NRW’s Timber Sales & Marketing Plan (2021-2026) can offer opportunities for the small timber processing community in Wales. The purpose of this paper is to interpret the Plan and its implications for small sawmillers. This will create a solid foundation for exploring the means by which small processors may be able access timber grown on the Welsh Government Woodland Estate in the future as well as highlight opportunities for future activities and interventions.
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Unlocking the full potential of offsite manufactured timber housing in Wales: The Challenge of timber price volatility
Unprecedented price volatility of timber is constraining the development of the timber frame manufacturing sector. This threatens the delivery of Welsh Government’s affordable housing, MMC and zero carbon strategies. The purpose of this paper is to highlight issues of concern and offer first ideas to develop potential solutions.
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Clyro’s newest housing project takes shape
The drones flying over the community of Clyro in Powys over the past few months have been capturing images of the progress being made on one of Powys County Council’s first new rented housing projects for over 40 years. It’s part of the council’s response to the climate emergency and the housing challenges faced by many of its rural communities. Projects in Newtown, Brecon and other communities across the county are all at various stages of development.
The energy and carbon challenge
We need to be cutting the carbon and energy we use to build and run our homes in Wales. When the residents move into their homes in Clyro later this year, they will enjoy the benefits of Welsh Government standards which all our new homes will need to meet – benefitting the occupiers as well as the planet. Designed to use renewable energy to provide their heating and hot water they are also built using timber, with walls full of recycled newsprint, highly insulated floors and roofs and high-performance windows and doors to stay warm even when it’s cold outside. And they will have ventilation systems which will ensure they will always be full of fresh air without losing the warmth. Energy from the sun will also be captured through photovoltaic panels on the slate roofs.
Testing performance
Working with local architects George and Tomos, the Council’s Building Homes Team is ensuring it learns from the project by measuring the energy performance of these new homes and by involving the residents in capturing their experience of living in them. The homes will use heat pumps with some taking the energy from the air and others using the heat in the ground. Learning from the performance of the homes, the well-being and comfort of the residents, the effectiveness and affordability of energy consumption will be used in designing and building the next generation of projects. The project is part of the Welsh Government’s Innovative Housing Programme and the funding provided will also help meet the cost of the testing and analysis to come. Hence, the results will be shared with all housing providers across Wales, ensuring everyone can learn from the experience of this project.
Leading from the front
The council remains the only local authority in Wales (and one of only a few in the UK) with a Wood Encouragement Policy and its sponsorship of the Home-Grown Homes Project has seen it show a positive leadership role in reducing the carbon footprint of its affordable homes. Woodknowledge Wales (WKW) has been involved in the Clyro project from the start. Diana Waldron, WKW’s Building Performance Expert has helped the design team with identifying the data and evidence that will help analysis of the project’s performance. Some members of the WKW Team visited the site last week to find out about progress, to meet Simone Hodges (from Powys CC) and Jehu’s team on site, led by Vince Alm. The project is part of the Home-Grown Homes Project, which WKW has been delivering for the council, the first phase of which ended in March. The next phase of the project will be supporting local authorities and housing associations in developing projects and activities which drive down carbon and energy used in building and running new homes – and Clyro is one of them.
Local solutions
The ambition has been to source skills and materials needed to build the homes as close to Clyro as possible. The design team includes George and Tomos (Machynlleth based architects), Hydrock (Cardiff based engineering specialists) and Bridgend based contractors Jehu who are committed to using local tradespeople in the build. Powys County Council’s Building Homes Team are project managing with Project Officer Simone Hodges leading on the project. The timber frames have been manufactured and erected by Lowfield Timber Frames, based near Welshpool, using home-grown timber supplied by Pontrilas Sawmills near Hereford. PYC, also from Welshpool, have installed the cellulose insulation. The homes will feature local larch cladding supplied by Llandre Sawn Timber near Llandrindod Wells.
