Timber framing or solid construction

Hello everyone,

I have a question regarding the costs of a single-family house built with a timber frame construction. I have read in various construction forums and on specialist websites that a solid house is about 30% more expensive than a house with timber frame construction.
It is about a roughly 140 sqm city villa with 2 full floors and a hipped roof. The exterior facade should be fully clad.

Furthermore, I wonder how much money can be saved if, for example, the boarding and insulation of the interior walls and ceilings are done independently.
Wages for window construction, interior finishing (drywall), and electrical installation are omitted because these works are carried out by family members or myself.

Moreover, the house should correspond to normal standard comfort.
Underfloor heating via air heat pump, blind control, normal floor coverings, etc.

Ground floor: kitchen, living/dining room, storage/utility room, guest WC
Upper floor: bathroom, 2 children's rooms, bedroom plus dressing room, office

Maybe someone can give me an approximate price so that I can continue planning.

Thank you very much.

I don't think that's really true. With the current construction boom, houses built with timber frame construction are sometimes even more expensive. Of course, there are always exceptions, but then the quality is also correspondingly better. Generally, I would say that both construction methods don't differ much in similar quality.

As far as I know, with many "prefabricated house providers" it is not possible to remove the windows, as they are part of the envelope. But I'm not entirely sure.

In general, you should take a look around this forum, as there are some threads that deal with the question of solid construction or timber frame construction.

And at least as many threads that show what it is like with the help of friends and family.

I don’t think that’s really correct. With the current construction boom, houses built with timber frame construction are sometimes even more expensive.

I can only confirm that. We compared all variants for the same floor plan: building independently with an architect (very high quality), with a general contractor, and with a prefabricated house company. You can never really compare properly because each has its peculiarities. It is also difficult to compare the construction performance specifications for turnkey construction. And every provider has some extra that the others don’t include. But if you describe a construction execution very precisely, you will find that solid construction and timber frame construction are very close, or timber frame can even be more expensive.

It also depends a bit on the architecture you want to build. Timber frame has, for example, the disadvantage that for large spans the wooden beams would have to be very massive, and instead steel girders have to be inserted, which increases the cost. Conversely, if you want to achieve a very high energy efficiency standard, that will probably be easier with timber frame construction than with solid construction.

Conclusion: It also depends a lot on WHAT you want to build and which properties are important to you. But the statement that solid construction is 30% more expensive than timber frame construction is probably an apples-to-oranges comparison, i.e. the cheapest prefabricated house manufacturer in timber frame construction compared with the most expensive solid house construction. Ultimately, they only differ in the shell construction; all the rest is identical.

Wood stud framing is definitely not cheaper, rather somewhat more expensive, of course equipped equivalently. A difference of 30% is certainly not between the two construction methods.

Best regards
Sabine