Comparison of Traditional and Solid Timber Construction of a Single-Family House

Given that, like most investors, I am encountering the construction of a single-family house for the first time, the diploma thesis also describes the preparation for house construction from a legislative perspective. The author particularly highlighted the documentation that is of essential importance before the commencement of construction, namely: the project for obtaining a building permit, the project for execution, the construction contract and the contract with construction supervision. In the project for obtaining a building permit, it is important to emphasise that the time required to obtain a final building permit is very long, 5 or more months – most investors are not aware of this. The result of the time schedule analysis was, given the construction procedure, expected: traditional construction, with the necessary consideration of the drying of structural elements, is two to three times longer than timber construction.

Problem

Given that, like most investors, I am encountering the construction of a single-family house for the first time, the diploma thesis also describes the preparation for house construction from a legislative perspective.

Solution and Method

The author particularly highlighted the documentation that is of essential importance before the commencement of construction, namely: the project for obtaining a building permit, the project for execution, the construction contract and the contract with construction supervision. In the project for obtaining a building permit, it is important to emphasise that the time required to obtain a final building permit is very long, 5 or more months – most investors are not aware of this. Nor are they aware that the project for execution is a very important document, especially in solid timber construction, because if it is not prepared in sufficient detail and precision, it can cause very large costs during construction.

This is because corrections and changes that would consequently have to be made during the execution of works cannot be made without damaging the timber structure, which is significantly more difficult to repair than traditional solid construction. During the execution of works, the key documents are the construction contract with the contractor, which precisely defines the obligations of the contractor and the construction investor, and the contract with construction supervision, which primarily guarantees the investor supervision over the agreed deadlines, quality and value of works. The description and comparison of traditional and solid timber construction was made on the basis of an actually planned single-family house, consisting of three floors: basement, ground floor and first floor.

The floor plan layout of the house in question is rectangular in shape with a total net floor area of 245.50 m2. The author highlighted the differences in the use of building materials and the composition of structural elements. Because traditional construction consists of many building components, the range and choice of building materials is greater than in timber construction.

On the other hand, in a traditional house there is no such predominant and dominant material as, for example, timber in a timber house. Consequently, timber and its properties strongly define timber construction and offer different structural construction systems. The author himself opted for the most traditional solid timber construction, which is called log construction, more precisely log construction from rectangular beams made of glued laminated timber.

The structural elements of the house are fundamentally the same in both constructions; the difference lies in their composition, the thickness of the elements and the consequent execution. Given the method of execution, traditional construction is primarily wet and gradual construction, whilst timber construction is dry and prefabricated construction. In the final chapter, the author conducted a comparative analysis of both construction methods, namely a time schedule and financial analysis based on the actually planned single-family house.

The ecological, thermal insulation and general comparative analysis was summarised according to professional literature that directly or indirectly addressed the properties of both constructions.

Results

The result of the time schedule analysis was, given the construction procedure, expected: traditional construction, with the necessary consideration of the drying of structural elements, is two to three times longer than timber construction. The results of the financial comparative analysis surprised me, as I did not expect solid timber construction to be as much as 43 per cent more expensive than traditional construction. There are primarily two reasons for this: the first is the architecture of the actually planned house, which envisages large areas of walls and ceilings, and the second is the choice of timber construction system, which in connection with the architecture of the building consequently means a very large quantity of timber consumption and thus a higher price.

The ecological comparative analysis showed that timber construction consists primarily of renewable building materials, whilst traditional construction is the opposite, consisting primarily of non-renewable materials. Likewise, timber construction uses more than ten times less grey energy and almost seven times fewer CO2 emissions. Despite the fact that during the diploma thesis and on the basis of comparative analyses the set objective was achieved and it was proven that solid timber construction compared to traditional solid construction is faster and comparable from an ecological and sustainability perspective, I believe that investors, due to the current lack of knowledge of solid timber construction technology and its higher price, will still choose traditional solid construction in a much greater percentage.