The UK’s largest timber trusses in the last 10 years?

How Scotts Timber Engineering helped deliver a giant project.

“The oak beams are all in place and are looking great within the building.”

At Scotts Timber Engineering, we pride ourselves on turning timber visions into reality – even when they push all the boundaries.

Over the last few months, we’ve been working on a brief of epic proportions. We were tasked by Deeley Construction, a long-standing client, to provide them with seven super-sized oak trusses within three months. While this was a monumental task for the Scotts Timber Engineering team, we have been leading Truss manufacturers for over 100 years and we were happy to take it on.

“They’re the largest-scale timber trusses we’ve ever had to deal with. So much so, they make standard-sized prefabricated roof trusses look like porch canopies”, explains Tom Hiles, our technical timber sales manager.

“In my experience, there aren’t many modern buildings that incorporate hardwood trusses of this scale. I would imagine that these are the largest oak trusses to have been manufactured in the UK within the last decade.”

The trusses were required by Deeley for a brand new village hall that they are building in Warwickshire, which is due to be completed in November 2022. Out of the range that our team manufactured, one of the largest prefabricated roof trusses, which was made from a 325 x 150mm beam, spans almost 12 metres. Meanwhile, four of the trusses are 11.5 metres long, and were made from 250 x 150mm timbers, and then the smaller two trusses measure 8 metres and 5.5 metres.

Sourcing the right type of timber

Finding the right timber for the project was a pivotal first step of the huge project. Scotts Timber engineering pride ourselves on producing high-quality timber solutions and providing Deeley with a set of trusses that were of the highest quality and fit for purpose, regardless of their scale, was our number one priority

“As well as the customer envisaging these incredible oak feature trusses, we knew that the oak would have to be of the highest quality to meet the structural grade required. However, finding such large pieces of oak within such a short time frame is a real challenge. It takes specialist knowledge to source such a large volume of logs and beams”, explains Tom.

“Fortunately, given the fact we’re so established within the world of timber trusses and have such a wide network of relationships across the timber industry, we were able to reach out to one of our timber suppliers, Border Hardwood, who sourced the PEFC-certified oak from a sustainably-managed sawmill in France within a week.”

Delivering the trusses in line with the brief

Making sure the end result fully met the brief was a key priority. So too was making sure the trusses had a minimal environmental impact.

“We held a number of meetings with Deeley, our timber supplier and the master carpenter to make sure everybody was confident and clear about their part in the process”, says Tom.

“From our perspective, it was also essential that the timber had been sourced sustainably and that the trusses were manufactured to the highest standard – for example, they met the structural calculations and were safe and fit for purpose for the village hall. We wanted to ensure no waste, no errors and no unnecessary costs.

“Given the size of this project, there were a lot of things that could have gone wrong. But when you have more than 100 years’ timber manufacturing heritage to lean on, we were able to do what we excel at – providing our clients with bespoke quality solutions for any timber-related project.”

The trusses are now installed. As Jennie Harper at Deeley Construction says: “Scotts Timber Engineering provided an excellent service for our project near Coventry. The specification and detailing were not straightforward, but Scotts managed to source and help create a structure to suit the requirements. The oak beams are all in place and are looking great within the building.”