Investing in the future
As well as being designed to achieve an impressive environmental performance, the project includes houses, bungalows and flats with the facility to extend and adapt some of the spaces, if the needs of the occupants change over time. As well as being capable of changing, the homes have living spaces designed to be open, light and airy reflecting the kind of challenges we’ve all faced during the pandemic and its ‘stay at home’ restrictions. Designing and building homes to meet the highest energy and environmental performance and maximise the well-being of residents brings cost challenges. However, the longevity, durability and high performing building fabric, will all mean that the impact they will have on both the environment and the health and well-being of residents should pay real dividends for the council.
Whoever you vote for, wood wins – almost…
Image: courtesy of Lyn Dafis/flickr.com (licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0)
A comment by Gary Newman
I’ve trawled through the manifestos and tried to make sense of what might happen during the next term of the Welsh Government. I’m told that the manifestos are important as they are the one thing politicians can be held to account on and that the civil service are tasked to deliver. So, they’re pretty important documents, if a little hard to unpick as I’ve discovered.
On Net Zero Carbon
I believe that ambitious policies to achieve net zero carbon will be good for trees and timber in construction – two critically important greenhouse gas removal (GGR) mechanisms identified by the UK Committee on Climate Change. Both Labour and Conservatives are sticking to the 2050 legally binding UK Government target. However, Plaid Cymru has announced a highly ambitious target of Wales becoming net zero carbon by 2035, only five years after the Green Party’s target of 2030. In a Labour/Plaid coalition or ‘confidence and supply agreement’ things could get very interesting, as 2035 requires much greater urgency in action.
On Low Carbon Housing
All the political parties have key policies around low carbon housing. Labour’s target for the next term is for 20,000 new low carbon social homes ‘creating thousands of jobs in a low carbon house building revolution’. And here’s the biggy for wood – these homes will be…
‘built in the right way using materials with low levels of embodied carbon, such as timber, and specifically Welsh timber, creating a timber based industrial strategy that can develop and sustain the high value production and processing of Welsh wood. This will take us further in tackling fuel poverty, create sustainable jobs and provide research and training opportunities.’
In my view, this will massively raise the importance of wood within Welsh Government and start to put wood where it belongs – in the economic, manufacturing and industrial portfolios of government.
Plaid Cymru don’t mention supporting the use of timber per se, but their target for the number of new social homes is considerably more ambitious than Labour’s at 50,000. Commensurate with Plaid’s more ambitious net zero aspirations, they describe homes being low carbon in operation and construction. So, embodied carbon reduction regulation can be expected to be introduced by Plaid Cymru as well as Labour and this will further increase the demand for low carbon materials such as timber
The Conservatives have a less ambitious target of 100,000 homes over the next 10 years of which 40,000 will be social homes.
On trees and forestry
Here, the standout policy is in Plaid Cymru’s manifesto with a target (I know we’ve seen lots of those over the years) which involves planting 100,000 hectares of mixed woodland per decade in Wales, resulting in a total increase of 300,000 hectares by 2050. This is a massive increase in the scale of Welsh forestry and effectively doubles Wales’ forest cover.
Labour is more comfortable with industrial policy and has steered clear of planting targets per se. The party trumpets the National Forest, which is great for amenity and creates a fantastic opportunity to inform Welsh society about the importance of trees, but will do little for timber supply and little to support the decarbonisation agenda.
The Conservatives pledge to plant at least 8 million trees a year, to soak up around half a million tonnes of C02 a year, whilst also reducing flood risks. Assuming this commitment relates to new woodland, this equals about 3,000 hectares per year. This is higher than the current (but missed) 2,000 hectares per year target of the outgoing administration but substantially below Plaid Cymru’s commitment.
On the Foundational Economy
The economy in general is a big focus in all manifestos. Surprisingly, given that the foundational economy is perceived to be a Labour Party ‘brand’, it is mentioned more times in the Plaid Cymru manifesto. Maybe that’s because supporting and focusing on the development of the Foundational Economy is now beginning to be seen as common sense and supported by all. Having said that, developing the Foundational Economy needs to inspire more creative and effective policy than the failed ‘postcode localism’ that has informed public procurement to date.
