How long before this type of construction becomes popular for small residential low-rise? Hopefully it will reduce construction cost and duration, even for small developments. https://www.theurbandeveloper.com/south-australias-first-timber-apartment-building-construction/
I'm pretty sure I'm going to be building WA's first one - just waiting for some extra council permissions to be granted.
Looking forward to seeing the plans and pics for that! Although if I was to build one in several years on my land that has minor tidal inundation risk, I could have noah's ark on my hands . I'll make the leases on any units pet-friendly.
I was in Alaska recently and wondered why a five level apartment bldg was all timber frame. My first concern was fire. No steel or brick. I had it explained to me - its a thermal issue. Concrete and steel etc will break in extreme climate. Timber retains some sort of flexibility and suits cold better (and earthquake for low rise). Councils and local Govt will have local policies but the building code often dictates how a build must be constructed. Its going to be influeneces by local conditions eg snow, earthquake, flood, wind etc Ever been to HK and seen the way they use bamboo for scaffolding ? It would never ever get workcover approval here.
It will take a while to catch on - people don't want timber they want brick or cement render. I have no issue (subject to meeting BCA). Unfortunately we are no lo longer geared towards building in timber.
CLT isn't a big fire risk - the timber that is used in these structures is more likely to char and discolour rather than burn up easily. One of the new office buildings down at Barangaroo in Sydney is also being constructed from this. There is some constructability advantages as well - all the components are prefabricated and brought to site so they can be constructed faster than a reinforced concrete structure. There's limited manufacturing capability of this in Australia so far, most of the material is imported. New Zealand has been doing a lot of this since the Christchurch earthquakes.
The prefab nature of this is also excellent for sites which are tiny and don't have a lot of room to store large amounts of bricks/blocks etc
@Westminster, of course I should have asked - what % difference in construction cost do you expect compared to traditional methods?
For Class 2 (apartments) a lot of the cost is in all the BCA compliance which is extra high for all the safety, fire regulations etc etc. But I would expect around 5-10% - and then time savings in term of holding costs. Could reduce holding costs by up to a third.