Green Oak Structure
Unseasoned oak posts, beams and braces cut and jointed by a framing carpenter, raised and pegged on site. Worked green because the timber cuts more easily wet, then dries and moves in place.
Carbon and evidence
How This Is Made
An Environmental Product Declaration is issued by a manufacturer against a declared unit. This record has neither, so it states sourced facts about process and provenance instead of a carbon figure.
Continuous English framing tradition; scribe and square-rule carpentry still in use
Process
Feedstock
Plant fibre
Unseasoned home-grown or European oak, converted from the log rather than laminated
Process heat
No heat
Binder
Mechanical
Fabrication
Workshop-made
Sourcing: UK to European, depending on the section sizes available
Who Builds It
Specialist trade
Limited UK availability
Cut in a framing yard, then raised on site. Detailing for shrinkage across the grain is the whole skill — the frame will move for years
End Of Life
Demountable
Pegged joints can be dismantled and the frame re-raised; historic frames have been moved and reused repeatedly
Maintenance: Left exposed and unfinished in most cases; movement and checking are expected, not repaired
Specification Risk
What a specifier has to resolve before this can be built.
- Certification
- Strength grading to BS EN 14081 is available but not universal on bespoke frames; confirm the grade
- Fire
- Combustible; charring rate design to Eurocode 5 is the normal route for exposed frames
- Warranty
- Carpenter workmanship warranty; no product warranty exists for a bespoke frame
- Insurance
- Not normally an issue where the frame is engineered and graded
- Supply
- A small trade with long lead times; large sections are the constraint
Read This Honestly
- •Green oak moves substantially as it dries. Junctions with glazing, plaster and services must be detailed for it.
- •No EPD applies to a bespoke cut frame. Generic sawn-hardwood figures exist but cover a different product and are not cited here.
- •Carbon stored in the timber is not netted against anything in this record.
Design & Specification Notes
Unseasoned oak posts, beams and braces cut and jointed by a framing carpenter, raised and pegged on site.
Typical Uses
- •Primary frame
- •Long-span elements
- •Load-bearing supports
Key Performance
High load-bearing capacity for primary frame.
Specification Actions
- •Provide FSC or PEFC chain-of-custody proof (and origin details if reclaimed).
- •Verify green oak is appropriately seasoned for application
- •Specify traditional joinery connections where possible
Indicative Health & Indoor Air
Natural untreated material with excellent indoor air quality. No adhesives or chemical treatments.
Category baseline
No baseline established
No published figure for this category meets the declared unit, lifecycle modules and standard needed to sit alongside product declarations.
Searched and rejected. Published glulam figures disagree by roughly 46% (117.6 vs 172.18 kgCO2e/m³ A1–A3), and the lower one is itself derived from a per-kg factor via an assumed 420 kg/m³ softwood density rather than published per m³. CLT figures found were A1–A5 and net negative, mixing biogenic carbon into the scope. A baseline here needs a source that publishes per m³ at A1–A3 on a stated biogenic convention; none was found. All five products in this category declare per m³, so the unit is not the obstacle — the absence of a comparable published figure is.
Products in this category
5 products from 4 manufacturers. Ordered by the evidence each record holds, never by commercial standing.
Specification
- Finish
- Fresh-sawn structural oak, traditional joints
- Service life
- 60 years