In Conclusion
If we get another Labour Government, I think the use of timber in construction will be well supported. The promised industrial policy may help to sort out their previous failure in terms of a lack of purpose and delivery in their afforestation strategy. Having said that, I saw nothing in any of the manifestos that gave me encouragement to believe that any of the political parties have got their head around the challenge of land use change.
Taken as a whole, perhaps the best outcome overall would be a Labour/Plaid Cymru coalition with an agreement to target zero carbon by 2035 (Plaid), deliver 50,000 new low carbon social homes (Plaid) and create an industrial strategy for timber (Labour), a doubling of the forest cover by 2050 (Plaid) and a more imaginative approach to the development of the Foundational Economy in Wales.
See also
Creating net zero carbon homes and communities in Wales
The Home-Grown Homes Project moves into a new phase. Our research findings on how we can use more of the timber we produce to deliver net zero carbon homes for social housing are all available in hands-on guidance, specification tools and reports. Now is the time to start delivering future homes that meet net zero carbon requirements and help create hundreds of new jobs and apprenticeships in Wales. We are looking for partner organisations across the supply chain seeking to further develop and deliver net zero whole life carbon solutions. We are offering support in the transition to a socially just zero carbon society with forests and woodlands at its heart.
New standards for new and existing homes
Welsh Government’s standards for new homes and existing homes will include a focus on carbon reduction. Knowing how to measure carbon and more importantly, how to reduce it will become essential for housing professionals in development and asset management teams alike. To support local authorities and housing associations in delivering zero carbon solutions, we are offering a number of options for collaboration. Our work is guided by the five principles set out in the Net Zero Whole Life Carbon Homes framework.
The route to net zero housing
A first workshop with development professionals in local authorities and housing associations in April considered the changes Welsh Government will introduce to our new and existing homes standards.
The route to zero carbon will be ‘accelerated’ over the life of the next Senedd term. All new housing will need to meet net zero carbon requirements in order to secure grant funding from Welsh Government. This means that we all have to understand and learn how to measure, analyse and ultimately reduce the embodied carbon in our homes.
Achieving net zero whole life carbon requires minimising carbon and energy demand, using only renewable energy, minimising the performance gap and offsetting ‘the last mile’ by investing into woodland creation and management.
Priorities for action
During the workshop development professionals from housing associations and local authorities shared their priorities within the zero carbon agenda. These include agreeing definitions, assessing viability particularly for low occupancy homes, improving procurement, carbon literacy training, getting buy-in from the supply chain, making the case for zero carbon, maximising the potential of MMC, helping with the retrofit challenge and creating opportunities to share learning and experience.
What type of support?
Facilitating knowledge exchange, providing information and connecting the supply chain are main areas where housing professionals are seeking support from Woodknowledge Wales. Our ambition is to help social landlords grow their own carbon capability and capacity in achieving net zero carbon. We plan on creating a community of practice so our collective knowledge and experience can be openly shared and discussed.
From May 2021, our team will be strengthened by Diana Waldron. Fresh from her role at Cardiff Met University, she will join the team to offer support in tackling building performance evaluation and embodied carbon.
Delivering future homes
Our plan is to develop a portfolio of projects and activities where we can focus our support with local authorities and housing associations. If you have a suitable project in the pipeline for the coming 2 years, please contact David Hedges at david.hedges@woodknowledgewales.co.uk.
Workshop for asset managers
We are holding a workshop for asset managers on 6th May to discuss the potential of zero carbon and repair, maintenance and improvement with view to the revised Welsh Housing Quality Standard due later in the year. Contact David Hedges for more details and to attend.
How to achieve zero carbon timber housing in Wales? Five options for further investigation.
In 2019 we presented a strategy (Zero Carbon Homes) for the integration of the Welsh forest industries supply chain with offsite timber construction. Focussed particularly on home-grown timber, we set out a series of key actions to transform the use of home-grown timber in house building through increasing supply chain integration, encouraging a focus on producing high-value construction products and addressing the lack of tree planting in Wales.
