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Great products start with exceptional design, built into the first Lockwood leaving the factory in 1954. Today, Lockwood delivers sleek modern features built on a heritage of skilled carpentry, quality materials, meticulous engineering and precision manufacturing. Our construction process delivers proven durability and performance with a home building system that has stood the test of time, hurricanes and earthquakes.
Good design goes beyond style and function. Easily recognisable, good design is simple, thoughtful, beautiful and effortlessly functional. We design timeless long-lasting homes with a focus on durability. Thorough down to the last detail, nothing is arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in design and manufacturing results in the highest quality in a finished Lockwood. It’s our mark of respect for the carpenters who build a Lockwood, and for those who make our houses their homes.
Lockwood’s unique engineered building system ‘locks’ timber components together, creating strong, beautiful homes. Radiata Pine planks lock together using the patented aluminium ‘X’ profile, laterally braced with spring-loaded tie rods. This delivers a resilient structure capable of flexing under force before returning to original dimensions. These characteristics make Lockwood buildings uniquely earthquake and hurricane resistant.
Choose your building site carefully. Along with personal requirements, this is the most important factor for new home design. Access, contours, views, prevailing winds and sunlight all have a major influence on your home’s performance. Our specialised team of architectural designers are ready to work closely with you, getting the best from your site.
Lockwood homes are strong and ductile, engineered to withstand earthquakes and tropical cyclones, with the flexibility to handle wide temperature ranges. Lockwood’s strength shone through in the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes, with almost no structural damage reported. In fact, many families actively sought out Lockwood homes to shelter their families. “Unlike the rest of the houses… we have no damage at all”, “probably the safest house I’d want to be in in an earthquake” – survivors of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.
Lockwood supports the regional economy by sourcing all raw timber locally. A Lockwood home has 5.5 times the amount of timber than a conventionally framed home and it is all sustainably sourced from plantation forests around the Rotorua region. Transport emissions are minimised by our proximity to the forestry industry, further reducing the impact on our environment.
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Every Lockwood features specialised window sub-frames locked into the timber walls. High-quality double-glazed windows are standard in every home, with upgrades available for optimised living conditions. Thermally broken, Low-e, triple glazing, high-performing windows deliver benefits including reduced heat loss and condensation, better insulation and noise control, increased UV protection and reduced glare.
Every Lockwood is a High Performance building because it is constructed from natural New Zealand wood. Solid timber regulates humidity, avoiding build-up of bacteria, viruses, fungi and mites, minimising respiratory infections and asthma.* The warm glow of finished timber goes beyond aesthetic appeal; it’s been credited with physiological and psychological benefits that mimic the effects of spending time in nature, such as lowered blood pressure and heart rate, reducing stress and anxiety, and increasing positive social interactions.^
*Based on information obtained from studies conducted at Lincoln University in 2007
^Based on information obtained from a Planet Ark study prepared in 2015 and updated in 2017
Timber naturally “breathes”, regulating moisture, temperature and humidity. Rainwater channels through the joinery, draining away harmlessly, while exterior walls wick moisture away, protecting the home from damp.
With our buildings designed to last indefinitely, a Lockwood requires little maintenance, contributing to a reduced Total Cost of Ownership over a lifetime. Benefits include minimal exterior and interior painting, solid damage-resistant timber internal walls, and proven extreme weather and natural disaster resilience.
Over a 50-year period, the estimated savings of a Lockwood over a conventional home ranges from $80,000-$120,000.
Lockwood builds healthy and comfortable homes which are also good for the wider community and the environment. We treat our timber after processing, so the offcuts are able to be repurposed. Our wood is a renewable resource, sourced from adjacent sustainable forests and locally milled, limiting emissions. On-site construction is rapid with waste materials contained to the bare minimum and a finished Lockwood home is energy-efficient and sustainable. That’s what makes every Lockwood a high performance home. Lockwood is designed for good
The production and processing of wood uses much less energy than most other building materials, giving homes built from solid wood a significantly lower carbon footprint. As a rule of thumb, if you substitute one cubic metre of timber for a cubic metre of concrete, you will eliminate approximately one metric tonne (1,000kg) of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the atmosphere. Construction of a Lockwood home, rather than a conventionally-built home, can save 4 tonnes of carbon dioxide, equal to the emissions of driving 22,000km.
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The complete Lockwood Building System is CodeMark certified, a process that rests on historic and current evidence demonstrating how and why our unique building system is fit for purpose. Lockwood undertakes extensive quality control to meet the exacting standards of annual audits, maintaining compliance into the future.
Lockwood’s solid timber building system offers advantages in thermal comfort and control, indoor air quality and heating and cooling efficiency. Our exterior walls are comprised of a tight sandwich of solid timber and insulation which exceeds the NZBC energy efficiency requirements for solid timber homes by 50%. Wood is itself a natural insulator and minimal connections between internal and external elements delivers even better heat retention.
Solid timber homes are better at absorbing and storing heat (thermal mass) than conventional buildings. This means a Lockwood automatically evens out variations between outdoor and indoor conditions, naturally absorbing heat when temperatures rise and releasing it as temperatures fall. Lincoln University conducted studies in 2007 which showed solid wood provides up to 2.5 times the thermal mass of concrete.
Every Lockwood features custom joinery integrated into the structural system for extra strength and leak-free construction. Dedication to continuous improvement and maintaining the highest standards has established our reputation as one of New Zealand’s most trusted builders. This approach is proven effective: no Lockwood has ever suffered from ‘leaky building’ syndrome.
Wood is a renewable resource and the only major building material that helps tackle climate change challenges. Forests remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, known as carbon sequestration. Depending on growth rate and wood density, a hectare of pine trees locks up 4-7 tonnes of carbon per year, equivalent to 15-26 tonnes of carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere. When the tree is responsibly harvested the carbon is locked in the wood and remains there for the life of any products made with that timber.
In the factory environment we minimise waste through thoughtful assessment of our materials to optimise use throughout the production line. For example, if part of a timber plank is not suitable for one purpose it can be processed for finger-jointed or glue laminated products. We also minimise waste by treating only finished timber products. This means that shavings and unused off-cuts are untreated and can be repurposed. For example, wood shavings are turned into wood pellets for pellet wood burners.
