Timber or steel framed houses?

I often get asked as a design engineer should I build my greatest investment from Timber or steel?
my reply is " once you have your 3D Bim data do the proper checks, math and compare the build cost$
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Cheers
Chris

What are the advantages and disadvantages of light gauge steel frames compared with timber for the customer? Besides being termite safe and before considering pricing and material availability.

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Kippers01

That is a really interesting question. My team and I are kind of timber framing nerds and we pride ourselves on the quality of our custom frames, but due to the price increases and lack of material we have been forced to make the switch.

For readers of the forum who aren't aware, we have had a 47% price increase in 2021 for treated 90x45mm structural grade framing timber and have been advised that another 19% is coming. In real terms a 400 sqm house frame was costing us $54,000 last year and is now close to $80,000. If you can find the timber.

From a construction perspective below are the list of advantages/disadvantages that we have found:

1. We love that all the holes for rough ins are pre cut and protected with grommets. This obviously makes rough-ins a hell of a lot faster and you know you have the consistency for quality.

2. We love the flexibility in the web joists that can allow us to run all of our services without cutting holes in our I joists. One of the things we like to recommend to our customers is having seperate air conditioning condensers for upstairs and downstairs, and with I joists we cant run the 300mm ducting so we are forced to use bulkheads. No need for this anymore.

Disadvantages, cant really think of any at the moment, other than we miss the flexibility of having our own carpenters drop into bunnings and pick up a few lengths of 90x45mm and the sweet smell of freshly cut timber.

Basically we have become big fans of steel in recent times lets hope steel prices don'y increase much.

Hope this helps your choice.

have a great weekend

Simeon

Hi Simeon.

Just wondering then what is the current cost difference between timber and steel for a 400sqm house?

For the framing that we do (custom cut on site 90x45mm H2 treated) anywhere between $20-30k. Prices are jumping around so much from job to job when we get them quoted. Last year prices were stable and you could confidently budget $130/sqm this year we are having to budget $190/sqm, and sometimes its still not enough.


Im not sure if this is the same with the project guys who use 90x35mm pre made frames. You would think it probably has.

And then there's the issue of supply. We went to call up some LVL's the other day (mid job - last timber frame for a while) and were told that there is simply no stock so had to switch to steel beams.

cheers

Simeon

couple of other questions.. and apologies if these are dumb

1) noise levels from the steel expanding and contracting from heat... is this a serious issue?
2) any impact on phone/wifi signals
3) mounting pictures/tvs etc on a steel frame.. is there something different that needs to be done here?

To prevent expansion/contraction and steel frame acting as a major thermal bridge, it needs to be well insulated from the outside, this is where Hebel would work + rigid (e.g. EPS) insulation attached from the outside of the frame.

Normal insulation batts will be at least twice less effective inside steel framing than in timber and insulating in traditional way will be leading to steel contraction/expansion, especially, in the areas where diurnal temperature changes are significant.

There might be some impact to wifi and phone signals, however, considering that steel framing is not very dense - this should not very significant.

Metal profiles are certainly much faster when it gets to gyprock installations, e.g. whole Knauf system is designed around metal studs for very obvious reasons.

Hi Skuzzy

no all good questions. Answers are:

1. We insulate our homes really well so there isnt too much noise when compared to the noise that comes from a metal roof
2. Possibly, had no complaints. As standard we run cat 6 cabling throughout especially to all the TV points as we find that wifi isnt that great anyway with all the insulation and hebel floors we put in
3. You just use different screws for the metal frames but we put 12m ply into all the walls where we know the TV's will be mounted to make the process easy for TV installation

hope this helps

cheers

Simeon

just checking i understood this part correctly..

"Normal insulation batts will be at least twice less effective inside steel framing than in timber and insulating in traditional way will be leading to steel contraction/expansion, especially, in the areas where diurnal temperature changes are significant."

Twice less effective - in providing insulation against temperature changes? OR
Twice less effective - in limiting the amount of noise from steel contraction/expansion

I ve noticed a few builders now are offering (or asking) for steel frame option with color bond roofing (either at no cost or v/cheap upgrade) - but then nothing is said about what changes are being done to the insulation for example.
Then reaslitically speaking.. what can be done about this? Prior to the timber shortage, steel frame was already an option.. though i didnt see it being a popular one due to cost.

if you end up going with a project home builder they will only install the minimum insulation as required by basix. Depending on your climate zone this will probably be R2.0 to external walls and R.4.0 or 5.0 in the ceiling

in my opinion to do it properly you need to sark every external wall and tape the sheets tight. all external penetrations need to be filled with expandable foam and ideally you need expandable foam behind the studs.

you should also install insulation in all internal walls and between your floors.

There is a reason that project home builders deliver a much lower upfront cost

regards

Simeon

When U say Sark every external wall .. do U mean this?