Mass timber install timelapse & interview

We sat down with Construction Manager Andy Knight to learn more about the mass timber install process. Scroll to the bottom for the full timelapse!

Annalise: Well, congratulations, Andy, on another successful mass timber install.

Andy: Yeah, thanks. It was a fun one. They always are. They're always super exciting for the team. Everyone's pretty deep in this and we always love to get a new structure up. It's super rewarding to see it happen and see it happen so quickly. They’re big days, but it’s really, rewarding for the whole team to see it all standing.

Yeah, great. How many is this?

Number 4. This is a Duplex which we designed for mass timber, and we’re the Principal Contractor, just like most of our work.

Number four, right, and you've personally been involved in the design on quite a few of those too.

Yeah, most of them. That or we’ve been really involved with the Architect that we're working with and the Engineers, as well as the XLam team. And, you know, it's crucial for these projects for the Builder to be engaged early on to really make sure that we get all of the efficiencies that are available, all of the brains working on the project in its early stages is always a powerful move.

So how soon in the design process are you actually thinking about the install? At what point are you building it in your head?

The minute I see a design. So that's the very first thing we consider. Depending, of course, depending on the perspective that I'm looking at it for, whether I'm looking at it for VM (value management), or looking at it from a, you know, how is this going to actually work and fit together, or what improvements can we make here. And the install is a crucial component to it all, and how it all pieces together. So, yeah, the brain starts ticking the second it sees the design, and it sorta doesn't stop until it's in the sky.

And do you find that when you're providing input to design and coming at it from the perspective of the install, does that ever actually affect the design in a material way?

Generally there's a solution for most things, whether it be add a steel beam or find another slightly different methodology, to make the designs work. But experience tells us that it's often best to be considering materiality well before the actual design's decided upon. Otherwise, we can often end up with the design not working and then it will need a redesign. But we're often able to make them work, it's just a case of getting involved early and looking at it closely with the Designer because they're always looking for those value management opinions.

I suppose if not a design/build model, early contractor involvement is how you achieve that, working with somebody who's got experience with the product and the methodology.

Yeah, absolutely. There's just things that need to be put into consideration for those designs like spans and thicknesses and roof build-ups and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah great and okay so back to the installs. This one was a duplex. How many people do you typically have on site? 

For this duplex I think we had, we had quite a few, but we were blooding a few youngsters hence the number. 

How many's optimal and how many do you end up having?

So you can pretty much do an install with two main construction workers, being a leading Hand and a Carpenter, a Site Manager and a couple of Runners just making sure that all of the screw fixings are there and ready and chasing after the boys. Of course that depends on how many open faces you've got, but for something like this, between four and six guys on site is plenty, maybe a couple too many. You're able to shrink that, we've done it with more and we've done it with less, it's all very dependent on what type of site you've got - you might need traffic control or extra guides for the crane and how it's fixing and what the weather conditions are like. So you've got to be pretty nimble like that, but ultimately compared to a conventional build, it's very light on staff.

Yeah great and what are the advantages of that from the Builder's perspective?

Well, I suppose it depends on how you've contracted the install. But there's less guys to worry about, safety is easier to control, and less wages at the end of the day which is what we're all trying to do is maximise the efficiency and maximise the output of our staff. And we can create an output being a whole structure in a very short period of time with a minimal amount of staff. That's a massive win.

That's huge on driving that triple bottom line for mass timber and getting the product to maturity in the market, of course.

Alright, so what went well about this install? 

The crane movements are really picking up speed and I suppose our procurement was pretty good in regards to that aspect of it. We were very ready and very able to get started straight away and everyone's really getting around the product now and being able to understand what our requirements are. When our trucks are arriving, with our sequencing and what has to happen when the truck arrives on site and all of those types of things. Everyone's really getting into their roles, which takes some time to sort of re-systemise comparatively from conventional construction to the mass timber install. There's, you know, let's hypothetically say there’s six people on site, there's six new jobs to systemise. We're making sure that everyone knows their role efficiently and safely. Now we're really getting to the point where we're hitting our stride and everyone's very efficient and safe.

