An Irish timber frame house manufacturer is preparing the ground to expand in North America. Jack Fagan reports.

The Irish timber frame house manufacturer, Century Homes, is to expand its operations into North America - home of the timber frame house industry - through the acquisition of a local company.

The firm's chief executive, Gerry McCaughey, has already opened discussions with two companies with a view to either taking over one or embarking on a joint venture. Although a precise strategy will not emerge for some time, it is known that other North American companies are also interested in talking to Century, which is recognised as one of the key players in the international timber frame industry with three highly automated production plants in Ireland and two in the UK.

Century was the only Irish firm to have a stand at North America's principal house building exhibition, Construct Canada, which was held in Toronto last week.

Mr McCaughey was one of the principal speakers at the exhibition where he outlined the differences in manufacturing techniques between North America, the Continent and Ireland. He also devoted considerable time tracing the rapid growth of timber frame houses in Ireland, despite the difficult bureaucratic conditions set by the Department of the Environment.

Mr McCaughey told a press conference in Toronto that Century Homes was targeting North America because of the very large scale of the market where over 90 per cent of all new starts are timber frame homes.

He said: "This year there will be almost two million new housing units built in the United States and 200,000 in Canada. When you factor in that nine out of 10 of these homes will be timber frame, you can see there is a massive opportunity for Century Homes."

He said that, while North America was the home of the timber frame industry, Century was recognised as a global innovator in the sector. "I predict that our highly automated, factory-based approach to timber frame construction will cause a revolution in the North American market, which is now based more on the labour intensive stick-build method of on-site construction."

Significantly, the largest housebuilder in the US, Pulte, which has always used on-site construction methods, is now building its first factory for open frame production like Century.

Mr McCaughey said that while the North American market was "mature", insofar as timber frame was the dominant method of construction, it was "incredibly immature" in the way timber frame was constructed.

Unlike Europe where timber frame was always factory-produced, North American companies developed about 95 per cent of homes by stick-build on-site.

"The carpenters are to the American and Canadian industries what the block layers are to the Irish construction industry. There aren't enough of them. They are demanding increased prices and they dictate the pace of construction on the sites. So the same factors that drive house building in Ireland towards timber frame are also driving the North Americans away from on-site construction to factory-built."

Mr McCaughey said he believed that now was the right time to move into the new market because, while local firms were familiar with timber frame on-site, they had no concept of factory-manufactured timber frame.

Even the North American firms which had already gone into factory production still had a very basic level of automation. A lot of those driving the change over there were lumber companies or commodity dealers whereas Century Homes saw itself as an engineering company.

The Irish company, which had a turnover in the past year of almost €80 million, is likely to spend around €10 million if it decides on a direct acquisition of a North American company. Mr McCaughey said they were looking at construction companies and others selling a prefabricated component of a house rather than a full timber frame kit.

Century built about 8,500 timber frame houses in Ireland and the UK this year and expects that number to exceed 9,500 when its new plant in Tullamore and its second UK factory in Newcastle are fully operational next year. The company handled about 40 per cent of all timber frame homes built in Ireland this year.