Building a Modern Home with Oak Frame

Oak has been a popular construction material for centuries. Its sustainability, sturdiness and durability make it an excellent choice for the environmentally conscious and many simply fall in love with the charming character offered by this hardwood as it dries.

What’s more, the method’s inherent benefits continue to be enhanced to suit modern self-builders’ needs. Today’s oak homes offer high insulation standards, impressive airtightness and innovative architecture alongside their innate aesthetic appeal.

High performance

If sourced responsibly, oak can be a sustainable material – look for PEFC and FSC certifications to ensure you’re buying from environmentally managed forests. The embodied energy (the resources consumed by all of the processes associated with the production of the building) is also relatively low compared to some systems – plus oak frame homes can last for hundreds of years.

For entire dwellings you’ll be using green oak, which means it has been felled in the previous 18 months and has a moisture content of around 80%. This is cheaper and easier to cut and shape than air or kiln dried wood.

One of the challenges for oak frame has been achieving a highly insulated, airtight structural shell, while still preserving the character of the timber. The solution is to combine traditional and modern techniques.

“The key is not the oak frame itself, but what it is wrapped in,” says Andy Parker from The Complete Oak Frame Home. “That can be anything; traditional masonry, lightweight softwood timber panels, structural insulated panels (SIPs) and even concrete formwork or straw bale in some cases.”

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