Great, and I know that we've worked with that crane company before as well, which must help.

Yeah, absolutely. Apart from knowing the boys since we were children, getting those workflows happening with them and them understanding the product as well is a big deal. When they know what they can and can't do and the weight and how the thing operates in the sky and on the hook, it gives them confidence to be more efficient. And everyone's always got an opinion that’s worth listening to, whether it's right or wrong. So we can get information from everyone. Say, “look, we've done it this way before, what if we tried this?” There's absolute value in reusing the same contractor there.

By the same token though, it pays to have somebody new coming in and look at it too, right? So yeah, it kind of goes both ways on that one. But what kind of feedback do you get about the product and the process from partners like the crane teams?

They’re used to lifting big precast panels and lifting houses and doing all sorts of tricky things like that and everyone's just like, “how about this stuff, it's just so fantastic! We're in and out super quickly. It's super safe. It's super light. And easy to actually do.” You know, there's often little challenges that pop up, but comparatively, we're in and out pretty quick, and everyone knows their role. The feedback coming from those guys is like, what a great day at work. And they feel a real ownership of it because they know that they've stood that building in however many days and how good it looks so quickly. So they get that real feeling of accomplishment as well. So that's always good morale on site when we do an install.

Yeah, great. And so you touched on the challenges there, “always little challenges”... So can I ask a bit about what little challenges the team faced on this one?

Yeah, look, I think a little bit of preparation. We had a tough run into this one. So we missed a couple of our key things in our processes, which slowed us up on a few things.

It's very important for us to make sure that our safety is really in line when we're lifting this kind of stuff. So sometimes that can slow us down, if we haven't got all of our proper procurement in place, not necessarily not that it's going to be unsafe, but to make it safe while the project's happening, like making sure there's no leading edges, which can slow the process down, which means time on the crane. The absolute key is to keep that crane swinging and ultimately get a lift every 15 minutes but there are little bits and bobs that happen all over the place, like oh we're not ready here, or this hasn't been unwrapped yet, and it's just refining all of those systems around the holistic system to get better at everything and just be a bit more ready, I suppose.

This one had a lot to do with the weather leading into the project. We got a window of clear weather, so we took that. But then there were things that hadn't been prepared because of that window of weather being closed for us while we needed to prepare. So, we're facing those challenges on the fly. But that’s what being a good site team is about, overcoming all of that stuff and making sure that we still hit our goals. But definitely challenges like weather and, you know, safety is not a challenge, it's a responsibility, but it's definitely something that can slow us up from being the most efficient that we can be.

So what lessons from earlier installs were you trying to work on for this one?

We've got a good little R&D group in and around all of our installs, and we have lots of documentation in and around lessons learned for every install so that we can keep striving to get better and better and better.

One we've been finding issues with is in and around the connection to concrete. We've had some good connections and bad connections, and there's just so many different ways to go about it. We joke that the hardest bit about a mass timber building is the concrete. And so we tried a slightly different methodology for this project. But we found that we actually lost time from that methodology rather than gained time. Just through, you know, it was a new process, we had to figure it out, and then by the time we'd done it anyway, we realistically didn't pick up the time that we expected that it would pick us up, and then there was a couple of little issues with follow-ins. Nothing that we couldn't overcome, but we just didn't get that speed, because ultimately we were going for less time on the crane, but it didn't really equate to the speed that we thought we were going to get.

So we're back to the drawing board on that, and we've got plenty of new ideas and lessons learned to feed in to a slightly different model that we can prep for the next one.

So what are the new lessons from this one that you'll carry forward for next time?

It’s definitely connections to concrete that we’re still working on. There are some proprietary systems out there (that are pretty expensive), there's so many ways to do it in connection to concrete, I feel like there's probably 10 right ways to go about it. But I suppose there's that and then there's making sure that our preparation with our safety equipment and things like that is a bit sharper. So we've gone back to our ITPs in regards to all that stuff and making sure that we've signed off properly before we get to the point where we’ve got a crane winking at us on site saying “let's go”, but we've still got a few things to do.