Since then, the call for a zero carbon off-site timber construction solution has grown louder in Wales and from a wider audience, encompassing manufacturers, housing associations and the construction industry. Whilst a number of Welsh timber frame manufacturers have the experience and capability to deliver advanced high performance timber systems capable of meeting Passivhaus equivalent performance, this is far from the norm.
Local and national policy has focussed attention on the increased use of Modern Methods of Construction, the climate emergency has added to the essential need for a swift and dramatic improvement of energy performance in new build construction, and the innovative housing programme has continued to highlight both the immense opportunity available for the Welsh supply chains and the fundamental issues associated with design and procurement.
This presents the simple question: What is a zero carbon timber solution for Wales?
The Zero Carbon Homes: Zero Carbon Timber Solutions guidance proposes a range of timber-based build solutions to achieve zero carbon. These were developed under a future proofed definition for ‘zero carbon’ as well as design and calculation to develop an understanding of the quantifiable factors of embodied and operational carbon. Using a fabric first approach, the examination of existing and alternative timber construction methods, materials and systems offers a range of developed timber solutions that are capable of meeting the target fabric specification. These include information on whole carbon emission and offsetting calculations for a range of key typologies demonstrating the routes to Zero Carbon.
The guidance presents research findings and actions for decision making, training and skills, technical development and testing, design and modelling tools relevant for designers, manufacturers, specifiers and clients seeking to deliver zero carbon homes.
House types for zero carbon developments
As part of the study a number of house type designs were compared in terms of their performance across five principles to achieve zero carbon.
When arranged as a semi-detached structure, the traditional two-storey, two-bed home designed for four people (house type 1) presents a significant challenge in reducing total energy demand and overall carbon footprint. As a consequence, a greater intervention is required to capture carbon and therefore compensate for the carbon emissions if a development of this house type is to reach net-zero whole life carbon. A terraced arrangement of the same house type both reduces the heating demand and the overall carbon footprint which in turn reduces offsetting requirements significantly.
A three-storey town house designed for four people (house type 7) has a smaller footprint and is taller with the same quantity of space allocated over three storeys. Arranged as a semi-detached, this performs better than house type 1. When arranged as a terrace the total energy demand is significantly below the RIBA targets for 2030, 10 years ahead of schedule. However, the embodied carbon impacts are still challenging. We need to work much harder to reduce these if we are to achieve the targets established by RIBA.
Structural timber solutions and renewable insulation products offer significant potential savings in upfront carbon, a priority for reduction measures, and store more carbon within the building’s fabric for the lifetime of the building. These solutions are supported by a rigorous process of evidence gathering as presented in the guidance.
How to achieve Zero Carbon: 5 principles.
Our Net Zero Carbon framework identifies five principles to achieve zero carbon homes.
Minimise Operational Energy Demand
We have remodelled a typical 2-Bed, 4-person home so that its Total Energy Use Intensity is less than 35 kWh/m2/yr and its Space Heating Demand is designed to be less than 15 kWh/m2/yr. RIBA’s 2030 target of a space heating demand of 15kWh/m2 is challenging but can be achieved using a high quality, high performance airtight fabric with U-Values in the region of 0.1W/m2k which is thermal bridge free. Less compact designs (e.g. bungalows, detached and semi-detached) have higher form factors so require either a higher performing fabric (i.e. < 0.1W/m2k) to achieve the desired 15 kWh/m2/yr or will require a higher rate of energy to heat them. Rethinking the orientation of structures and layouts including glazing allows us to maximise the use of the sun’s energy to heat our homes whilst managing overheating risk. Our modelling shows benefits in the region of up to 3.5 kWh/m2 through optimising orientation and layout.
