Guildford Timber Frame
Despite growing rapidly, Guildford Timber Frame isn’t losing sight of its commitment to the environment
The frame game
Despite growing rapidly, Guildford Timber Frame isn’t losing sight of its commitment to the environment
Guildford Timber Frame (GTF) produces a range of factory built high quality timber products for house building and commercial construction. These include complete structural frames for houses and other buildings up to six storeys high, roofing systems, floor and wall systems and roof trusses. Products supplied by GTF can be utilised in all construction applications, particularly low cost housing, commercial house building, and public sector developments including schools, hospitals and medical centres, as well as in the commercial sector including offices, hotels, factories and retail.
With stiff competition in the marketplace, director Brian Skilton states what sets GTF apart from its competitors: “Our service and quality is definitely second to none in this industry. Guilford Timber Frame was formed to deliver good quality manufactured products to the marketplace, on time and to the required specification. We listen very attentively to what our clients want instead of dictating to them what they’re going to have. We also focus on ensuring they receive exactly what they have asked for with extra attention to detail. We pride ourselves on the quality of our products and genuinely do challenge anyone to show us a better quality product.”
The modular products are constructed off-site under closely monitored factory conditions, which results in the highest consistent standard regardless of the weather and other restrictions that often hit or delay site work. Off-site construction improves the overall efficiency of construction projects through significant time and money savings, fewer defects and call backs, and helps meet the developing requirements of government regulations.
The success of timber frame construction comes from creating a simple on-site assembly process using factory built components, eradicating many of the challenges and difficulties often found on-site in the UK construction world. It is both well known and documented that quality controlled factory environments produce better end products. The benefits of utilising timber frame include faster project completion,
improved construction and end product quality, lower construction cost, and an energy efficient end product, which is more appealing to the public sector and exceeds current and developing government targets and regulations.
With the introduction of modern engineering technology and the versatility of timber, GTF can be used for large span commercial projects, standard volume house production, unique quality homes and commercial or apartment buildings up to six storeys. Some designs can eliminate the need for trusses, leaving the roof area open for additional accommodation.
By the nature of its products, GTF is contributing to a more sustainable future, which it believes is most important given current global issues. Brian states: “Timber frame is a very environmentally friendly product but it is also just as important to be conscientious of where you get your supply from. Our products are very efficient, acoustically very good, meet and exceed all building requirements, and just as important, they also meet the financial requirements.
“We are committed to helping the environment and believe that every step taken in the right direction, however small, can and will contribute to a better world for future
generations. We also believe it is equally important to educate our clients on the benefit of timber frame, as a matter of fact we are currently in the process of writing a presentation with the aim to get the message across a bit more. This is not just a benefit for us, but for the entire industry, as well as the environment.” GTF is keen to
implement greener solutions throughout the company, wherever possible and encourage its staff to act responsibly towards the environment.
He adds: “In order to ensure the message of quality is transmitted through to every one of our employees, we constantly invest heavily in ongoing training to develop all of our people. We get everyone to buy into the fact that we don’t want cheap products churned out quickly, but we want to offer value for money and the right product, in every sense, that hits the marketplace and portrays us in a good light to our clients, meeting all the necessary requirements.”
Moving on, Brian highlights the current state of the industry: “We’re only about a week into our financial year and we have already received confirmed orders that are higher than the turnover of any previous years. So there are definitely a lot of opportunities and also much greater market acceptance. Our focus is to continue to expand our business depending on the opportunities available – be it via acquisition or organically. At the moment we are actively concentrating on growing our customer base and from that customer base, growing our market share of their work.” He concludes: “I believe that as long as we keep moving forward with good working practices, the industry will continue to flourish off the back of that.”