Timber stud walls 16-24cm thickness experiences

Hello everyone,

we are currently looking for a prefabricated house construction company that suits us.

It will probably be a house with a timber frame construction method.

Now I have some "concerns" about the different walls.

One manufacturer builds 16cm thick wooden walls and others 24cm thick. (Insulation and plasterboard etc. not included.)
The thinner wall should still have the better U-value. Which I could possibly explain technically with different insulation.
What really worries me is the statics. Isn't a wall with 16cm thick timber frame significantly less stable?

Does anyone have experience or information about the differences with such walls?

Best regards

Is a wall with 16cm thick timber framing not significantly less stable?

First of all, it is absolutely not unstable, secondly this question does not align with the following:

we are currently looking for a prefab house construction company that suits us.
It will probably be a house with a timber frame construction.

and therefore leads me to the counter-question where, given the apparent lack of familiarity with this construction method, the decision comes from to want to have one’s house built this way.

Scanhaus Marlow I don’t even know Marlow.

So far, we have talked about Streif Haus, Weberhaus, Keitel Haus, Wolf, Weiss, Bien Zenker.

First of all, she is absolutely not unstable, secondly this question does not fit with that:

and therefore brings me to the counter-question of where the decision to want to have his house built that way comes from, apparently with little familiarity with this type of construction.

For me, the question does fit.
It is not that I would fundamentally not trust wood.
Wood has always been good.

I just wonder why some manufacturers use significantly more wood than others. I cannot imagine that for a manufacturer wood costs so little that simply more is used out of "boredom." There must certainly be a reason for that.

It’s not that I would basically not trust wood.

I wasn’t talking about trusting in this construction method, but about trustworthy with it. Someone who is firmly decided to favor a certain construction method usually has reasons for it, which often don’t match with little expertise.

Wood has always been good.

Hehe, I say this (coming from a butcher dynasty), in a prefabricated house wall there is not more “wood” than there is meat in sausage.

With a 16 cm structural wood “core” and a bit of sheathing, the wall today is no longer finished. Some manufacturers have simply switched their systems to “thicker dimensions” of earlier constructions, and others have completely reconsidered the wall build-up. They come to different conclusions: one doubles the “extra” insulation like an ETICS on a solid wall, another stuffs it between the studs and adjusts their thickness accordingly (in cross-section they are then no longer square, and therefore not necessarily “more” wood).

Am I right in assuming (to quote Hans Sachs again) that you came to prefabricated houses through one of the two classic myths: “goes faster” or “gives fewer final price surprises”?

First: A wooden house is not just any wooden house. Timber frame construction? Timber panel construction? Log house? Every manufacturer has "their" wall and is always the best of all. That's how the sales talks go. We have a wooden house, built in timber frame construction. In this type of construction, all loads are transferred "from above" through the wooden beams. All secondary forces are diverted between the individual beams in the walls and on/in the floor & ceilings. For this, the structural engineer must calculate everything according to your house and your conditions. We, for example, have high snow and wind loads, plus seismic zone III. Then there is an overhang on the roof of 2m. Our walls consist of beams with 20, 18, and 12 cm thickness, depending on the load. The roof beams are 28 cm. Between the individual beams is insulation and on the exterior wall insulation again. Regarding the price, as speculated above: our regional house builder had to beef up the walls and the roof after the structural analysis, so now the external insulation has "shrunk" by that amount. There was no extra charge. But it is solidly built.