Minimise Embodied carbon
We have modelled five advanced timber frame panels which emit up-front carbon of less than 69kg CO2e/m2 and whole-life embodied carbon of approximately 180kg CO2e/m2, reductions of over 60% and 23% respectively over a standard timber frame solution. The most important time to reduce CO2 emissions is now. Achieving up-front CO2 emissions of less than 300kgCO2e/m2 is challenging but can be achieved if high-value timber components are employed in the manufacture and construction of housing. Clients should consult with the supply-chain to ensure that fabric solutions can be delivered that achieve both embodied carbon and operational energy targets.
Only Use Renewable Energy
Micro-renewables such as solar panels installed on a roof will create energy that can be used to heat a home, to charge an electric vehicle or to sell energy to the national grid. Solar panels and heat pumps also reduce the reliance of our homes on energy derived from burning fossil fuels. They therefore have the potential to reduce CO2 emissions. However, there is no such thing as clean energy – there is a carbon footprint incurred in manufacturing and installing pumps, panels and batteries, and like all emerging technologies their predicted lifetime can be shorter (and thus have a higher carbon footprint) than designed. The existing SAP calculation method relied upon by Building Regulations incentivises the use of renewables to achieve a high EPC rating whilst the fabric performance (in terms of both embodied carbon and operational energy demands) of that building may be neglected. This should be considered.
Minimise the performance gap
Building performance is a complex issue. Hence, minimising the performance gap requires joined up thinking between client, designer, main contractor, manufacturers, and any sub-contracted businesses. Adoption of a strict and contractually robust quality assurance system is crucial. Appointing an individual responsible for ensuring quality at all levels including monitoring final material choices, manufacturing processes, construction detailing, and key performance characteristics such as levelling, airtightness, and moisture ingress would help achieve targets. Combining standardised specifications for fabric proposals and repeatable housing models allows to employ Building Information Modelling (BIM) which incorporates detailed whole life cycle carbon modelling.
Offset to below zero
Offsetting should be considered as a last resort when all efforts to reduce CO2 emissions to net zero through design, material choices and construction methods have been exploited. As an example: a development of 100 homes emits about 8000 tonnes of CO2 and stores around 2500 tonnes of carbon in the form of timber products. It would therefore need an offset planting scheme that captures the remaining 5500 tonnes of CO2. This is equivalent to a 30 hectare woodland containing a mix of broadleaf and conifers and could be an interesting financial asset.
Where next?
The results of this study are considered a first stage in a longer journey which we have already begun with eleven local authorities in Wales, supported by the Innovative Housing Programme. Setting out to establish a net zero carbon solution for Wales, alternative proposals are being examined. These remain viable but require further focussed investigation in a collaborative approach with industry specialists, timber supply chain, clients and design professionals to
- develop agreed solutions for certification, testing and warranty system approval including fire safety, thermal performance and quality assurance
- technically resolve, prototype, test and apply new and evolved solutions for manufacture and assembly to develop one of more of the fabric proposals
- identify supply chain opportunities and constraints
- assess build ability and advancement of offsite manufacturing opportunities
- identify development requirements for training and infrastructure
- develop design thinking and identify zero carbon design tools
- consider procurement and identify a pathway to developing a connected, robust and fair supply chain that can deliver zero carbon housing at scale to meet whole life cost and carbon objectives.
Delivering these objectives will require collaboration at a scale that is not common in the construction industry. But the opportunity is huge.
If you would like to get involved in the journey ahead, please contact James.moxey@woodknowledgewales.co.uk.
New guidance for embodied carbon
Halting and then reversing global man-made temperature rise is the big challenge of our time.
Having worked in and around the area of sustainability in the built environment for nigh-on 25 years, I’m confident that it can be done and there are lots of reasons to be optimistic. But there is no time to lose. Every opportunity for carbon emissions reduction needs to be grasped and every policy lever that can be pulled should be pulled.
Currently, around 50% of carbon emissions from new build housing is caused by the building materials, the build process, maintenance and end of life – known as the Embodied Carbon emissions. These carbon emissions currently fall largely outside the scope of current regulation, although we do hope and expect regulations to be introduced over the coming months and years.
