Gwynfaen, Penyrheol
Featuring a ‘timber first’ approach, using home-grown timber and timber products manufactured off-site, the Gwynfaen housing project exemplifies low carbon home construction in Wales
Author: Woodknowledge Wales
This case study was authored as part of the Home-grown Homes project and was funded by Welsh Government
Summary
The Gwynfaen housing project is being constructed by south Wales based housing association, Pobl, on site in Penyrheol, near Swansea. Featuring a ‘timber first’ approach, using home-grown timber and timber products manufactured off-site, the project exemplifies low carbon home construction in Wales. The project will achieve ‘combustion-free living’ through use of passive design, energy efficiency measures, and a high-performance building fabric to reduce overall energy demand.
Pobl has been supported by Woodknowledge Wales (WkW) from the inception of this project. As WkW members, Pobl has benefited from information on sourcing timber and timber products and advice on the design and installation of timber cladding.
Key Players
Pobl is one of Wales’ leading housing associations, managing over 17,500 homes and providing care and support to over 9,000 people in Wales. It employs over 2,500 staff from various locations co-ordinated from offices in Newport and Swansea. Its ambition includes a plan to develop 10,000 new homes between 2020 and 2030, to decarbonise its activity to become ‘Net Zero’ by 2050.
“Gwynfaen will provide 144 new homes and will become the benchmark for low carbon living in Wales, capturing best practice approaches to placemaking, urban greening and fully integrated renewable technologies, as well as low carbon design.”
Elfed Roberts, Head of Sustainability & Innovation at Pobl
“Pobl has wanted to demonstrate that it’s entirely possible to build exciting and impressive projects at scale and at the same time, drive down carbon using timber in all its forms. Pobl are setting standards. One day all homes will be made this way.”
David Hedges, Housing, Woodknowledge Wales
Narrative
Pobl’s Gwynfaen development is on the edge of Penyrheol, northwest of Swansea, overlooking the Loughor Estuary and Gower Peninsula. The site will accommodate 144 new homes for rent and to buy. Each new residence is being built to standards that will ensure significant reductions in carbon emissions.
The project will achieve ‘combustion-free living’ through use of passive design, energy efficiency measures, and a high-performance building fabric to reduce the overall energy demand. This approach will ultimately benefit residents through lower heating and hot water energy use, and the planet through lower carbon emissions.
Gwynfaen is part funded by Welsh Government’s Innovative Housing Programme and aims to meet many of the goals in the Well-being of Future Generations Act 2015. The project’s contemporary design will use vernacular forms and materials familiar to the existing settlements. Many of these materials will be low in embodied carbon and locally sourced. This includes structural timber sourced from the Welsh forest and home-grown timber cladding.
For Pobl, all new projects consider timber as a primary structural material. Gwynfaen is the first project in development that will meet its Net Zero Carbon Specification. Pobl’s approach is to test out more sustainable specifications for its project. The association also supports key stakeholders in the timber procurement and supply chain to gear up for meeting these higher standards.
Using timber and a ‘fabric first’ approach to social housing construction
Hale Construction is building the project. They are conveniently based just 13 miles from the Gwynfaen site in Neath. Sister company, Sevenoaks (SO) Modular, is manufacturing the highly insulated timber framed wall and roof panels in its factory. These super air-tight panels will reduce any performance gap alongside a focus on waste minimisation.
The biobased insulation SO Modular use replaces more common oil-based polymers with wood-fibre and cellulose (recycled newspaper). The timber frame panel manufacturers use blow-in technology to efficiently fill each timber frame panel while it’s still in the factory. Double and triple glazed windows and doors are also factory fitted. SO Modular then deliver these Off-Site panels to site.
Once on site, Hale Construction assemble the timber frame wall and roof panels and finish them with either Welsh larch cladding or local lime render. In addition to the highly insulated building fabric, the new homes incorporate an intelligent energy system. This system manages solar panels which store energy in a home battery, heat recovery ventilation systems, air source heat pumps and hot water tanks. The completed homes also have electric vehicle (EV) charging points.
Processing Welsh timber for timber components
Pontrilas Sawmills near Hereford is one of the UK’s largest sawmills. They supply structural timber to SO Modular. The sawmill sources logs from Wales and the West Country. They process these sawlogs into a range of construction materials for timber frame manufacturers to use in the production of frames for walls, roof trusses and floor cassettes. The sawmillers cut a mix of spruce, larch and Douglas fir. They then plane, kiln dry and treat each section with preservative if required.
Pontrilas supplies SO Modular with packs of timber machined to different dimensions. At the timber frame panel manufacturer then cuts and nails, or screws, the machined timber into the various frames and wall systems.
SO Modular have worked closely with Pontrilas Sawmills on quality standards the timber they receive must maintain to meet manufacturing requirements for timber frame panelling used in social housing. Sawmills generally optimise production of timber for other markets, such as fencing, decking, carcassing, and pallets. So, sharing an understanding of these specific needs has been important in ensuring the manufacturers receive the right specification of timber consistently.
Impact
The Gwynfaen Project represents the ambition and practical application of the Woodknowledge Wales Home-Grown Homes Project. It demonstrates how a new housing development can use timber and timber products to reduce carbon emissions. David Hedges, Head of Housing at Woodknowledge Wales has supported Pobl in working out solutions to design issues, finding ways to source timber and timber products, and how to achieve robust installation details.
For Welsh Government, projects like this emphasise that value of trees for timber is an important consideration in the Timber Industrial Strategy. Using more of the timber we produce in the Welsh forest for building homes is key to capturing and storing some of the carbon emissions we create in Wales. Using the outputs from our national forests for higher value uses such as construction timber gives a better return for timber processors and timber component manufacturers. It also benefits the many housing associations and developers who need to meet new standards. By using more home-grown timber in their projects they can achieve environmental sustainability and net zero goals set out by legislation.
References and further reading
[1] For more information on the project, visit https://poblliving.co.uk/developments/gwynfaen/
