[Greenbuilding] heat treated wood siding

RT ArchiLogic at yahoo.ca
Fri Nov 13 09:58:57 CST 2015


On Fri, 13 Nov 2015 07:48:47 -0500, Aaron Stavert <aaron at openpractice.ca>  
wrote:
> Here is a link to a company here in Canada.  If you click on the  
> technology section there are some >great resources and explanations  
> there.
>> http://www.thermalwoodcanada.com/
>
>
Thanks for the above link Aaron. It (in particular, the pdf from the  
Finnish  assoc) has been the most useful so far in my education about this  
new-to-me process.

I suspect that Sacie had already known more about  the 21st C "heat  
treated wood" process than I when she posted her query to this list.

My initial reaction after reading the Finnish pdf is one of chuckling and  
saying to myself

"Yup. 'Heat-treated" wood *is* "polishing a turd".  The Finnish  
association literature even admits that the stuff stinks".

... but that criticism is mostly tongue in cheek.

So far I've not seen any embodied-energy numbers for heat treated wood  
other than a generalised claim that the energy required for the process is  
about 25% more than fhat for conventional kiln drying.

Literature from another Euro site claimed that the service life of  
heat-treated wood exposed to weather was in the 40-60 year range.

So from a Green perspective one should look at whether the  
not-insigificantly higher embodied-energy cost of heat-treated wood is  
worth the increase in service life expectancy over naturally  
decay-resistant lumber species and my initial reaction is "No" . Perhaps  
further education may change that initial opinion.

I suppose my attitude towards the product is similar to that for  
pressure-treated wood . Both processes treat lumber species that  don't do  
particularly well in outdoor service conditions and that may be viewed by  
some (mostly those in the business of selling trees for lumber) as being a  
Good Thing. (Again, hat "polishing a turd" thing).

In the case of pressure-treated (PT) lumber it gives the users a false  
sense of security because the reality is that the treatment chemicals only  
penetrate mere millimetres depth from the surface and wood being what it  
is, prone to checking and splitting when subjected to repeated wetting &  
drying outdoors, exposes the untreated core to entry by the microbes and  
insects that can still feast on the untreated innards.

In the case of heat-treated (HT) wood while some of the cosmetic  
durability properties of the wood seem to be improved, it's bending  
strength is weakened and any natural decay resistance is lost.   
Cabinetmakers who work with handtools only will often describe kiln-dried  
lumber as being "kill" dried. The wood is "dead"...  a hollow, lifeless  
shell of it's former self when compared to lumber that has been air-dried  
to the same moisture content.

Heat treatment, due to the higher temps involved, appears to not only  
"kill" the wood, it turns it into a FrankensteinWood in a manner of  
speaking .

But enough of that for now. I've got more important things to do right  
now... like take my mutt for a run in the woods.
-- 
=== * ===
Rob Tom . . . T60BOM
Kanata, Ontario, Canada

A r c h i L o g i c at Y a h o o dot C A
(manually winnow the chaff from my edress if you hit "reply")
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/greenbuilding_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20151113/085faf6f/attachment.html>


More information about the Greenbuilding mailing list