In any case, my experience of working with Welsh social housing clients, architects and the wider supply chain over the past 5 years, has convinced me that many organisations and individuals do not intend to wait for regulation. They want to do what they can to reduce carbon emissions now. The barrier is not willingness to act, but simply an incomplete understanding of what to do. If you’re one of them, then this guidance is for you.
The guidance is primarily written for providers of new build social housing, their consultants and contractors, but it is relevant to everyone operating in the built environment sector, including retrofit.
Over the past few decades a huge amount of work has been done to develop construction product data and the internationally agreed standards that are required to underpin consistent measurement. There are now thousands of construction product Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) which provide much of the hard data. There are many assessment tools that make embodied carbon analysis and reduction easy to assimilate into the design process, many of which are described in this guidance. Now in 2020, there is no technical reason not to embark on your embodied carbon reduction journey and this guidance is designed to support you.
That said, reducing embodied carbon does require us to confront the short-termism of the dominant models of house delivery. In particular, the manner in which materials and systems are put together with little thought given to their environmental impact or future resource needs. In that sense, embodied carbon reduction provides both the context and a measurement method to enable a profound re-framing of construction for the substantial benefit of current and future generations.
Gary Newman,
CEO of Woodknowledge Wales
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Embodied Carbon – the key questions
Embodied Carbon Guidance For Social Housing
Woodknowledge Wales has created guidance on Embodied Carbon reduction for social housing developers, their consultants and contractors. The guidance contains advice on how to make assessments, available tools and benchmarks for comparison. This briefing paper is designed for strategic leadership teams to highlight the key content of the guidance in the form of a series of questions and answers.
What are the different measures of carbon for housing? For a home, Embodied Carbon is the total carbon emissions associated with the construction materials. It includes all the emissions from the extraction, manufacture, transport and installation of the materials and products needed to construct a home (the Upfront Carbon). It also includes emissions from maintenance, refurbishment, and at the end of life, deconstruction, waste processing and disposal.
Is it the same as Whole Life Carbon? No. The Whole Life Carbon of a home includes both Embodied Carbon and Operational Carbon (e.g. heating and lighting) over its lifetime. Understanding the relationship between both helps to know the best way of reducing carbon emissions throughout the building lifecycle – that’s why Embodied Carbon is being increasingly measured. A Low Carbon home is one that optimises the use of resources to build it and to use it over its lifetime.
Why is it important? Embodied Carbon emissions can represent between 50% and 70% of the emissions of a home across its life cycle. Its relative importance is increasing as the UK’s electricity grid decarbonises and Operational Carbon emissions reduce. At the same time, if the number of additional homes per year matches the estimates of housing need, we will see between 6,700 and 9,700 new homes built in Wales[1], which will increase Embodied Carbon. Embodied Carbon savings made during the design and construction of a home are delivered immediately, rather than at some point in the future.
Why should we reduce Embodied Carbon? Buildings play a vital role in meeting our climate change obligations, and in Wales, Embodied Carbon accounts for 6% of overall CO2 emissions. The Welsh Government wants all public bodies to be carbon neutral by 2030 and, at the time of writing, most local authorities in Wales have declared a climate emergency. Most of the construction sector is committing to the Net Zero Carbon agenda. Assessing Embodied Carbon will help the sector understand its overall carbon footprint and highlight where reductions can be made. It may also assist in attracting alternative sources of finance such as green bonds. There is also a strong link between Embodied Carbon and the creation of a more Circular Economy.
What are the economic benefits of reducing Embodied Carbon? Targeting Embodied Carbon can help address the whole life costs of a home, especially when future running costs may be more of a concern than initial build costs. For instance, investing in more durable materials will mean less replacement over time, with less Embodied Carbon. This also equates to lower life cycle costs and less tenant disruption. Reducing Embodied Carbon can mean less cost when compared to the cost of solutions for saving Operational Carbon and savings can often be achieved over a shorter period.
