The Change over Time in Finnish Residents’ Attitudes towards Multi-Story Timber Apartment Buildings

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

• I suggest adding a section at the end of the introduction to present the article layout.
• I recommend adding some diagrams and figures for a better presentation of the results. 
• It is a good idea to add a copy of the survey forms that have been used in the survey.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors of ” The change over time in Finnish Residents’ Attitudes Towards 2 Multi-Storey Timber Apartment Buildings”

 

The reviewer would greatly like to appreciate authors’ efforts for collecting the up-to-date insight of residents’ perceptions on multi-storey timber building. It is indeed rather seldom to have a solid survey on this topic and the outcomes of the study is certainly valuable for policy makers and other industrial stakeholders.

 

In the following comments, the reviewer gives remarks to specific points in the manuscript.

L9. “sustainable housing, e.g. timber housing,”

• This expresses that timber housings are generally sustainable housings. Is that true? There must be unspoken assumptions in this statement. Sustainable timber housings should be made of timber from sustainably maintained forests (Finnish forestry operation is indeed very good but not all timbers are harvested in a sustainable manner if you look at other markets). Sustainable timber housings should be energy efficient (there are timber constructions with poor insulation). Sustainable timber housings have to be durable by careful details design, careful construction execution and good maintenance (there are timber constructions with moisture issues).

 

L162. “Additionally, most (>50%) of the respondents agreed that wood is a strong and durable building material at an affordable price.”

• How can we trust the statement of the residents on durability? How do they judge the durability? The degradation of wood components is often a slow process. The subjective and non-expert view of the residents over 1-2 year period does not really indicate if the housing is really durable or not. Regarding the material price, those residents would not live in the house if they cannot afford it. Some extra information on the price of the surveyed housing would be beneficial to reinforce this statement.

 

L234. “In the 1998–1999 survey, detached and one-or-two-storeys terraced houses were the most popular types to move among participants. However, in 2017, the preferences of residents were becoming completely different.”

• Can we extrapolate this result as a general trend of the Finnish timber construction industry? “Where to move next” is heavily influenced by the development of household. The old survey was answered by relatively young people, while the new survey was answered by older people. This difference is suspected to have an influence of the answer to some extent. It is also important to know where these building are located (suburb, center of a larger city etc.).

 

L47. “Furthermore, according to the results of the surveys, it was seen that the complaints 247 of the users about finishing in construction disappeared over time.”

• This is a very case-specific result. Were the architect and contractor the same in both projects? The quality of finishing can be largely different depending on which company works on it. Thus it is inappropriate to draw a conclusion that the general quality has improved along with the advances of the timber construction industry. More samples (other hounsing projects) would be needed to discuss the general trend.

 

Other general remarks

• Without providing the detail of the survey, it is difficult to support the interpretation and discussion. Please provide the survey (in English translation) as an appendix if possible.

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx