Tŷ Unnos is a building system designed to use and add value to Wales’ home-grown softwood resource.

Primarily developed as a sustainable, affordable, energy efficient housing system that could be grown, manufactured and built within the local area. Creating jobs in forestry, primary milling, manufacture, construction, design, engineering and knowledge transfer.

Designed around the unique characteristics of Welsh grown Sitka spruce, the CCW feasibility study proposed a radical departure from standard imported timber frame technology – a system of components that could be manufactured in a factory, bought to site and assembled quickly and efficiently in a day giving a secure water tight structure.

Tŷ Unnos Components

• Box beam – four sections of timber are machined with tongues and grooves and then glued together under pressure to form a hollow box, which is light, strong and can be internally insulated.
• Ladder beam – 2 lengths of timber are joined together but held apart by ‘rungs’ to act as joists, rafters and studding, enabling greater depths/widths of insulation in floors, walls and ceilings. Combined with board products the ladder beams can make open/closed panels.
• Connector – using offcuts from the manufacture of the box and ladder beams to join the box beams together into portal frames.

Manufacturing Resource

Tŷ Unnos tool kits have been produced that set out the:

• Factory Production Control – guidance on material specification, manufacturing process, documentation requirements and testing regimes.
• Timber specifications – species, sizes, moisture content and strength classes.
• Component limitations – sizes, spans and configuration.

Construction Products Directive

European legislation requires that structural timber products conform to specific requirements. ETAG 007 and ETAG 0011.

The Tŷ Unnos box beam has been assessed as a construction product and has received a European Technical Approval Box Beam ETA.

Manufacture Quality Standard

Components and system kits for Timber Frame buildings are required to be manufactured to a recognised Quality Standard. The system chosen is audited by a notified certification body approved by UKAS. Coed Cymru worked with BMTRADA to provide type testing and product certification.