How can Embodied Carbon be reduced? Building elements such as the foundations and structure represent the biggest contribution to Embodied Carbon, largely due to the amount of materials they use. Therefore, considering low Embodied Carbon materials such as timber, or increasing the recycled content of materials, will have a positive impact. Timber also has an advantage over other materials as it can store CO2 removed from the atmosphere during the tree’s growth. Designing ‘leaner’ homes by minimising the quantity of materials used to build them will reduce Embodied Carbon. Designing for future use – adaptability and flexibility – will increase a home’s lifespan and minimise the need for new homes in future. Building with deconstruction in mind will enhance the reuse of construction materials.
Is it difficult to measure Embodied Carbon? No, and the earlier Embodied Carbon is considered, the greater the ability to reduce it. Assessments can be in the form of a checklist, simple building analysis or a full building life cycle assessment. It is recommended that a ‘cradle to grave’ assessment is undertaken. There are many tools available to assess Embodied Carbon. Assessments can be done in-house or procured from the design team or a specialist consultant. There are several standards which should be met, including the RICS Professional Statement on Whole Life Carbon[2].
Can targets and benchmarks be set? Yes, benchmarks (at building or element level) are a useful way to check performance. Woodknowledge Wales has produced benchmarks which can be used as targets for the reduction of Embodied and Upfront Carbon.
Who needs to be involved in reducing Embodied Carbon? Everyone has a responsibility to reduce Embodied Carbon and there needs to be commitment across an organisation to address it, together with an engaged supply chain. Leadership teams should champion and facilitate the reduction of Embodied Carbon in the homes they create.
Is procurement important? Yes, it’s key as it presents an opportunity for measuring, reducing, and managing Whole Life Carbon. At an organisational level, a carbon policy including Embodied and Operational Carbon from housing activities should be agreed, with requirements for reducing Upfront and Embodied Carbon included in project briefs. Performance outcomes can be set in documentation and responsibility for monitoring/measuring Embodied Carbon included at every stage of a building’s life cycle.
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[1] https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/statistics-and-research/2019-06/new-house-building-april-2018-to-march-2019-995.pdf
[2] RICS (2017) Whole Life Carbon assessment for the built environment. 1st Edition. London: RICS. Available at: www.rics.org (Accessed: 2 November 2018).
Making the Foundational Economy happen – with joinery
What if we could agree on a joint specification for a Welsh timber window that meets all requirements for the social housing sector in Wales, in particular Secured by Design certification? This was our starting point in December 2019. Today we’re in the middle of improving workshop set-ups across various joinery businesses in Wales ready for production and certification of our Welsh window in 2021.
Covid-19 increases demand for joinery
Due to the pandemic, progress on the project has been a little slower than expected. Joinery businesses have been overwhelmed with demand for windows and doors after the first lockdown. For many, this unprecedented spike in demand has created lead-in times of up to 14 weeks. With all hands on deck, we had to adjust our planning to move forward – slow but steady.
Meeting client specifications
What does the client want? What do they specify and what do they buy in the end? To find out which expectations in terms of technical performance and price our Welsh window should meet, over the summer we launched a series of surveys with social housing developers, contractors, and timber frame manufacturers.
Simple does it – with rising expectations
Our survey results indicated that most clients specify and procure a simple casement window for new builds as much as retrofit projects. While specifiers request standard u-values of 1.4-1.6W/m2k for current new builds. The industry expects future developments to require windows that achieve performance criteria equivalent to Passivhaus standard, i.e. <0.8W/m2k.
Based on the comparison of recently procured windows in social housing, including uPVC, aluminium and composite windows, we agreed on specifications for a standard window fit for the current market as well as a high-performance window in line with future demand.
Defining joint protocols and processes
Making the same window to the same specification is one thing, achieving identical protocols and processes to meet group assessment requirements is another. Sharing protocols and processes with each other to agree on a common way forward is proof of the strong commitment the participating Welsh joinery businesses have demonstrated to make the project happen in the midst of the current public health crisis and pressures on manufacturing.
