FAQs

Is Arolla a pre-fabricated home?

No. Every Arolla home is a unique project. No two homes are the same, unless you want them to be. With a streamlined design and production process based on Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) wood panels, your unique Arolla home flows directly from the architects drawings to the factory. 

Can I use my own architect?

Yes. Whilst we welcome the opportunity to work with different architects that want to embrace the Arolla way, in order to ensure a seamless process throughout, it is essential that they work together with our own architects and engineers from the beginning, so that we can ensure that our process remains smooth and efficient, and we can deliver on our promises of quality, time and cost. 

Is an Arolla home built in a factory?

Yes. At Arolla, 90% of your home iis provided by our own production facility, where we control every detail of the production of the CLT panels created specifically for your own home. This means that all the window and door openings, cable and pipe cavities, as well as the moulds for plugs, are cut to size on state of the art machines, ensuring there is a seamless fit and on-time assembly when they arrive at the construction site.

What is CLT?

CLT, or Cross Laminated Timber, is a solid wood building element composed of at least three layers of roughly-sawn timber, glued together at a 90° angle to one another (i.e., crosswise) using formaldehyde-free glue that contains no residual toxins and is at the same time open to diffusion, so that the material has a moisture-regulating effect and thus ensures a comfortable indoor climate. It’s a solid, sustainable, high-quality, low thermal conductor, dry, waterproof yet vapour permeable, 100% natural, living building material that actively contributes to CO2 storage, binding 1 tonne of CO2 per 1 m3 which the trees extracted from the air during growth.

Is CLT a new technology?

No. CLT was developed more than 20 years ago, and if you research it, you’ll see that CLT has a strong reputation as a sustainable building material, one that has been tested and proven in many different configurations and environments. At Arolla, we produce our own CLT panels using raw materials mainly sourced from Portugal and ensuring that we use mainly side cuttings, i.e. boards cut from the outer zones of sawn pine, larch and spruce tree trunks (as they display the best properties in terms of stiffness and strength), obtained from 80% sustainable sources, and use polyurethane glue with no habitable toxins, to create panels that are more narrow than the industry average, which in turn results in superior quality across the entire panel surface, less material waste and faster production process, while still allowing for multi-storey construction.

Is CLT sustainable?

Yes. When you buy an Arolla home, you are buying a high-quality product, stemmed from years of research, a detail-oriented culture and a deep understanding and respect for nature. Which means that, at Arolla, we spend the same amount of time perfecting every detail of your home, as we do making sure it is done in the most sustainable way. So that by the time you get your new home, there’s not only a beautiful life waiting for you, but a beautiful planet as well.

CLT is, basically, wood. Doesn’t it attract humidity and mould?

No. Poorly dried and incorrectly treated wood does, for the humidity clings to surfaces that have a cooler temperature to the surrounding air. On the contrary, all Arolla wood is dried to 12% humidity level and further left in its natural state, so the wood is able to continue to breathe, just as it does in nature. This means that your Arolla home can absorb any ambient humidity in a uniform way and release this again when the air is dry. 

How does a CLT home fare during and after an earthquake?

In many earthquake prone countries, wood is actually a common building material. Wood can bend and move with a shake, without suffering as much structural damage when compared to brick and cement, that tend to crack and become unstable. And because an Arolla home or building only has air-tight, timber-to-timber connections – which not only creates zero friction but allows each element to absorb some shock before passing it on, in a controlled and uniform manner, to the next element —, the structure can be fairly quickly checked and repaired for integrity damages after a severe shock, thus easily being deemed safe, as opposed to a concrete home, that would probably have to be torn down under similar circumstances. 

Isn’t a CLT home more exposed to fire safety issues?

No. Because fire actually struggles to penetrate the core of the panels, it has a much slower development — much like a wood log would be much harder to burn, when compared to the same volume in smaller pieces. This means that, should an accident occur, whilst the surfaces will get charred (which coincidentally creates a natural protective layer), the building will remain structurally sound for much longer than a traditional building. This, in turns, means that the fire is less likely to travel to other rooms, giving everyone more time to escape, whilst giving firemen the ability to enter the building and extinguish the flames long after the fire has started.

How long will it take my Arolla home to be built?

Not much. Once we have finished designing your dream home, we know exactly how much CLT we need, what panel sizes are required and what special cutting work needs to be done. This means that we know exactly how long it will take to produce all of that in our factory, and assemble it at your site. So at this point, we can tell you, to the day, how long each element of the house will take to build. It is that simple. 

Can I change the plans for my Arolla home during construction?

