For example, a red wooden structure for a 150 sqm house is manufactured in the workshop in one week and after it is delivered to the construction site, it takes less than a week to be assembled. Therefore, from the moment of signing a contract and depending on our availability, the structure of your house will be ready to be assembled on site in 2 weeks. Something that in concrete or masonry constructions is just a dream considering the very long labor times. If we are talking about turnkey houses, if you have a good site management, you can move into the house in a maximum of 3 months.

Prefabrication is also reflected in the quality of the structure because everything is manufactured in a controlled environment.

The dry wood at 12% humidity that we use has a density of 450 kg/m2, compared to hollow brick which has a density of 850 kg/m2, reinforced concrete 2400 kg/m2 and steel 7480 kg/m2. So the wood is approx. 2 times lighter than brick, 5 times lighter than concrete and 16 times lighter than steel.

This is reflected in the dimensioning of the foundations and in the resistance of the wooden structures in the event of an earthquake.

Because wood is much lighter compared to brick and concrete, the foundations will be less demanding, hence the amount of concrete and iron will be smaller, as a consequence the costs of a foundation for a house on a wooden structure will be 20-30% lower.

The fact that wood is light and at the same time very elastic helps a lot in the behavior of a wooden structure in case of a large earthquake. Two important components in the seismic calculation of structures are the ductility and the mass of the building, the ductility must be as high as possible and the mass as low as possible. Due to the fact that wood is a very elastic material and because a wooden structure has many fasteners and mechanical fixings that have a high degree of ductility, a high ductility class results, which is what we want in the case of an earthquake. The other important component of the earthquake, namely the mass, I have demonstrated above that it is a very small one.

Thermal conductivity, which shows how easily heat passes through a material, is much lower than brick, concrete or light steel, and falls more into the category of insulating materials. The smaller the coefficient λ is, the less heat the material conducts. So, wood is almost 4 times better insulating than brick and 17 times better than concrete.

Regarding the thickness of the walls, a big advantage is the fact that the TimberFrame wall structure has a thickness of 140 mm, the structure can be insulated with 140 mm of heat-insulating material, the outside is also heat-insulated with 100 mm and you already have a very good thermal coefficient inside – a final wall thickness of only 320 mm after the finishing touches. In the case of a brick wall, the final thickness of the wall is much larger (450 mm) if you want to equal the thermal efficiency of a wooden wall. One thing that matters if you want to build in the city where the surface of the land is smaller and then you have to use the space to the maximum.

It is true that wood burns, but how it burns and how fast it burns matters. The wood burns at a rate of 0.7 mm/min and after a certain time, say 30 minutes, a 2 cm layer of ash forms which acts as an insulator and protects the interior from the flame. If outside, the temperature of the burnt wood can reach 1000°C, inside, where the flame has not reached, the temperature is 40-50°C. The thicker the wood, the more protected it is, the harder it will burn.

Although some building materials do not burn, they are still affected in the event of a fire. Steel begins to lose its structural properties after 600°C and fails under its own weight. Concrete exposed to fire exfoliates and after some time, exposes the reinforcing steel which warps from the heat.

But in the unfortunate situation of a fire, the flame spreads rapidly due to the combustible materials inside, such as varnish on furniture, curtains and other plastic accessories. Before reaching the wooden structure, the flame must first pass through the interior cladding, such as plasterboard, Vidiwall, non-combustible materials. Then comes the thermal insulation in the walls, such as basalt wool that withstands 2 hours at 1000°C

The construction sector has a major share in greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change (40% energy consumption and 36% CO2 emissions compared to the rest of the sectors) and the production of construction materials consumes enormous amounts of energy, which comes from fossil fuels. Consequently, every building material has an associated carbon footprint.

Unlike the rest of the building materials, wood is the only renewable material. Steel, brick or concrete come from exhaustible sources while wood only needs time, water, sun, carbon and nutrients from the soil to grow and produce cellulose, the basic component that gives it value as a building material. On average, one cubic meter of wood stores between 900-1000 kg of CO2. 30% of the carbon ends up in the soil while the rest is used as “food” during growth. The processes of logging and processing the log to be transformed into timber also consume energy and have an associated carbon footprint of approximately 200-300 kg CO2. In total, 1 m3 of wood stores 600-700 kg of CO2.