Why Choose Timber | Independent Timber Supplies

When you choose our timber, you’re choosing local timber

At Independent Timber Supplies we make an effort to buy local, wherever we can. This means that we can continue supporting the creation of jobs in our State, and opportunities for the communities in which we operate. So in buying timber, you’re making an investment in towns and communities all over WA.

Simple to Install Services

Timber frames can be easily drilled to install plumbing and electric cables, unlike some materials that require cushioning grommets to protect cable insulation during installation and limit longer term damage to plumbing due to expansion and contraction or corrosion.

A Good Insulator

Timber framing helps insulate your home as it has a higher R-value than many other materials. This means that it doesn’t act as a ‘thermal bridge’, conducting energy (heat) from one side of a wall to the other.

Easy to Renovate

When a family outgrows their home, more space is needed, or you buy a home requiring renovation, timber framing is simple and easy to work with. Whether it’s removing existing framing, adding more timber framing or both, the ready availability of designers, materials and tradespeople familiar with the material make it an easier process.

Fast to Assemble

Prefabrication, flexibility and builders’ knowledge of how timber frames are assembled, (joints, connections, tie-downs and bracing) combine to deliver fast, efficient buildings to lock up stage.

Low-cost Flexibility

Today, most framing systems are still constructed onsite, with prefabricated construction becoming evermore popular. Timber allows for any last-minute changes or variations are easily made onsite by carpenters equipped with all the tools they need. Of course, if they need extra timber, it’s as close as the nearest hardware store.

Durable and Termite Treated

It is important to install a termite barrier system to build termites out. This is because, regardless of the material used for the frame, termites can still eat through other items such as flooring, joinery and plasterboard if they have access. They can also cause damage to electrical cabling. Today, in areas subject to termite attack, timber framing is made from wood safely treated to resist termites, so that is no longer a worry. In fact, many Australian timber framed houses are well over 100 years old which shows the longevity of wood.

Strong, Stable and Quiet

Since the properties of timber are so well understood, a timber-framed house won’t be noisy, as it doesn’t expand and contract during temperature changes and risk premature cracking in plaster linings.

Proven and Popular

Lightweight timber framing is the popular choice for Australian homes. Decades of experience have ensured that the system is safe, reliable, cost-effective and well understood by designers, professional builders and even experienced DIY’ers. Owners and occupants can be assured that they are gaining the advantages of a proven building method.

Take advantage of natural heating and cooling for your projects

In fact, timber has the best thermal insulation properties of any mainstream construction material. It’s five times better than concrete, 10-times better than brick, and 350-times better than steel.

Reduce your energy use across its entire lifecycle

Timber has an exceptional low embodied energy—the amount of energy required during a product’s lifetime. This includes harvesting, transport, manufacture, installation, use, and disposal. Over its lifetime, timber uses far less energy than other building materials. In comparison, a tonne of brick requires around four times the amount of energy to produce sawn softwood timber; steel needs up to 126-times the energy.

When you choose timber, you’re choosing a truly sustainable option

Thanks to reforestation methods, generating timber to use as building materials is one of the most sustainable construction methods out there. Every tree that’s harvested in Australia is replaced. And right now, Australia’s timber plantations are expanding, and we’re planting more trees than are being harvested.

Renewably and Responsibly Sourced

Most Australian-sourced timber is covered by either one or both certification systems, Australia’s Responsible Wood, which is endorsed by the world’s largest certification system the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), or the Forest Stewardship Council. This means that the wood you use has been produced in an environmentally responsible and sustainable manner.

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Clean, green, and 100% carbon neutral

Trees absorb CO2 as they grow, which gets stored in the timber for its entire life. This makes timber from sustainably-managed forests 100% carbon neutral. What this means is that the carbon that’s released into the atmosphere during the harvesting and construction process is all absorbed by the tree, and its forest companions, during growth. And when using other carbon neutral building materials, using timber in your construction can significantly reduce your project’s carbon footprint.

Stores Carbon for the Atmosphere

Choosing wood removes greenhouse gasses from the air. Approximately half the dry weight of wood is carbon, absorbed from the atmosphere by a growing tree. Using timber in buildings stores the carbon for as long as the building exists or the timber is reused or recycled.

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