Timber Product Companies Have Reported Good Initial Feedback From Ecobuild

Timber product companies have reported good initial feedback from Ecobuild – the world’s largest eco building show at London ExCeL which finishes today. Organisers UBM were expecting more than 60, 000 visitors at this year’s event and footflow on the first two days suggest the target will be hit or exceeded. Arnold Laver has one of the largest timber sector presences at the show. “We see Ecobuild as the thinking man’s Interbuild, ” managing director Andrew Laver told TTJ. “It provides visitors with an array of construction products but still with that sustainability angle. “To make the most of this show you have to have new stories to tell which we have. The people we’ve seen here are large civil engineers, shopfitters, large builders and some self-builders. ” London timber merchant T Brewer also raved about Ecobuild. “We visited last year and were very impressed with the presentation of the show and the number of visitors, so we decided to take a stand this year, ” said director Nick Brewer. “Our aim was to target anybody who uses timber in London and particularly to highlight the pure timber focus of the business. We have seen some building contractors, architects and some people who have accounts but did not realise the full potential of what we do. ” DHH (Timber Products) Ltd Panel products, making its first appearance at Ecobuild, showed a wide array of applications for birch plywood, including fire-retardant panels, acoustic panels and routed design products, as well as specialty products including Medite Tricoya modified MDF and Casaleno wood veneer “wallpaper”. James Jones was exhibiting its solid timber products for the first time, including a new product – incised fence posts, designed to improve timber treatment permeability with spruce fence posts. It also showed its vast array of engineered timber systems, including JJ-IntelliRoof, JJI-Joists and the glulam BJ-Beam. The company reported it is in the process of testing fire-retardant treatments on the JJI-Joists. Steico had a range of innovations on its stand including blown woodfibre insulation, a hinged engineered roof system to improve logistics of transporting roof systems to site, as well as build time. Steico UK managing director Andy Moore said a retail I-beam product for merchants was planned for launch later this year. Stewart Milne presented several new timber frame panel systems, incuding new open panel products to help meet levels 3, 4 and 5 of the Code for Sustainable Homes. One product, an 89mm-deep panel can achieve a U-value of 0.16W/m²k when combined with an insulated plasterboard internal lining and mineral wood between the stud voids. It also showed its Sigma II build system, including a single-skin party wall featuring slots cut in the OSB web of the Sigma II C-stud to dampen sound. Stewart Milne says the panel performs 10% better than acoustic requirements in the Building Regulations. LP Building Products had a large presence with its LSL rim boards, SolidStart225i I-joists and new pre-finished SmartSide engineered wood cladding, which is available in the UK from May 1. Chinese wood-plastic composite decking manufacturer Timco Wood UK Ltd was at Ecobuild to launch on the UK market and look for distributors, while modified wood producer Kebony has added radiata pine to the list of species modified. TRADA organised regular tours of timber innovations at the show. Source: ttjonline.com