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Tim is Carpenter Oak & Woodland’s managing director. Tim has extensive experience of managing companies of all sizes, in many business sectors, including construction and building. Tim’s no-nonsense hands-on approach, coupled with his outstanding management experience and commercial acumen, make him the ideal complement to the craft-based skills of the rest of the team.
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During our recent CPD events in which we covered building with large section timbers, I was struck by the response to the section on ‘what is the overall cost of a timber framed building?’ So much so, that I thought it worthwhile jotting down some quick notes on the subject.
In essence, there is really no reason why a post and beam construction in timber should cost any more than a characterless brick and block construction. It’s the detailing that makes the difference, and quite honestly the quality/cost (and yes I know these don’t necessarily equate to each other!) of the fixtures and fittings. This is why we come over all unhelpful when we are asked ‘how much per square foot?!’
Here’s an illustration. In a 200m2 new build, the differential between brick & block and a feature rich oak frame is likely to be less than £100 per square meter. My wife likes her kitchen and when we replaced our last sorry effort she insisted on a decent one (it’s important for her to be in beautiful surroundings as she watches me cook and do the washing up). So, we looked at a range of flat pack to designer kitchens. The difference in cost, it transpired, was £10K – £80K. That price differential of £70K would represent a difference of £350 per square meter. Would that kitchen add three and a half times the value to a build than an oak frame throughout? I doubt it.
(By the way if you’re interested in the rest of the kitchen story, we turned our back on the expensive one and commissioned a bespoke kitchen from a local guy who gave us exactly what we wanted – including my weird demands for oak, tulipwood and walnut, and in strange shaped units – and for little more than the flatpack. He deserves a plug, so here it is: you want a really bespoke kitchen for a reasonable price, speak to Duncan on www.dc-furniture.co.uk. My wife loves the kitchen and the cost saving so much that she now feels justified in drinking champagne as I do the washing up.)
So, the moral of the story is don’t just focus on one aspect of the build cost. The costs of the build should be taken into account holistically, and by looking at ‘value added’ for each high priced item it’s much easier to make choices between the competing demands on your cash. The extra cost for one of our frames, if indeed there is any extra, has got to be the clearest example of bang for your bucks you can possibly get. But then I would say that, wouldn’t I?
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