Imported softwood has ruled the roost over less dense Welsh wood when it comes to construction timber.
But all that could be about to change, with visitors to Interbuild this month among the first set to see the Ty Unnos build system.
Ty Unnos (which means “house of one night”) is basically an answer to the Welsh softwood conundrum.
It has been developed by a collaboration between Coed Cymru, the Welsh School of Architecture’s Design Research Unit and Cowley Timberwork and funded by the Countryside Council for Wales and the Wales Forest Business Partnership.
Having established that Welsh Sitka spruce softwood was not strong enough for conventional timber frame, the partnership developed a box beam system which is prefabricated to form a structural portal frame, with standard size timber supplied by local sawmills.
Pre-insulated timber infill panels for walls, floors and roofs complete the system and allow for the creation of modular rooms from 1.2mx3m to 4.8mx3m. The panels are made from small section spruce ladder beams with either solid timber planking or OSB as the face and filled with Warmcel or sheep’s wool to achieve 0.15W/m2.
Planning permission has been granted for two pilot projects – a visitor centre for walkers and mountain biking, in the Llandegla forest, six miles south-west of Wrexham. And an environmental research classroom at Ebbw Vale is also ready to roll.
Rob Thomas of the Welsh School of Architecture’s Design Research Unit designed the 225m2 visitor centre extension in Llandegla forest for UPM Tilhill. It will include extra office space, a classroom, workshop and a kitchen preparation area.
Forest manager UPM has a vested in seeing more home-grown wood used – it manages 25,000ha of forest in Wales – 200,000ha nationwide. It owns Llandelga forest and runs the popular existing visitor centre.
“One of the keys for us is to increase the use of Welsh wood,” said Phil Johnson, who sits on the Wood Knowledge Wales group which fosters innovation in the timber industry.
“That’s why we’re quite keen to be involved in the project.”
Cowley Structural Timberwork has performed the important structural testing of the system and will fabricate the portal frame for the projects. But SIPs panels will be used to allow more time for Ty Unnos infill panels to undergo testing.
“We are using a standard SIPs panel as the infill panel so we can get these buildings up straight away and make some projects using the box sections,” said Mr Thomas.
“We are looking to construct these prototype buildings over the next year and hope for funding to construct a whole house system based on the portal frame and the infill panel that we can take into manufacturing,” said Mr Thomas.
“It’s so low-tech and quite simple in its approach.”
But the first sizeable project to be seen will be a two-storey house to be erected by Oswestry-based Elements Europe at Interbuild on October 26-30.
For Elements Europe, Ty Unnos is a departure from its core steel kitchen and bathroom pod business. But managing director Wayne Morgan said Ty Unnos scored highly in eco-terms and had potential for use in housing developments.
“At the moment there seems to be a real drive to sustainability and the perception is that steel is not as eco-friendly as timber,” he said.
Mr Morgan maintained that steel was sustainable but a system like Ty Unnos could open up new business opportunities for the company.
Ty Unnos research work is continuing through a PhD by Rob Thomas.
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Ty Unnos box beam section |
