Cross-Laminated Timber for Single-Family Residential Construction: Comparative Cost Study

Abstract

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) has emerged in recent years to become a widely recognized mass timber product for large-scale wood construction projects. The advantage of large CLT buildings has been recognized by investors and the public, resulting in a number of tall wood buildings around the world. It is generally believed that newly constructed CLT buildings can be cost competitive against steel and concrete options in certain scenarios. However, the cost-effectiveness of CLT in single-family residential construction is questionable compared to traditional light-framed wood construction. In this study, a comparative construction-cost study was conducted for three different designs using the same single-family residential floor plan: traditional light-framed wood, all CLT, and optimized CLT options. The cost differences among these different options were quantified, and the potential of CLT single-family construction was evaluated in terms of construction cost.