Lightweight timber will continue to be the preferred material in low-rise housing throughout Australia if a new industry initiative succeeds.

And low-rise timber homes will be constructed faster with lower levels of waste.

At the recent Timber Construct conference held in Melbourne, Dr Louise Wallis, Deputy Director of the Center for Sustainable Architecture with Wood at the University of Tasmania, outlined what is happing with the Future Lightweight Timber Framing: Productivity Initiative.

Set to run over two years from April 2025 until April 2027, the project is being supported by eight universities and sixteen industry associations.

It is part of the Future Framing Initiative which is being conducted by Australian Forest and Wood Innovations – a national research institute which is being supported over the five years to June 2027 by $100 million in Australian Government funding.

A key aim of the project is to ensure that timber continues to be the dominant and preferred material for lightweight framing in low rise buildings.

Whilst timber framing has typically had a large presence in single-storey housing, the project aims to ensure that wood is the preferred option for buildings of up to three stories.

The project also aims to:

• Use research to provide an evidence base to support the updating and expansion of the Australian Standard for Residential Timber Framed Construction (AS1684 – also known as the Timber Framing Code). This is important as compliance with the standard ensures compliance with the National Construction Code via Deemed-to-Satisfy provisions.
• Support greater timber uptake by providing an evidence base to inform strategies which enable faster builds with fewer resources.
• Foster the next generation of research and development professionals to support the ongoing development of lightweight timber framing.

“We are basically trying to ensure that timber is the preferred and dominant material for lightweight framing in the low residential buildings,” Wallis said.

“We have plenty of detached homes (constructed with lightweight timber). But this is the idea of looking at how can we make … it easier for people to actually make three stories (lightweight timber construction)? Even going further perhaps (in the future), but at this stage, let’s go three stories.”

Opportunities, challenges and design practices

The project aims to address three areas.

First, it hopes to identify opportunities for the lightweight timber framing industry to expand.

It is examining how the sector can do more with greater effectiveness and how any further growth opportunities can be exploited.

Next, the research is examining technical challenges which are associated with timber frame construction.

These include stud distortion, the efficient use of noggins (and whether these are needed at all) and composite walls and floors.

Finally, the project aims to better understand processes which are associated with design, manufacturing, installation and safe working.

The aim is to identify any ‘pain points’ which are involved in timber construction and to promote greater collaboration.

Early stages

As things stand, the project remains in the initial review phase.

During this stage, the researchers are seeking to better understand the sector and current practices and standards along with overseas experiences.

The first part of this has focused on the frame and truss sector itself. In this area, the project team have attended industry seminars and visited frame and truss manufacturing sites.

Through this, they have received input from around 250 people and conducted around 45 interviews. This is in addition to general observations which are made when visiting sites.

The team will now expand their engagement to include builders and installers.

(Launch of the Lightweight Timber Framing Project in 2024. Image source: AWFI)

Two challenges identified early

Based on early consultations, the team has identified two challenges.

First, there are concerns that communication between design/construction teams and the frame and truss sector is not consistent.

Often, design changes are not communicated to manufacturers. This results in considerable reengineering as framing that is produced in the factory arrives on site only for the door or window to be in the wrong place.

In addition, broader interaction is needed between architects/engineers and manufacturers so that designers are more readily able to capitalise upon the capabilities of the frame and truss sector.

The second concern involves the quality of feedstock. This includes issues such as the variability of stud thickness, distortion, knots, bows and other matters.

Other concerns include:

• site handling and damage from transport and trades
• the need to protect the timber from moisture and water damage during periods where it becomes stuck on site.

(timber frame noggins will be examined by the program)

Addressing timber distortion

As mentioned above, timber distortion is a concern.

To address this, the project team will subject various products to different weather conditions. These include being put outside, being placed in climate chambers and being bathed.

This will provide critical evidence about how each product responds to different conditions.

Indeed, Wallis suggests that there are likely to be many opportunities to improve the distortion situation.

Even looking at photographs of advertised frame and trusses on the web reveals a large volume of timber packs which are sitting outside around buildings.

This highlights how many opportunities there are in the current supply chain for timber to go bad, she observes.

To noggin or not to noggin?

One interesting issue is noggins.

There are questions about whether these are genuinely needed and whether doing away with these could reduce the volume of timber product which is needed for each build.

Eliminating noggins could also save on manual labour and could avoid potential hand injuries which may occur from nail guns when securing noggins into joists.

As things stand, however, timber noggins remain the norm on all but a small number of projects.

In these few cases, timber noggins have been replaced with either metal noggins or other means such as sheathing.

On the flip side, however, many builders and installers like noggins.

In particular, there is a feeling that noggins:

• provide an opportunity to use waste timber that would otherwise be discarded
• aid in manual handling of timber frames by increasing their rigidity
• are useful in terms of fall protection when working on the first level or on the roof.

As for sheathing wall frames, this has drawbacks in terms of the cost of sheathing material, additional weight during transport and manual handling and additional complications in terms of service penetrations.

Wallis acknowledges these concerns and says that these issues do need to be addressed.

However, she says that solutions are available and that noggins are not used across many parts of the world (especially in Europe).

Big opportunity

Finally, Wallis says that the timber framing sector has a massive opportunity.

She looks forward to sharing learnings as the project moves forward.

“I look forward to sharing with you when we actually have some more science to show you beyond the actual perceptions and experiences,” Wallis told the conference.

“We can build a lot of lightweight timber. We’ve got an existing supply chain that’s sitting there. We’ve got existing skills and companies working there.

“Let’s make it better.”

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