This is a market to DFY for

Initially my crash last week wasn’t the greatest experience. The best that can be said for it was that the Renault that reshaped my car in an apparent attempt to climb into my passenger seat shook off my Monday morning murky-headedness. That aside, in the first instance, it was a serious nuisance.

After this, however, as far as a car crash can be, it was all sweetness and light. My insurer didn’t quibble and rapidly arranged the replacement car and garage for repairs. The recovery truck driver called me not long after, said he was en route and even arranged for me to use the loo at a car dealer near where I was stranded – a huge relief. Touch wood, since then it’s all gone swimmingly too.

What brings all this to mind again was reading Burbidge chief executive Steve Underhill’s Wood Futures feature. Why my crash was relatively painless was because the insurance company presented me with a neatly worry- and hassle-free package – a total solution. And that, says Mr Underhill, is what the timber industry increasingly has to offer customers and specifiers, whether that’s a builder, architect, end user or consumer.

What the market expects more and more are “done for you” (DFY) products that are pre-prepared for ease and speed of installation.

This trend also demands a change in perceptions of steel, plastic, concrete, stone et al simply as “rival materials”. The market, says Mr Underhill, is also looking for multi-material solutions, so “timber manufacturers and merchants need to innovate, either to integrate these within their ranges, or design timber products to complement them”.

This all ties in with remarks from BRE chief executive Peter Bonfield to an SCA customer seminar late last year. The future, he said, belonged to companies which identified market needs and problems and devised products that provided the answers.

Encouragingly our floor, wall and roof systems special focus does show key timber players rising to the challenge of making and marketing products as total solutions.

Intelligent Wood Systems, for instance, is allying super-dried, finger-jointed beams with special nailplates to accommodate the large service duct holes required in modern sustainable house construction, and Masonite’s iFrame small panel wall system provides a prefabricated route for achieving ultra-low U-values.

James Jones’s response to the trend is to work with building product clients to incorporate its low weight-to-strength ratio JJI-joists studs into highly insulating wall systems, while ITW’s SpaceStud combines smaller section timber with metal clips to give a lower-cost wide wall panel that can accommodate more insulation.

The upcoming Ecobuild show, which we preview in the next edition of our Timber & Sustainable Building magazine and the February 19/26 issue of TTJ, also features timber companies presenting solutions first, products second: Wolf Systems will show roof, wall and floor systems based on its timber and metal easi-joist; Finnforest highlights its LVL and I-joist Low-E panelised “wall solution”; and Steico will focus on prefabricated wall, floor and roof build-up packages combining its insulation with LVL, I-joists and I-joist studs.

Like Mr Underhill, these companies have seen the future and have DFY products as an increasingly significant part of the timber mix.

And for anyone who wants to know the identity of my DFY car insurer, once I’ve agreed a referral commission, I’ll let you know.