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Green Building with VTF

VTF clients believe in building greener, more sustainable homes for themselves and their families. Buildings have a tremendous impact on the environment – both during construction and through the life cycle of the building. Choosing to build a Vermont Timber Frame is an important component in minimizing your home’s effect on the ecosystem and reducing overall energy consumption. And the direct result for you and your family? Lower energy bills and a safer and healthier living environment.

TIMBER FRAME – A GOOD PLACE TO START

Timber framing has a natural advantage in sustainable construction. Wood shines in Life-cycle Assessment (LCA) studies as one of a select few materials that embodies the ‘Big Three’ qualities of ideal sustainable building – it is recyclable, biodegradable, and renewable. It requires low energy inputs to harvest, transport, and mill, and it is naturally absorbed back into the earth with no environmental harm since it is organic and non-toxic. The renewability of wood, especially when harvested from well-managed forests, makes it the most sustainable construction material available. Timber framing optimizes the use of wood in construction since it uses less lumber overall than conventional stick framing. In addition, let’s not forget what caught our eye about timber framing in the first place - it celebrates the beauty of wood by using it visibly and reverently. Stick framing hides it beneath the drywall. We’ll address how this particular concept affects the sustainability of your timber frame home a little later.

The energy used to manufacture the ingredients of a timber frame home is low when compared to other building materials. Manufacturing steel and concrete has a much greater impact on the environment. Steel, concrete, aluminum, and plastic are generally considered to be wood substitutes. Use of these products is often assumed to help protect the environment. However, the amount of energy required to mine, extract, and process iron ore in order to make steel is enormous. The same can be said for limestone in order to make concrete and bauxite in order to make aluminum. Plastic requires petroleum in order to be manufactured. Timber frames maintain lower embodied energy than structures using other materials.

To spread the environmental impacts of a home over as long a period as possible, it must be durable. Timber frames that are hundreds and hundreds of years old dot the landscape of the US and Northern Europe – they are time-tested indeed. When the probable lifespan is measured in centuries rather than decades, the material and environmental costs of the building are shared by several generations. Timber frames are consistently more resistant to trauma from earthquakes, wind uplift, and heavy snow load than stick framed construction. Timber frame homes need to be replaced less often, allowing for forest re-growth over time. Less replacement also decreases construction waste and landfill use. If such a structure does end up being replaced, the heavy timbers are often recycled for use as part of another home, or in some other manner.

Durability can also be a function of design. Timeless architecture is much more likely to realize a long life. Timber frames generally lend themselves to such design. The exposed timbers lend character, texture, and an aesthetic sense of strength and comfort. Furthermore, the inherent internal design flexibility of timber frames, since they are point-loaded and bearing walls are not necessary, makes it much more likely that a given structure can be adapted or renovated for re-use.

Timber frames also lend themselves to efficient construction. Since they are fabricated in the controlled environment of a shop, the inefficient use of both energy and resources found in site construction is neutralized. Especially when combined with Structural Insulated Panels, timber frame construction takes much less time to get weather-tight than conventional construction. Inclement weather does not play as much of a factor. Indeed, there’s a lot of truth to the adage that building a house on-site makes as much sense as building a car in your driveway.

TIMBER FRAMES AND SIPS – A PERFECT MARRIAGE

When combined with Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs), timber frame buildings are some of the most energy efficient buildings ever developed. Lucky for us timber framers, it just so happens that this high performance method of timber frame enclosure allows the full depth of the timber to be shown off within the interior of the home. It is truly the best of both worlds.

Most of the energy used in homes is for heating and cooling. The exterior shell of the building is critical for energy efficiency and occupant comfort. SIPs make use of a thick core of Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) which creates both high R-Values (a measure of the resistance to the passage of heat) and low U-Values (a coefficient of heat transfer). Foam construction eliminates the voids and thermal bridges common in conventional stud framing and Fiberglass insulation. In SIP construction the rigid insulation blankets the entire structure in a well-sealed envelope. Less air leakage means fewer drafts, less sound transmission, and a much more comfortable indoor environment. Molds, mildews, and dust are reduced. SIP-enclosed buildings are more fire resistant than stick frame buildings because there are no air cavities in the walls to create the ‘chimney effect’. Air temperature and quality are easily controlled, which drastically reduces energy consumption and thus heating and cooling costs. SIPs have been shown to need 1/100th of an air change per hour to heat or cool outside air to room temperature. Conventional homes often average between one and two air changes per hour. Audits continue to prove that money is saved year after year in these super-insulated, airtight structures. Often energy bills can be reduced by 40% or more by switching to SIP enclosures.

A home built with SIPs is kinder to the environment in other ways as well. Using SIPs greatly reduces CO2 emissions over the course of the home’s lifetime. SIPs also reduce construction waste since they can be delivered to the site pre-cut, complete with window and door openings, to exact dimensions. Each panel contains the insulation, structure, and moisture barrier of the wall system. EPS – the insulation – is manufactured without the use or production of CFCs or HCFCs, and it is recyclable. There is no off-gassing issue to be concerned about. Our SIPs utilize Oriented Strand Board (OSB) as the sheathing and facing material that sandwiches the insulation. OSB reduces wood use by as much as 35% and reduces pressure on mature forests by allowing the use of smaller farm-grown trees that can be regenerated in 5-10 years. Exterior grade plywood, for example, requires more mature timber. In so many different respects, timber framing with SIPs is a far greener method of building than conventional stick framing.

CONGRATULATIONS ON CHOOSING TIMBER FRAME CONSTRUCTION FOR YOUR NEW HOME!

You’ve decided to build one of the strongest and longest-lasting structures that can be built, one whose beauty will be preserved for future generations. You’ve decided to make the structure of your home not only visible, but fully displayed. And you’ve decided to build a home that minimizes its impact on the environment, during construction and beyond, for the health of the earth and ourselves.

Sources:
Structural Insulated Panel Association
Timber Framers Guild
Forest Stewardship Council
DeStefano Associates Structural Engineers
Athena Sustainable Materials Institute