There are many advantages of building a home out of timber.
Timber provides great options for insulation and airflow. Wood is slow to conduct heat, so compared to brick, concrete, stone, steel, or glass, it allows lower levels of energy leakage from your home. This is good for keeping both hot and cold air in.
Wood is durable. There is a reason why some types of trees live for hundreds of years. Timber is a highly durable material that comes from our natural environment. It can be so strong that some types of wood have a higher tensile strength than both steel and hardened bow steel.
Though durable, timber is highly workable. It can be shaped and whittled down for beauty and practical use. Few other materials can be so useful yet so easy to manipulate to our needs.
In spite of the durability and hardness of the wood, it still has a little bit of giving. When foundation shifts occur or the soil expands and contracts, as they naturally do with the high levels of clay in Queensland, timber can naturally move with the ground. This can prevent the cracks that are often found with even the smallest shift underneath a brick or concrete block home.
Timber is an environmentally friendly, natural, and renewable resource. Through reforestation, trees are grown to replace areas once used for agriculture. Younger trees actually absorb more carbon than mature trees, essentially combating climate change at a quicker rate than an older tree can.
