OFF-SITE CONSTRUCTION
Housebuilding with Baufritz
RCI’s Holly Miles travelled to southern Germany to the headquarters of Baufritz, a specialist in prefabricated
timber framed homes, to view its new Heimat 4.0 eco-friendly house and see how the company is helping to
change the standard of prefabricated homes
I n RCI we have often reported on offsite
construction in relation to the
housing shortage. Personally, when
I think about off-site construction I
think about IKEA. I know this is a really
simplified way of looking at it, but it is
much the same process as going to an
off-site home manufacturer, choosing
the house you want from a catalogue
or designing it yourself, and it being
delivered to you flat-pack-style. Bish
bash bosh – your new home is set up in a
matter of days.
Off-site construction
All timber is cut to size automatically
and roof panels arrive to site with battens
and metal flashings installed, so all you
need to do is hang the tiles. The off-site
manufacturer also builds the curtain
walling as well.
All the waste is collected and recycled
on-site or elsewhere. Saw dust is
collected to make wood pellets and any
wood shavings created are mixed with
whey and soda and re-used as insulation
material for the walls and roof.
The whey is fire-retardant and the
soda is said to kill off insects. The
insulation is therefore completely
natural and can be recycled which,
according to Baufritz, is not the case for
many types of insulation.
Baufritz says it only buys products
that are eco-friendly and come with full
disclosure from the manufacturer. All of
the homes it manufactures are built and
finished to the same high standard.
The client chooses all the finishes
they want at the design stage, down
to the door handles and basin in the
bathrooms. This ensures that what is
designed is what is delivered, which
has so often been a problem in the UK.
When the finer details are specified at
such an early stage this also means that
cost can be very accurately predicted for
the customer.
German precision
Wandering around the Baufritz
premises, it is immediately evident that
the factory is a well-oiled machine, and
I found the unbelievable attention to
detail down to the last pre-drilled hole
fascinating.
Baufritz does all the detailed
calculations and CAD work prior to the
construction, and it can cut timber rafters
and boards to the exact length and size
with pre-drilled holes, sockets, windows
and plumbing ready for construction
on-site.
The construction is so precise that
windows fit mechanically into their
pre-cut slots – there is no need to fill the
gaps. The factory is automated, and the
individual components of the house are
stacked in the right order and delivered
to site to fit in with the construction
timescale of the house – all of the details
are thought-out in advance by the inhouse
logistics team.
Multi-generational living
The new Heimat 4.0 show home is
designed with a nod to the old farm
houses of the region. Baufritz says it
wants to encourage multi-generational
living – something perhaps alien to
us here in the UK – so the recent show
homes have an annexe or separate
living quarters for the grandparents of
the family.
The homes Baufritz constructs are
carbon neutral, meaning their energy
comes only from renewable sources,
and so the aim of Heimat 4.0 is to be as
self-sufficient as possible with ÖkoFEN
wood-pellet heating technology, battery
storage and photovoltaic system.
According to Oliver Rehm, chief
executive officer of Baufritz, the first
step to producing your own sustainable
energy is reducing the amount of energy
you and your family needs.
To do this, you need to build your
house to the highest standards of
construction, ensuring it is well insulated
– keeping it warm in the winter, but also
cool in the summer. “Once you have
done this, you can provide 95-100% of
your energy yourself,” said Oliver.
It’s no secret that the UK
construction sector has a problem with
productivity, which has been flat for
the past two decades, according to
Mace Group with one report saying
that 57% of time in construction is
wasted. The Farmer Review published
in October 2016 declared that the
industry must “modernise or die”,
which provided a wake-up call for
the industry that if it did not embrace
modern methods of production, it
would face an “inexorable decline”.
Faster to build
Off-site homes are about 30% faster to
build than brick and block houses, and
come with the added benefits of shorter
construction programmes, less labour,
improved health and safety and more
consistent high-quality finishes, which
means that the potential to increase
capacity is there.
In the UK, the government estimates
that we need to build 300,000 homes
per year to solve the housing shortage.
A recent report by Heriot-Watt
University has put this figure at 340,000
homes per year.
Building houses quickly and
efficiently is all very well, but will it
solve our housing crisis? According
to Oliver, it is a possibility, as he said:
“Off-site manufacturing is the ideal
solution to produce houses efficiently
and sustainably.
“Greater private and public
investment could transform this
relatively new industry to become a key
player in solving housing shortages in
the UK and elsewhere.”
With Baufritz homes growing in
popularity in the UK, this remains to
be seen. Currently, off-site construction
accounts for only 10% of the current
construction market, but it is said to be
expanding by 35% per annum.
It is an area to watch, and one
that could potentially unlock UK
construction productivity and go some
way to solving our housing shortage.
w www.baufritz.com
Heimat 4.0
show home
24 www.rcimag.co.uk July 2018
/www.baufritz.com
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