Using timber saves overseas funds

Press, 15 May 1981, Page 9

Using timber saves overseas funds

The wider use -of structural timber in industrial, buildings could • save New Zealand several million dollars a year. The claim, by the chairman of the Structural Engineered Timber Manufacturers Association (Mr B. C. Wyllie) is based on the fact that most structural steel is imported, and that it used ten times the energy to be converted for use.

Converting wood from its raw state into the finished product, regardless of form, required less energy than any comparable building material, .Mr Wyllie said. A tonne of timber required 453 kwh (kilowatt hours), steel

3780kwh, and aluminium 20,160kwh. He echoes many others in the timber industry when discussing importing steel as opposed to using a local product. "It doesn’t make sense to continue importing steel and draining overseas funds when we have a local product that’s superior,” Mr Wyllie said. He said structural timber also was easier to maintain than steel, and less expensive to erect. Pole and laminated beam construction techniques could save up to §30,000 on a 6000 sq m warehouse. "The paradox is that New Zealand has one of the best timber growing climates in the world, yet only some one per cent of its buildings under 4000 sq m are based on structural timber,” he said. In addition to the financial

benefits, glue laminated beams offer additional advantages by creating attractive architectural and aesthetic effects. If beauty was an important element in construction, timber was hard to beat. The beams have many safety features as well. They burned slowly, and resisted heat penetration by forming a self-insulating char. At the char stage, steel would have lost some 80 per cent of its structural strength. Beams also have a greater capacity to absorb impact loads, which makes them safer in high winds and in earthquakes. Mr Wyllie said there was no reason why the bulk of New Zealand’s structures could not be manufactured and built using structural timber at prices less than those of alternative building materials. .