It can be very cost beneficial to go the timber frame route.

Long Life Structures specialise in crafting bespoke timber frame homes. All their homes are built to outstanding quality and energy efficiency, using ecological building materials and insulations throughout.

Our structures are designed to prioritise and promote an efficient and healthy thermal envelope to both NZEB and Passive house standards.

Their use of natural insulations, such as woodfibre, cellulose and sheep’s wool play a pivotal role in healthy indoor air quality and thermal comfort, whilst also reducing carbon emissions.

With more than 20 years in the timber frame and construction industry in Ireland, Long Life Structures have vast experience in building complex structures to the passive house standard.

Building timber frame houses using ecological insulations is a new building method. We specialise in manufacturing ecological timber frames. The timber is sustainable and renewable and it comes from certified Forests. We use Natural insulations in lieu of Petro-chemical insulations. This reduces the demand on our rapidly depleting natural resources, tackles climate change on a local level, whilst also promoting healthier indoor air quality. There is no reason why all houses couldn’t be built this way. This makes us the most ecological timber frame company in the country, explained Emmet Nee.

“It can be very cost beneficial to go the timber frame route. The traceability with timber frame is second to none and with inhouse engineering and design, it is a great way to go for a self-builder as the main structural elements of the house are taken care of by one company.

The beauty with timber frames is that you can organise all of your trades around the delivery date of the timber frame. With the scarcity of trades people out there, home owners need to have their trades people booked in so well in advance.

“One of the biggest time savers is being able to order your windows off the drawings which can save between 12 to 16 weeks,” he enthused.

“The costs of building materials have seriously increased and I definitely think that people need to look at building more manageable sized houses. People are designing massive houses; the build cost is one thing but it is the maintenance of these houses and the finishing and landscaping of them that people forget to take in to account. All of these things take a huge amount of money.

“The best advice that I would give people is for them not to get carried away, it is still only a house that you are building and you have a whole life to live outside of your house,” added Mr Nee.

“Most houses we work on will have a heat pump, a heat recovery system and all of the plumbing internally; every house should be designed with a generous sized plant room to house these services rather than having to sacrifice a downstairs bathroom. The plant room needs to be able to facilitate the maintenance of these systems.”

“We are more than a timber frame company, we are thermal envelope specialists also. We give a thorough package to the self-builder to take a massive amount of stress out of the building process for them.

Basically it is one phone call to get an insulated foundation installed, timber frame up, insulation, airtightness and the roof on! The last thing we do is a blower door test on completion which tests the house for air leakage.

To date, we have achieved below passive house levels of airtightness on all our projects. Anyone that is looking for a high end, low running cost, future proofed house with ecological products can contact us and we will gladly work with you,” finished Emmet Nee.