, soft boards come in various forms, shapes and are made from various material. Hemp, straw, sisal, coir, reed, timber, cellulose etc… First you should check what are the manufacturers saying, what references they have to show, what the engineer says and so on. Then you should check what man power it needs, not only physical but also intellectual. Are the workers able to handle the new material, are they used to it, must they be trained? Are they adaptable to the new methods? What would the training cost in work hours, lost material, delayed finishing time?
Soft boards are prune to take up water, to rot if exposed to water for a longer period, loosing their original physical structure. So strict workmanship quality control is necessary, a crack in the vapour barrier, bad taping, a forgotten nail sticking out and destroying the vapour barrier can have expensive consequences. Esp. if used for load bearing stabilising purposes. They are commonly used to build timber frame home walls and roofs where the boards not only hold the insulation but the entire structure in shape. It’s worth to employ real carpenters, not only some staff that had seen a saw and hammer before.
When using soft boards for structural purposes it is also very important that tongue and groove fit exactly, that glue is used to combine them might be necessary as well. Check what vapour barrier is necessary, the “Lambda value “ must decrease towards the outside of the building.

My post is getting very long, so good luck and my excuses to the moderators using up all that space.
 
They use the softboard impregnated with Latex on the outside of the buildings in Scandinavia which is water resisant.
A friend of mine built a timberframe house in Finland covering it with Isoplaat softboard and left it exposed to the elements for two years without any water getting inside or any damage being done to the Softboard.
He lived in the house for two years before he roofed and cladded it.
When you use softboard you don't need any membranes inside or out.

It is a lot easier and quicker to put on Softboard than a membrane and a vapour barrier.
Glue is only needed in the tongue and groove if the pitch of the roof is lower than I think 25 degrees.

What I mean by an Eco house is that the materials are Eco.
Dirty materials like Polysterene/Polyeurethene and Cement are used to a minimum.
 
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