Steps to Build

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Where to start

Share our 10 Steps to building in Structural Timber to make it easy for you and your teams to appreciate the process and benefit from support when you decide to build a project using structural timber. You’ll find plenty of useful information across this website and any of our members will guide you through the process to help you get the most from your project.

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Commercial viability

It’s important to understand how a project stacks up in cost, how it meets if a project is viable, never more so than when you are considering alternative more efficient building systems and methods. The best place to realise all the benefits of using structural timber is right at the start, when you undertake your commercial appraisal. This is a critical time to quantify all the benefits of structural timber, both financial and whole life. 

Use our Viability Guide to ensure your assessment takes account of every saving and gives you an accurate appraisal.

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Plan of works

We’re developing a helpful Plan of Work Guide, that follows the RIBA Plan of Work steps to help companies considering building in structural timber and those who have already taken the decision. The Guide sets out the processes of briefing, collaborating, appraising, designing, and constructing projects in structural timber.

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Design process

The outset of a project is the optimum time to identify benefits from a financial, sustainable, commercial and operations perspective. If you are considering structural timber, the start of the design process is the ideal time to engage with a structural timber manufacturer, share your proposed designs and benefit from value engineering and efficiencies without losing the integrity of the design. This can save both time and cost before committing to designs. Find out more about how you can take advantage of this critical stage

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Manufacturing

Modern methods of construction or offsite manufacture, provide precision engineered products, manufactured under stringent quality control conditions. A wide range of products with variable thermal requirements can be manufactured through a Fabric First approach, improving energy eciency to meet regulations and low carbon targets. Projects ranging from residential housing to multi storey offices, hospitals, schools, and public buildings are manufactured offsite with quality at the forefront.

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Construction

Structural timber enables faster speed of build, with lower labour on site required during the installation stage. To benefit from the speed and efficiencies of structural timber, it’s important to plan ahead for follow on trades, ensuring the site is prepared and ready for delivery. This ensures a more collaborative successful installation to deliver your project  See more on how it works.

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Skills training

Learning new skills is always valuable, never more so than when you or your team are starting to build with a new system.  Once your teams understand how to work alongside your chosen manufacturer, realising the benefits of structural timber becomes easy and the project teams benefits from better collaboration.