Wood-frame construction, a solution for building energy efficient and safing housing
11/07/2008 - 14:10
On Jul. 7th — 9th, Canada Wood together with the Forestry Innovation Investment(FII China)hold a forum spanning three days entitled “Sustainable Housing Forum-Solutions for China Urban and Rural Housing Development” at the British Columbia Canada Pavilion of Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall.
In the forum, Mr. Fred Spoke, Managing Director of Canada Wood noted, “At present, due to the development scale for housing in China challenging sustainable development, energy is being considerably consumed in the process of construction and during usage of its lifetime, thus energy-saving in housing is for a top priority for the Chinese government. The Sustainable Housing Forum provides a good opportunity for international exchange on green housing policies and measures, and serves as a platform to promote advanced global construction concepts, the application of technology and ideas on solutions. ”
The focal point of this forum on modern wood frame construction is undoubtedly a type of genuinely sustainable green building. These buildings should possess qualities such as being earthquake-proof and stable, heat preserving, and notably energy-saving. From January to April this year, the Research Centre for Energy-saving Technologies at the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) carried out a 12 weeks construction energy-saving and air-conditioning heating system tracking study on a lightweight wood frame house and a villa with a combined insulated brick wall. Mr.Zhang, the senior engineer of HIT concluded, “wood-frame housing behaved more energy-saving than concrete structure.”
Besides possessing features of environmental protection and energy-saving, wood frames have the unique advantage of excellent seismic performance as compared with brick and concrete structures. After the May 12th Sichuan Earthquake, people brought direct requirement for earthquake-resistance housing. Because of their earthquake resistance, light wood frame houses are an excellent solution for this problem and are therefore recommended as the building style for regions where there is threat of earthquakes.
To help the people in the disaster region of Sichuan province to recover normal lives, the Canadian federal government and the British Columbia provincial government recently announced they would jointly donate sustainable energy-saving wood frame housing in value of 8 million Canada dollars (about 55 million RMB) to the regions hit by the earthquake disaster.The project will be carried out by the FII China with assistance from Canada Wood. The buildings will then be designed and completed in China. FII China and Canada Wood will cooperate with the chief department dealing with May 12 Wenchuan earthquake area reconstruction and other relevant departments to develop and implement the project. This will include providing technical support and training and so forth, ensuring the construction quality of the donated housings.