Smart innovation for better output
With support from Welsh Government’s SMART Innovation programme we are now investigating the individual potential to improve manufacturing processes and standardise these across participating joinery businesses. Once this has been accomplished, we will finally move into prototype production and submit specimens for testing.
Group assessment and business solutions
In the meantime, we are still in discussion with Secured by Design to define procedures for group assessment and certification. We are also working to establish options for management of the scheme in the future. These will be discussed and agreed with participating joinery businesses and clients.
Pilot schemes wanted
While we’re still busy covering all bases for future successful window production across many different joinery businesses in Wales, we are already looking for social housing developments to implement the Welsh timber window in spring or early summer 2021. These can be either new build or retrofit projects.
For details contact Christiane Lellig – christiane.lellig@woodknowledgewales.co.uk.
Read the latest updates from the Home-Grown Homes project here – www.woodknowledge.wales/news/home-grown-homes-updates-december-2020.
Home-Grown Homes Updates – December 2020
Home-Grown Homes Project on the home run!
The Project which has been the focus for our work since April 2018 formally ends this month. We’ve been studying the timber construction supply chain in Wales and apart from the global pandemic, which didn’t feature in our risk register, it’s turned out to be everything we expected – a significant body of work which altogether makes a compelling case for having an industrial strategy for timber in Wales. Right now Wales is a sheep and steel nation. In the future it needs to become a forest nation.
With our partners BM TRADA, Cardiff Met University and Coed Cymru we have looked at the way the supply chain operates from the growing of the raw material in the forest to its use in creating high-performance affordable homes. We’ve nourished a wider network of organisations to help shape our thinking and develop a raft of practical applications through projects across Wales. In 2020 the public health crisis slowed things up and created challenges we hadn’t foreseen, but we got there in the end!
The main project output is a report which tells the story of the supply chain and the work we’ve done to understand it. We’ve come to some important conclusions about changes which would help to make things work better. We’ve identified a series of interventions which could be made to barriers and improve outcomes for every part of the chain.
The project was conceived before the launch of Welsh Government’s Innovative Housing Programme or the declaration of a Climate Emergency and when foundational economic thinking wasn’t as well developed and widely embraced in Wales. So, to an extent, we’ve sailed on a sea of radical thinking which has both reinforced some of our research ideas and made some of our suggested interventions more urgent. Social landlords want to use more timber in the homes they build, home-grown timber from Wales ideally. They also want to build better and quicker using novel techniques and off-site manufacturing, to create homes which achieve much higher levels of energy efficiency. Carbon reduction has become a new focus for house builders and there are early signs of real interest in the adoption of building performance evaluation techniques to help reduce the ‘performance gap’ in the homes we build.
We have to plant many more trees, that now seems to be widely accepted. And we need to plant more of them for timber, that’s more controversial. We need to develop a more sustainable approach to what to grow and where if we are to diminish our reliance on imported timber and start to see the timber we do produce in Wales used for higher value outputs like timber frame construction, not just fencing, decking, pallets and biomass. We have a sleeping giant of a timber frame manufacturing sector which has, with more support and investment, the capacity and capability to become the off-site manufacturing route some assume we have to develop from scratch or import from ‘over the bridge’. And we need to be supporting our social landlords who are keen to improve their knowledge and understanding and learn new skills in the development of high-performing timber homes.
Our final report includes conclusions around Net Zero Whole Life Carbon homes, reducing embodied, upfront carbon and energy demand, minimising the performance gap, support for off-site manufacturing, carbon off-setting, the opportunity for co-ordinating and consolidating timber supply and demand, forestry investment, our perceptions of conifers, strategic thinking, traineeships and leadership.
The report, which is supported by a number of individual outputs, guidance documents, specification tools and technical briefings, will be available on the Woodknowledge Wales website in early 2021.
Find out more
If you would like to find out more about the project please visit our website page or contact the project manager: David.Hedges@woodknowledgewales.co.uk.
