Brick and block housing sees notable rise in market share. The NHBC (National House-Building Council) release of their Quarter 3 house building figures for 2006 brought some good news for brick and block manufacturers across the UK with traditional construction at its highest level since 2002, holding an impressive 89% of market share across both Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This rise has been at the expense of timber framed construction which has seen the steady growth of the last 10 years start to slip, with a one third fall (1) in its market share since the beginning of the year.

This trend has been echoed across Great Britain with traditional build methods seeing their highest level in Scotland since 2002 with 43% of the market share; this is a significant increase in what has long been considered timber kit country.

In England traditional construction currently accounts for 93% of the market with Wales not far behind on 91%, again both countries have seen a rise since the beginning of this year.

The increase for traditional building has also been seen across all types of house since the beginning of the year: The largest gains have been seen in attached and detached bungalows with market share increasing from 66% to 81% and from 79% to 88% respectively.

Further good news for the masonry builder and customer is that the figures continue to challenge the perception that using traditional methods greatly increases the build time.

NHBC figures show that the median time taken to complete a traditional build is 11 months with the median for timber frame builds only fractionally below this at 10 months.

The Modern Masonry Alliance (MMA) is funding a new four year research project at Loughborough University to improve both construction efficiency and quality of modern masonry.

A spokesman for the Modern Masonry Alliance says; 'We at the MMA believe that these figures go to prove that masonry is still the favoured choice amongst house builders and buyers across the UK with 9 out of 10 of all homes in the UK still benefiting from masonry construction'.

'As our climate changes we will see masonry homes growing even further in popularity as they continue to meet the demands of out hotter summers without the need for air-conditioning'.