Would you buy a timber-frame house?

I have this mental image that a timber-frame building is a terrible idea, and I don’t know where it’s come from. Would you be worried about owning one? Are there big disadvantages? The one I’m looking at is timber-faced with brick outer walls, built in 1980.

Only thing I can think of is that it’s a problem to insulate and it does have a F rating on the EPC.

The one I’m looking at is timber-faced with brick outer walls

Does not compute.
How can it be timber faced and yet have brick out of walls? 🤔

Edit: D’oh. Timber-FRAMED, brick-faced…

Surely most houses in e.g. Norway are timber framed, and well insulated? I think the lack of insulation is a special British feature, but I’m reluctant to say so too loudly as I understand this is now classed as terrorism in Patel’s Britain.

Yes – pretty standard method of construction in the UK housing industry.

Got one. pushing 100 years old. All seems good and keeps very warm.

Shame the UK does not use timber framed more.

Tricked into using Bricks 😉

We I buy another, without a doubt.

Think of it this way… you have a house with a skin you can do what you like with… clad differently, add doors and windows easily and stick 4oomm of insulation on the outside without feeling guilty.

A good timber built house is good much like a bad brick house is a **** pain in the arse.

I have this mental image that a timber-frame building is a terrible idea

Don’t The North American’s (Canada and the US) built almost exclusively out of wood framed houses? My wife who’s Canadian loves nearly everything about the UK, but thinks our houses are shockingly bad (build quality, size, price etc etc)

Lived in one the last 20 years, one of which was best part of a hundred years old. That was a bit breezy inside, but easy to fix and my modern one is very well insulated.

Don’t like brick houses tho’. Hard to insulate

Yeah, got one, about 170 years old, but then that is/was the main way that houses of that age were made here in Sweden.

The walls at solid timber sitting on a frame on large lumps of stone to keep it off the earth. The solid timber is faced with interlocking wood panel to weatherproof it. The house has a large air gap under it too with a floor void filled with sawdust as insulation/windproofing. It is warm, but the one problem we have had is with the modifications carried out in the 60’s/70’s to the floor and one of the rooms. We may need to take up the floor to re-do the insulation part and the void.

And the 1960’s extension needs insulating because the people that lived in it back then never intended it to be an all year round house, just a summer one.

Our timber framed house is 500 years old and still going strong. Admittedly the timber is oak and now harder than concrete but the method of construction is well tested.

Now, the execution of the idea may have changed over time however and I can’t see modern timber framed houses being quite so long lived.

But in general there is nothing inherently poor in the insulation of a timber framed house. It’s all about how it was executed.

I had a friend who worked on timber frame construction in the 1980s at a National level for a big building company

From memory he was confident the principles were sound. But implementation was variable as people onsite made the transition to what for them was a new technology

The boring answer will be get a surveyor to look at it

Shame the UK does not use timber framed more.

Majority of single/two storey houses been built in Scotland are timber framed.

My youngest works here:
https://www.barratthomes.co.uk/why-buy-new/timber-frames/

In the last 15 years living in Scotland, every single house I’ve seen getting built has been timber frame. Our extension is timber frame and it’s about a million times warmer than the sim bit of the house (brick cavity wall with the damp creating insulation removed).

Your F EPC will be improved by things like LED lighting, maybe a new A rated boiler etc. They won’t physically inspect wall insulation – they will just assume it was built to the Building Regs in force at the time of construction.

built in 1980.

No. No Way.

A recent one yes no problems. A very old one, yes no problems. One from 1980 I would worry about – might not be well insulated.

I asked the same question on here a few years ago.

Timber frame Houses

We ended up buying and have had no regrets so far. Just adding an extension which has been pretty straight forwards

built in 1980.

No. No Way.

I’d not have a problem with a [modern] timber framed house – but I’d be looking into how they built them in the 80’s.

A lot of negativity toward 80’s properties – is that related to timber framed ones only, or generally avoid that decade (only that exact decade?) when buying a house? thanks

In the last 15 years living in Scotland, every single house I’ve seen getting built has been timber frame. Our extension is timber frame and it’s about a million times warmer than the sim bit of the house (brick cavity wall with the damp creating insulation removed).

Similarly our timber frame extension is the coldest and draughtiest bit of the house thanks to the shite building (built 7 years ago). It absolutely shouldn’t be but here we are. Think some judicious application of expanding foam behind the plasterboard is on the cards.

We bought one 2 years ago, new build.

Love it. It’s so rapid to warm up. No complaints so far

A lot of negativity toward 80’s properties – is that related to timber framed ones only, or generally avoid that decade (only that exact decade?) when buying a house? thanks

My concerns would be around the insulation, not around structural soundness. You can get rubbish properties from any decade, people have this feeling that Victorian or Edwardian houses are well built only because most of the rubbish ones got knocked down beacuse they were rubbish!

Timber frames need insulation and vapour layers – the building regs changed quite a few times between the 80s and now, even the early 2000s were much worse than todays timber frames. I’d be looking to for any sign that the vapour barrier has been busted, and depth of insultation. In theory it’s relatively straight forward to up this, but it does involve replaster boarding it (cavity wall insulation is a huge no no in timber frames).

I’ve got a 1960s one, timber frame with brick skin. Absolutely no insulation which is a pain. Neighbours have insulated by pulling off the plasterboard and insulating in the frame. I’m reluctant to do so as I’m not convinced the dew point will be outside the frame. Who would be best to advise? Building engineer?

people have this feeling that Victorian or Edwardian houses are well built only because most of the rubbish ones got knocked down beacuse they were rubbish!

pretty much, same goes for railways etc.