Yeah, great. And if anyone reading this thinks they have our solution for connection to concrete, please reach out to us.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, cost effective connections to concrete.

All right. Well, there's clearly so much happening on the day. It's hard for someone like me who looks at a computer screen all day, to understand how you can prioritise all of these things. Just off the top of my head you've got safety, speed, you've got quite a few guys to be looking after with big slabs of timber swinging in the air, then there's quality, how do you make sure that everything's managed when you're in that situation?

It just comes down to really good preparation and understanding what our processes are. And that's procurement. Procurement is so high on our agenda at Brother Nature. We do quite a lot of it. We’re building one to a hundred scale models of our projects so we can put it together and pull it apart and make sure that it's right throughout the project management period of procurement. And then we get the boys on site to play with that so they're all, you know, they're not seeing it for the first time when it rocks up, which is often a huge part of any problem. And they all feel involved as well because we can get feedback on it before it all arrives and there might be little bits and pieces that we can change. It is all about that procurement.

It’s also about really good pre-start meetings and toolbox talks, so the boys are understanding their roles and responsibilities on the day of those installs. And just giving the guys ownership of the parts is a great way to keep everybody accountable while the day is moving. And that's just good site management. We have amazing staff that are so into this product and really want to be able to say, we built that building this quick, and it's good, and nobody got hurt. And all of those key factors of a successful job are in everybody's front of mind. That’s what we're all striving for across the company, it's not just something that me as the, whatever my role is, and a couple of Project Managers have got this froth on about. Our first year Apprentices are frothing as hard as we are.

Could you give us a sneak peek into what goes on in a toolbox talk on the first morning of an install? What type of things do you say to try to focus a team on a day like that, particularly if it's their first install

It starts a long time before that actually Annie, with regards to the install. It starts with probably the setout. So if you’ve got new guys on site, they need to be a part of the setout , and then like I’ve touched on before, looking at the physical model of what's actually happening and in the documentation and all of those things really start to sink in early in the project, rather than the day of install, with them thinking “oh my gosh, what’s going on, this is a big day”. It really needs to start well before that. And those little chats that they have early on, whether it be a toolbox talk or whether it be an informal catch-up after work, talking about what's coming and how exciting CLT Day is and all of those things, is what really prepares the boys and girls mentally for what's going to happen, because there’s lots to take in on the day, especially  for anyone new, the young Apprentices or new team members. We really, really push to get those people involved and know what they're building, you know? It's often easy to get caught up not understanding what you're building and just swinging a hammer at a piece of timber all day, not thinking that you're building a building. So if you've got a really clear understanding of the end goal, and understanding your responsibilities in that process, and how your contribution to the team is crucial, it really empowers the team to get behind it and get around it. And then look, the day of the install, it's a quick refresher of what's going on. And to be fair, it's probably the day before, because the trucks are there very early. But a quick refresher of what's going on. Everyone understands what we're doing. Check that the radios are all charged, and away we go. And you’ll find that during an install during smoko and lunches, it's just full of chat around how we can do this better, or maybe we should try this. It really takes up a lot of brain capacity and makes sure that everybody's on point 100%. The days fly.

Okay, so can you run me through an ideal picture perfect dream scenario install day, that's in 10 projects time? What do you think is going to be different about how you do things then to now?

I don’t have a crystal ball, but I don't think it's going to require that much more development to make it become much faster. There’s still lots of trade work to be done throughout that process of the install. And that's just standard, unless they're coming up with click-clack systems, connection systems and all those types of things. But I don't think that stuffs around the corner, and I can't see that stuff coming out cheaply anytime soon. So, you know, we're constantly striving to bring the prices of these things down. I think people are going to become really good at it and then be able to just double down on what we learn. So that information is super important and keeping the team moving forward and getting those connections right and becoming more comfortable with your Engineer and your Architect and working together to really find those one percenters out there that change the way that projects are being delivered.

Well, thank you so much, Andy. That's great insight.

No problems at all.

Brother Nature’s Stay project is due for completion in June 2024. Stay tuned on our Instagram for updates!

If you like content like this, please drop us a line to let us know!