Mass Timber’s Edge: Smaller Crews, Quicker Builds, New Floors Above

Mass timber has already proven its climate case. What is becoming more clear as projects accumulate is its advantage in time and labor. Speed of construction and smaller, more specialized crews create economic benefits that go beyond carbon accounting. They reduce costs, compress schedules, and open up new markets such as upward extensions on existing buildings where traditional reinforced concrete is too heavy. These are not side notes but core reasons why developers and cities are taking notice.

This is one of the last articles in my series examining the role of mass timber in Canada’s housing and climate future. The first piece laid out Canada’s timber moment, framing CLT and modular construction as the fastest lever for addressing housing shortages, jobs, and embodied carbon. The second explored how Mark Carney’s housing initiative could industrialize the sector through pre-approved designs, offtake contracts, and regional factories. The third explored the requirement for vertical integration within the industry to maximize efficiencies. The fourth showed how CLT displacement could bend the demand curves for cement and steel, making their decarbonization pathways more realistic. The fifth demonstrated that from harvest to housing, CLT already locks away more carbon than it emits, strengthening its climate case.

The sixth turned to the forestry supply chain, arguing that electrification of harvesting, transport, and processing is essential to maintaining CLT’s carbon advantage. The seventh piece addressed systemic barriers, focusing on high insurance costs and bespoke code approvals, and argued that normalizing mass timber in regulatory and financial frameworks is the key to scaling. The eighth piece, arguably one that should have been much earlier in the series, explored the various technologies in mass timber and its currently dominant form, cross-laminated timber (CLT). The ninth piece assessed the global leaders, opportunities and competition for Canada’s mass timber industry and considers lessons to learn. The tenth piece deals with input regarding labor and financing I received over the course of the series from professionals engaged in the space. This piece focuses more on a speed and labor opportunities that mass timber construction has demonstrated.

The nine storey Murray Grove building in London, often referred to as Stadthaus, became the first iconic demonstration of this potential. Its CLT frame was erected by just four carpenters in 27 working days spread over nine weeks, using a mobile crane and prefabricated cutouts. A comparable concrete frame would have taken five to six months with crews five to six times larger, along with tower crane rental and more neighborhood disruption. The message was that time and people could be saved while still delivering a durable structure.

Brock Commons in Vancouver carried that message forward at a larger scale. The 18 storey hybrid timber tower was built with a crew of nine installers who completed the structure and façade in 66 days. Local contractors estimated a concrete tower of that height would have needed six to eight months of work with crews of 40 to 60 people at peak. The timber tower went up at a pace of two floors a week, compared to the one floor per week cycle that is typical of concrete.

The T3 office building in Minneapolis added another datapoint. The 7-storey, 180,000-square-foot building was assembled in about nine weeks by a dozen timber framers working with a crane. A concrete office of the same size would normally take four to five months and 50 to 70 tradespeople rotating through. The difference meant tenants could move in sooner, carrying costs were reduced, and disruption to the surrounding neighborhood was limited.

Forté in Melbourne showed similar outcomes. A five person crew erected the 10-storey CLT building in 10 weeks. Concrete would have taken 20 to 24 weeks and required at least 20 to 25 workers at peak. Again, smaller crews, shorter schedules, and cleaner sites emerged as consistent advantages.

The workforce profile is one of the most important differences. Concrete construction spreads work across many trades. It needs formwork carpenters, rebar placers, pump operators, finishers, crane operators, and general laborers. Dozens of workers are required to keep the cycle moving. Mass timber collapses much of that into fewer, higher skill categories. CNC operators and shop technicians cut panels to tight tolerances in factories. On site, timber framers and riggers work with crane operators to set prefabricated elements in place. Project managers and 3D modelers coordinate sequencing and logistics. Instead of 50 or more workers cycling in and out of a site, a single digit crew of specialists can advance at twice the pace.

The reduction in on site labor is typically 60 to 70 percent during the structure phase. At the same time, demand shifts into off site manufacturing where precision and digital skills are required. This creates different training needs. It also points to the importance of a national skills program. If Canada wants to scale mass timber, it must prepare thousands of 3D modelers, CNC operators, and timber framers, not just more general laborers.

Canadian cities are already struggling with construction labor shortages, and that reality shapes the prospects for mass timber. Large projects in Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary often face delays because there are not enough skilled workers available across multiple trades. Immigration and training programs have not kept pace with demand, and competition between infrastructure, residential, and commercial projects is intense. In this environment, an approach that requires fewer workers on site and shifts more of the labor into controlled factory settings has clear advantages. Mass timber reduces dependence on the large concrete crews that are in short supply and instead creates demand for smaller, specialized teams and off site technical roles that can be trained more quickly. This rebalancing of labor requirements could be one of the most important reasons for Canadian developers and policymakers to adopt mass timber at scale.

Another value proposition that is emerging is upward extension. Mass timber’s light weight allows additional floors to be added on existing buildings without major reinforcement. At 80 M Street in Washington, DC, three new timber floors were built on top of a seven storey concrete office, adding more than 100,000 square feet of space. In Boston and New Haven, two storey CLT additions have been built on top of brick and beam structures, something that concrete would have made uneconomic. In Poissy, France, factory built timber modules were placed on the roofs of existing blocks to create 33 new apartments. In London, rooftop timber additions on heritage structures are becoming a common way to create new space without demolishing the old. These projects avoid costly foundation upgrades and tenant disruption, while still delivering high quality housing or office space.

The financial implications are clear. Faster schedules reduce the amount of time developers carry financing and bring tenants into buildings sooner. Smaller crews reduce labor costs and site overheads. Fewer truck deliveries and lighter structures lower foundation and crane expenses. Upward extensions open up a new market in cities where land is scarce, turning underused rooftops into revenue generating space. The benefits show up not in line item material costs but at the project level where time, money, and disruption are saved.

For Canada, these examples should be instructive. Mass timber is not only a climate tool but also a construction model that saves time and labor. The country can apply these lessons to accelerate housing delivery, reduce costs, and compete globally as an exporter of both panels and know how. Achieving that requires investment in skills, financial frameworks that reflect the unique cost stack of mass timber, and policies that make upward extensions easier to approve. The value is there. The question is whether Canada builds the workforce and the strategy to capture it.