If its still standing now it was either a really good guess or if you look underneath there are all manner of repairs to keep it up.

I’ve got a 1960s one, timber frame with brick skin. Absolutely no insulation which is a pain. Neighbours have insulated by pulling off the plasterboard and insulating in the frame. I’m reluctant to do so as I’m not convinced the dew point will be outside the frame. Who would be best to advise? Building engineer?

stick on the outside let you bricks store the warmth. easier too

As a retired building surveyor I wouldn’t touch one. If it’s old you’re likely looking at high maintenance. If it’s “modern” you’re relying on a very high standard of workmanship to ensure the integrity of the moisture and vapour barriers. If you’ve been on a building site you will know the likelihood of that happening…….🤔

Hoose

I’m sitting in one right now, 8 months old and loving it. It probably only needs to last 40 years anyway as I’ll probably not be needing it!
Virtually all the houses here with exception of the traditional stone-built ones here are timber frame. There’s only one brickie left working in Argyll such is the demand for their skills.
The important thing in the OPs case is who built it and how well was it built? A surveyor is best qualified to answer that question – looking for things like water and damp ingress. If it was built as part of a large scale development, more inclined to worry as well-know for corner-cutting and poor-finishing.

Timber frame doesn’t last. 😉

Timber frame isn’t warm. 😉

Can’t cope with damp. 😉

From memory he was confident the principles were sound. But implementation was variable as people onsite made the transition to what for them was a new technology

Very much this imo. Absolutely nothing wrong with the construction method which works very well on North America.

40 or 50 years ago it was fairly new to Britian and quite different to traditional British brick build. It took a while to adapt and understand issues which apply to timber frame but not necessarily to traditional build.

Scandals surrounding Barratt Homes gave timber framed building an unfair bad reputation

People might well have timber framed homes in the UK which are over 100 years but that is not what is being talked about here, which is the North American system of timber frame with ply/sterling board and non-structural outer skin.

A lot of negativity toward 80’s properties – is that related to timber framed ones only, or generally avoid that decade (only that exact decade?) when buying a house? thanks

By the 80s I think most house builders had grasped the idea and best practices, 60s and 70s more problematic imo. I’m not a surveyor though, I am basing my comments purely from my long experience as a carpenter working on new build sites.

.

My wife who’s Canadian loves nearly everything about the UK, but thinks our houses are shockingly bad (build quality, size, price etc etc)

those two arent so much a critisism of the British home building style, but more of the value of the bit of land it is sat on.

Sat in ours now, built by a smaller regional developer. Was hesitant until I did my own research.

Completely normal new build estate. It’s very solid, hasn’t ‘settled’ or budged a bit even though the frame was up in Summer 2020.
Incredibly well insulated. No creaks or squeaks.

And the best bit, I’ve found – is that it’s very, very impressively accurately built – everything is bang square, level, and accurate, almost to the mm when compared with the drawings from which it was built. As a mecnahical engineer I appreciate that!

I would want to do some proper investigations into a 1980 built house but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s worse than a 1980s brick /block build.

Lots of modern timber frame houses are kit-built from pre-fitted panels – assuming the concrete slab is flat and square, then it’s relatively easy to get accuracies within a few mm. Older timber frame houses are more likely to have been ‘stick built’ by a joiner in situ using hand-sawn lengths of timber so there’s far more variability in the process.
The quality of mass-produced houses in this country can be shockingly bad – they build one correctly and get it signed-off by building control and sometimes build the rest with no regard for quality as they know it’ll never get checked.

The (terrible) estate i was brought up on had a patch of about 80-100 timber framed houses with brick and timber facing. Built in the early/mid 70s.

They have almost all had serious structural problems over the last 10-15 years due to corners cut with materials and building processes, a quick squizz at the street my mate lived on (which used to have about 30 of the timber framed houses on it) shows that about a 3rd of them have been knocked down and replaced.

Another friend from the estate who bought one of the timber framed houses round the corner in the late 90s is now stuck with it as they paid the going rate at the time (something like 160 grand), and now can’t give it away, it’s only the plot that has any value now. So they are just in an endless cycle of opening bits of the house up to repair the latest damage, until it falls down. (I have a vague recollection that one or two actually did fall down, but can’t find anything to confirm.)

IIRC is was some sort of low quality wood/poor insulation/damp getting in everywhere issue.

As an aside, the place i live now has a good number of wooden houses, mostly pine with key structural bits in oak, even wooden shingles on one or two of them. The only ones that have any issues are those which have been left locked up and empty with no power or maintenance for a couple of decades.
Most of them were built in the 1920’s when the village was founded, but there are two houses that have been here since the late 1800s, they’re still in very good condition.
And they are still building new timber framed stuff here (completely built from timber even).

Hiya,

My only comment is from bitter experience attempting to buy a pre-1960’s one, without realizing till the survey. It is important to note Mortgage lenders will not lend on pre-1960’s timber built houses they state the buildings are not standard construction and will reject the mortgage application. This cost us a fortune in wasted solicitor fees and delayed our move. In hindsight it did us a favor in that we found an awesome house in Portishead the the house in Yatton now is going to be in the middle of housing estate instead of overlooking an idyllic set of fields ;-(

JeZ

Yes, I would, but, individual merits etc.

I’d have no hesitation on anything really recent.

My wife who’s Canadian loves nearly everything about the UK, but thinks our houses are shockingly bad (build quality, size, price etc etc)

Your wife, who’s Canadian, is bang on right. As a guy who grew up watching his father and uncle build a log cabin, a house, a huge garage, and completely renovate and/or build more than a couple of interiors in Canada, build quality and philosophy remains the single greatest thing I can not get over about the UK.