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WFI speaks to Brian Hucker, a director of Briman Joinery, about the benefits of timber as a material for producing windows and doors.

The saying ‘original is best’ is not always true and yet the growing pace of change, back to the use of original building materials, suggests that society is becoming increasingly aware of the causes of climate change and global warming. This, in turn, is leading to a reappraisal of what ‘sustainable construction’ really is.

Green credentials

Timber is one of the world’s oldest, yet most enduring and versatile building materials, which is once again taking centre stage, as its green credentials make it a natural choice for everything from building structures and frames to windows, doors and floors. The move back to timber has gathered pace as homeowners, self-builders, builders and architects recognise the low carbon footprint of timber in construction. Timber’s green credentials come from it being;

• a natural, renewable and sustainable material
• recyclable or, at worst, convertible into energy, which avoids the need for old timbers to go to landfill
• easy to work and uses relatively little energy to convert from tree to finished product as compared with metal or plastics
• carbon neutral as trees absorb CO2 whilst growing and, particularly in tropical and equatorial regions, have a global cooling effect

Environmentally, timber has much going for it in its contribution to sustainable construction, through its selection alongside other natural, recyclable materials including stone, slate and lime based mortars. Timber complements our built environment and blends well into many landscapes in towns, villages and all rural settings. As a joinery material it has the great advantage of being easily worked and shaped and has good thermal and acoustic qualities, allowing it to readily meet required insulation values, without costly additional design features, such as thermal breaks to avoid cold bridging and increased risk of condensation.

Popularity resurgence

The popularity of timber windows and doors has seen a resurgence over the last 10 years, through a combination of changes in attitudes towards different materials by homeowners as well as planning authorities. Planners have become increasingly sensitive to the need to conserve the characteristics of our built environment. Nowhere is this more evident than in the tighter restrictions often placed on the use of building materials in renovation and refurbishment projects, listed buildings and buildings in designated conservation areas as well as in typically rural building work, including barn and farm building renovations and conversions.

In the last 15 years, modern technology has helped combine with the natural benefits of timber to engender a renewed confidence amongst specifiers and the public in the material. Timber is once again in demand, is frequently the material of choice and satisfies the needs of a world looking to adopt green and sustainable solutions.

This article was originally published in the June 2007 edition of WFI, which looks at the reasons for timber's growth in popularity as a building material and its resurgence in the window and door markets

With acknowledgements to WFI magazine

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