Building services in timber construction: Investigation on difficulties and reliefs during the installation procedures in multi-storey timber residential buildings

Multi-storey timber construction has undergone a strong positive development in Austria in recent years. However, while there are constant advancements in materials, construction technologies, production stages and assembly methods in timber construction itself, the design as well as the installation procedures of building services in multi-storey timber buildings lags far behind these technological progresses. The principles of planning and installation of building equipment are generally similar to those within solid mineral constructions that could be identified in the holistic research project TGA-Timber. A comprehensive investigation of the installation procedure on 3 multi-storey timber-construction projects has been carried on site and during prefabrication within the past 2 years in Austria at Graz University of Technology. The emphasis was set on the identification of disorders and delays caused by installation procedure of HVAC-building equipment in timber construction. The results of this research release the large potential of optimisation of piping runs as well as time- und cost savings within the installations process of building equipment as part of an overall economical optimisation. This publication is an excerpt of the results generated for these construction site analysis and deals in particular with difficulties and disturbances that have occurred.