Planning to build a new house and would like to know the Pros and Cons for these alternatives:
- Timber frame vs Steel frame.
- Tiled roof vs Colour Bond roof.
Thanks in advance.
Location: Eastern suburb, Adelaide
Building a New House
ubor on 12/07/2021 - 20:05
Last edited 12/07/2021 - 22:31
Last edited 12/07/2021 - 22:31
Comments
- Timber burns and termites eat wood. Steel maybe more expensive.
Steel can rust and has high coefficients of thermal expansion so can creak and cause cracks.
Timber has been used for centuries. Steel more recently. It's gonna take a while for the verdict to come out on which is better, and it will be different depending on each situation.
Steel does not maintain structural integrity in a fire. It poses no advantage in a residential building fire.
But it is a well established fact that termites do eat wood and I will not attempt to refute said fact.
What else do termites eat? I'm wondering if I plant celery around the perimeter of the house they will eat that instead.
Wood. Lots of it.
and would like to know
Your location might be helpful…. As the answers to that will always 'depend' on your area.
Timber frame vs Steel frame.
Tiled roof vs Colour Bond roof.As we can about pricing in OzB.
Higher vs Lower costs. /thread
Big timber shortage at the moment - especially for roof trusses etc. So maybe steel frame might be cheaper at the moment?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-02/timber-industry-cant-…
Depending on where you live, you can always put forward options in the design stage but at the end of the day it may come down to what council wants you to have (referring to the tin roof vs tiled roof and other elements of the look of your house)
Timber frame is cheaper and less of a pain in the bum for the tradies to install their services in the house. Standard MGP10 that the engineer nominates is more than enough for your home.
So all in all depends on your circumstances (financial) and what the council/engineers/surveyors agree upon.
Have built two houses, both had Colorbond roofs. I cant think of one reason to use concrete tiles, they are dreadful.
One house had timber, the other had steel. Personally I would build with steel again in the future if I could find a decent builder at a competitive price. Main drawback I found with the steel was it's harder to install things on the walls (eg. wall mounted TVs or a clothes dryer - you need extra strengthening done by the builder) and the trusses are wider apart making it harder to get through the roof space. Main advantages are no structural worries from termites and it doesn't shrink, grow, warp, etc like timber can.
We (company) built around 110 houses in 1 year and all had concrete tile roofs. Resistant to most hail damage/ low noise during rain/ hail, no noise when expanding and contracting as it heats up and cools down…. Easy to repair by replacing broken tile as opposed to replacing full roof sheets… etc
Yeah they are somewhat resistant when new, but when they get old and brittle large hail destroys them. You see the carnage after each decent haulstorm through SEQ. Colorbond on the other hand, dings to the shithouse but stays intact, preventing water ingress.
Colorbond is low noise when coupled with a foil faced blanket insulation as well as decent ceiling batts.
Yeah it's easy to replace a tile but you'll be doing that more often than replacing a roof sheet. By the time you find you need to replace the tile, you've probably already had water ingress that needs repairing too.
As for expansion noise, I found the timber trussed house got more of it. It's not that bad though.
everything you said is correct however i've heard that the concrete roof tiles actually get stronger over time. I myself prefer the colorbond roof. I actually like the sound of the rain hitting the roof haha
You don't happen to work for colourbond? My professional experience has been the exact opposite…. colourbond roof sheets rust, the roof sheets peel off like a sardine can lid during mega storms, never seen concrete roof tiles go brittle over time….. I guess we agree to disagree.