Quality and Sustainability Indicators of the Prefabricated Wood Housing Industry—A Chilean Case Study
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The review work has the character of an introductory introduction to the directions of green building in Chille defined by the standard requirements.
The basic structure of the work is correct.
The review has a character of a preliminary report on changes in timber construction in Chille (line 216). The initial stage of the work is indicated
Significant weaknesses in the literature review; there is no reference to standards in order of inclusion in the text: NCh 119, NCh 1270, NCh 1198, NCh 853, NCh 851, NCh 152, NCh 2786, ISO 140-6 ISO 717-2, NCh 789/1, NCh 819,
The authors indicated a reference to only 16 literature items in the introduction and an indication of only 36 items for the review publication. Such an important introduction to a review paper needs to be rewritten.
Line 108: no indication of sources when describing the Likert scale
Line 124: alternate use of inch and cm scale
Line 194: punctuation
Line 202: no literature source for the information presented by the Author(s)
Line 209: punctuation
Line 210: the beginning of the sentence does not indicate the reference to the literature item No. 17
Line 219 and following lines: no source for the life cycle assessment
Line 227: no explanation for the abbreviation "CC"
Line 265: no indication of the form in which the data were obtained from the representatives of the firms indicated
Line 319: no reference to the seismic requirements referred to by the authors
Line 331: no source for the data
Line 353: no explanation why the authors selectively refer to the building planning policies of England and not those of other developed countries or countries in the South and Central American region.
Line 365: small font?
Line 372 onwards: where did the authors get the information about the customers' opinion about the low quality of wood?
Line 450: no explanation of the abbreviation LGUC
Very interesting work and worth making public after it has been corrected.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 1, We send the answers about the article in revision
Best Regard
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This article deals with a very important and very current topic that deserves further study and research.
In particular, as well indicated in the text, the problem arises of improving the ways in which building are checked and controlled in the Chile and in promote an modern and smart building strategy with wood.
However, the study has many problems:
- it is extremely focused on the Chilean reality. This is demonstrated by a lot of references to national regulations, the citation of national standards, the bibliographical references to spanish pubblication for over half of the total number, etc. This is not a mistake, but setting the problem on the basis of the Chilean national regulations, makes you lose sight of the objective of the article , which wants to be applicable everywhere, also out from Chile (as we can read from the title).
- The bibliographic study is rather poor and mainly focused on local reality
- In the materials and methods all the indicators are well described, but they are difficult to be quantified. In practice...
- In chapters 2.1, 2.2, the in-depth study on the issues of structural construction is absolutely partial and incomplete both on materials and on structures (and construction systems). It seems that you want to go into detail, but you are not able to give some general indications that can be extended to other realities.
- It is not at all clear how to attribute a value of merit to classes 1-5 identified for each reference parameter. How do you decide whether 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 can be attributed with respect to a described parameter?
In the text there are many material mistakes:
rows 48 - 49: the sentence is not clear (of the This is the case?)
rows 49 - 54: some problems with this sentence
row 104 what is "xx indicators"
rows 118 - 123 a lot of Chilean standard are cited (NCh) but it is needed a bibliographic reference. What is CH? is it moisture content in spanish?
Chapter 2.1 : using inches or mm? You cannot use different measuring units in the same paper.
rows 139 - 140 perhaps it is to put in chapter n. 2.1
Table 2: "Expected life" is not really correct. You can find a not durable wood more than 5 hundred years old
Table 2: scientific name of species is need.
row 179: Radiata pine; why it is presented so in detail the problem of radiata pine? There are a lot of other species
..... and so on....
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 2, we send the answers by the article in revision
Best Regards
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
“Quality and sustainability indicators of the prefabricated wood housing industry” is an article focused on some indicators of wood houses. However, it is not clear the purpose of the paper, the presented solution, and to whom it is dedicated.
The manuscript requires linguistic corrections. I would suggest asking for help from an English native speaker experienced in writing in science.
I have some more comments and questions:
- The Abstract is very vague. Please re-write it and show clearly the aim of the study and the results obtained.
- The Introduction is vague as well. There is plenty of information not particularly connected, and it is unclear what is the purpose for giving that information here. I would suggest re-writing it according to the well-established plan of thoughts (ideas) the Authors would like to present and discuss in this part.
- What is the aim of the article? Please, state it clearly at the end of the Introduction.
- Materials and Methods – The first sentence is entirely not understandable – please express more clearly what you meant.
- It is very unclear if the study regards only Chilean market or the problem worldwide – please state it clearly.
- Some figures and tables (e.g. Fig. 3, Table 2) are not in English – it should be corrected.
- How exactly the presented tables could be helpful, to whom and when – for a customer when he makes his choice of a building technology; for an inspector, for a producer of wooden houses? These requires some explanation.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 3, we send the answers for the article in revision
Best Regards
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The text has been improved.
The arguments are clear and well presented.
The only general note (secondary importance): the paper is rather verbose and not succinct as required by the review table.
Some technical notes:
rows 38, 280 : LCA is not "life cycle analysis" but "life cycle assessment"
rows 235, 237, table 4 and table 5: humidity is wrong - the water in wood is called "moisture content".
table 4 : 1st row point 6 and 3rd row point 3 some brackets are lost;
table 4 : 1sr row point 7: Indicates de captured CO2 --> Indicates the CO2 sequestration
Author Response
Dear Rev 1, we have correct the manuscript and welcome your comments and suggestions
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript has been improved. However, still some English corrections are necessary (espacially when it comes to the scientific and "industry" vocabulary).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer, we have corrected the manuscript and welcome your comments and suggestions
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