No. Although you can still add an extra plug here or there, or shift it slightly, once the plans are locked we cannot change them anymore, as each panel is carefully planned to meet your exact needs. That said, it is important to stress that we take extra time with you, during the planning stage, to ensure you can imagine exactly where you need a plug for your vacuum cleaner and your light switches. Amongst every other detail you can imagine, and then some. 

Can I add different materials, like stone walls or zinc cladding, to my Arolla home?

No. The unique beauty of an Arolla home is that you do not need to add anything — and, for your sake and the planet’s , we would like to keep it like that. All the benefits of a self-breathing home can only be enjoyed to their fullest when we leave them stand on their own. We believe in the power of simple and intuitive design, and adding more layers goes just against our grain. 

Can I build an Arolla multi-storey building?

Yes. CLT is both strong and flexible, allowing us to easily build up — for example, the collapse load of a 10cm thick panel, with a height of 250cm, is more than 120 tonnes. And given that the load is shared over the entire surface of the CLT panels, our buildings do not have specific load bearing structures with subsequent weak areas elsewhere, making it a perfect solution for complex high-rise designs. Currently, Arolla can commit to building seven-story buildings without amending the current assembly method. 

Is it possible to renovate my existing home using the Arolla system?

Possibly, yes. The beauty of the way we build at Arolla is that we can place our Cross Laminated Timber solution on top of an existing concrete foundation, greatly improving building time and minimising waste, as this allows us to reuse what is still useable.  

Can I paint the walls of my Arolla home? Or does it have to be wood?

Yes. Although we encourage our clients to think about other ways to personalize a home — like different furniture pieces, statement kitchens and bathrooms and unique floor solutions — it is possible, at an additional cost, to paint your walls. For this to happen, we need to cover them in a thin layer of natural clay, that can then be painted with a natural paint. This ensures that the breathability of your walls are maintained while adding a touch of personal preference to your home. 

I also need a garden and a pool. Does Arolla deliver these as well?

Yes. We work with local partners to deliver the parts where we do not have our in-home expertise yet, but we remain your sole contact person and, therefore, the responsibility to deliver lies with us. Handing you over the key for your Arolla home means that everything is in its right place and ready for you to move in, both inside and outside. 

Speaking of bathrooms, are they also made of wood?

Yes, and no. Although the walls, ceiling and floor will be in CLT, any wet area needs to be covered with a waterproof surface such as stone, ceramic tiles or micro-cement, for example. Whilst the pure wood can certainly handle getting wet, just as the exterior does on a rainy day, the inside of a shower sees a lot of heavy use. Soaps and tap water can leave undesirable staining on the wood surface, which many do not find aesthetically pleasing. So this is the space where you can go wild and chose something that matches your personality. That said, in order to support humidity management, we do suggest leaving walls that do not touch water in wood.

Are the floors be made of CLT?

They can be, but we wouldn’t recommend it. The wood used for our panels is usually a bit too soft for a floor, which receives much harder treatment than the walls. Things like high heeled shoes can start to leave little dents in the floor, so as part of our standard solution we offer different hard wood floors, which can withstand a bashing from a heel or a metal toy car without any issue. And you can either decide to match the colour of the walls or chose any finish you like. 

Untreated wood sounds great and looks amazing, but I have kids. So let us get real: does this stay clean?

Clean fingers and children rarely seem to go hand in hand no matter how hard we try. Like any surface our walls can get dirty over time. However, unlike white painted walls, wood is rather forgiving. First of all, stains are less noticeable on a patterned surface so with the natural pattern of the wood on display your walls will be much more tolerant. Secondly, a damp cloth will go a long way to remove the usual stains that come with a home that is loved and lived in. And should your child go wild and have a field day with permanent markers and a pair of scissors you will be able to sand away damages that we see in our worst nightmares.  

I do not own a plot of land yet but I want to build an Arolla home. What is the best next step?

Our team is available to help ensure you can build your dream home from the moment you decide to build with us. Which means that, if need be, we can come to a potential site and help assess whether it suits your needs and whether there are any additional considerations you may need to keep in mind. 

How expensive is an Arolla home?

If you do some quick price comparisons, an Arolla home can look much more expensive than the industry average. But the price difference is easily explained, for our standard pricing includes more elements than most, like architectural fees, heating and cooling system integrated into our special floor system, and triple glazed high-quality windows and doors. And if that’s not enough, after the build is finished, you will continue to see cost savings through lower maintenance costs and a typical 50% reduction in your heating and cooling costs. And with an expected lifespan of about 200 years — a lot longer than your regular, concrete home — you can rest assured that you have most probably made a sound, sustainable, long term investment.