Timber In The Building Industry
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What's Good About Wood?
Timber has been a building material of choice for New Zealand homes since the arrival of the first European settlers, with many nineteenth century homes constructed in timber still in use and habitable today. The timber industry is now a well-established industry sector with the manufacture off site of timber wall frames going back to around 1960, and roof trusses from around 1964. Timber framed houses have been the norm since then, with probably 90 percent of standalone residential buildings constructed using timber framing. The benefits of timber are widely known and with today’s focus on sustainability and high performance eco-homes, the material is as popular as ever. It is very easy to meet the requirements of the New Zealand Building Code standards as timber buildings designed and constructed using NZS3604:2011 automatically comply. There is no equivalent for concrete block or steel, resulting in a much more complicated and time consuming design and consenting process with those materials. FTMA has been promoting timber and raising the standards of the frame and truss industry since it was formed in 1998 by a group of proactive frame and truss fabricators. |
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Reasons To Choose Timber
Timber is fast and flexible, the builder’s choice:
- Timber allows flexibility of design and modifications and tweaks to layout during the construction process become very easy to achieve
- Builders are familiar with timber and like using it; they understand how to get the best out of it
- Timber is our most sustainable raw material. It results in far less carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere than competing building products
- Timber is a proven thermal insulator
- Timber retains heat from the day and releases it at night
- Timber used appropriately, in accordance with building standards and regulations, will exceed the minimum 50 year service life for materials used for the structure of houses in New Zealand - see building code
- Timber is long term durable
- Timber treated with the appropriate level of preservative, and properly maintained, can last in service for 100 years or more
- Timber is environmentally friendly
- Timber is a sustainably produced and naturally renewable material, with low energy consumption during production and is known to have a low carbon footprint
- Timber absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere whilst other products emit CO2 into the atmosphere
- Timber used as your building material is
PRACTICAL PROVEN PEERLESS