Summary
• James Jones is supplying around £400,000-worth of I-joists to a project at St Luke’s Hospital in Middlesbrough.
• The company’s engineered products include the JJ-IntelliRoof and BBS cross-laminated timber panels.
• The company says the timber industry must help builders to do things differently.
Brian Robertson, general manager of James Jones & Sons Ltd, Timber Systems Division, is pretty sanguine about the effects of the current downturn in the UK housing market.
“It’s a bad time for everyone, but the downturn is at least focusing minds on innovative ways forward, which is good for timber engineering,” he said. “I believe the speed MMC delivers will be essential for housebuilders to meet demand once the recovery begins, especially as most will have had to shed experienced labour.”
As an example of innovative approaches, Mr Robertson highlights the move of I-joists in the past three years into the commercial and industrial construction sectors, as well as housing; and the simultaneous rise in their use in roofs and walls, as well as floors. This opens new opportunities, particularly for companies with in-house design offices, capable of producing complex engineered roofing designs.
“Historically, architects and engineers looked to steel or timber roof trusses to create the mono-pitched and flat roofs of industrial and commercial designs,” said Mr Robertson. “Now, more specifiers are choosing timber I-joists, particularly the increasing numbers who want to deliver sustainable, thermally-efficient construction.”
Major role
In housing, the I-joist’s traditional market, the drive for zero carbon is also good for engineered timber product and Mr Robertson predicts timber engineering “will play a major part in housebuilders’ zero carbon strategies”. Sustainability is also a key driver in social housing where, in order to meet the Code for Sustainable Homes level four and upwards, designers are specifying I-joists as wall components, exploiting their excellent insulation potential and ability to minimise cold bridging.
While welcoming specifiers’ increased awareness of sustainability, Mr Robertson believes there is a “continuing need to educate specifiers”. There’s a real need for factual (as opposed to promotional) information about engineered timber, he said, which James Jones is meeting with its first CPD-approved seminar, written specifically for architects. According to Mr Robertson, the programme has had an “overwhelming response” from architects and a second seminar is now being developed with engineers as the target audience.
James Jones is also developing its involvement in engineered products beyond I-joists. These include the JJ-IntelliRoof system; BBS cross-laminated timber panels, supplied through its relationship with Binder Holz of Austria, and claimed to deliver excellent strength performance and carbon storage, as well as a 90-minute fire rating; and Screedflo flooring. The question is will cash-strapped builders specify such innovative products, which inevitably carry some cost premium?
The challenge
“The challenge that faces our industry is to convince housebuilders that the benefits of engineered timber far outweigh relatively small front-end additional costs,” said Mr Robertson. “Time is money, and MMC can certainly deliver time savings. Safety is another major cost factor, both financial and human. In an industry where falls from height are a major problem, systems like JJ-IntelliRoof deliver a health and safety bonus by providing a safe working platform straight away.”
James Jones belives that builders are increasingly recognising these factors and that the engineered wood industry needs to keep pushing them.
“As Egan said in his famous report,” said Mr Robertson, “‘we are not inviting UK construction to look at what it does already and do it better, we are asking the industry and government to join with major clients to do it entirely differently’.”
