From Treetips to Glulams: Part 2 on Sustainable Forestry
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Our journey through the forests of Canada continues as we explore the concept of sustainable forestry and approaches to making better use of the timber we remove. See the first post in this series here.
In the North of Quebec, we visited the small region of Chibougamau (pronounced she-boo-ga-mo) and had the opportunity to tour one of the mills that is supposedly “doing things right.” After landing, we immediately were shown the airplane hanger.
From the exterior, the hanger looked like a metal pole barn, but boy were we surprised when we walked inside. A series of large, round bottom trusses greeted us. Forget all the environmental benefits of using engineered wood; these were beautiful. They transformed a mundane hanger into something wonderful. (The plane that was hanging out in there was nothing to shake a stick at either.)
We learned that the black spruce that make up the woods in this area grow incredibly slowly but become remarkably straight trees. More importantly, they have long fibers that give them great strength.
These fibers allow companies like Nordic Engineered Wood to develop a new FSC-certified product that has kept the company's mill open while many others have shut their doors.
Often, tree tips are discarded because they are considered too narrow to be of much value. Instead, this company saws the tree tips into small (¾” x 1 ¼”) pieces, which are then laminated together. NEC can then create large glulam beams without using 2x4, 2x6, or larger material. Talk about an efficient use of material!
These glulams can be so large that they can clear span over 200 feet. We later toured a new soccer stadium whose huge glulams, made of these tiny spruce tips, did in fact span the field.
Over the next few days we saw numerous examples of wood playing a central role in commercial buildings, with the commercial architects in our group seemed nodding their heads in approval.
What excites me most about seeing this type of engineered product is that it shows a real ability to be smart and efficient with our natural resources. It also moves us away from dimensional lumber, which as we all know too well is less stable than we might like.
Next: After a forest fire, how a forest may or may not return!
Michael Anschel is the owner and principal of Otogawa-Anschel Design Build, a nationally recognized and award-winning design and build firm and a committed leader to the Green building movement in Minnesota. He blogs for REMODELING on Tuesdays and the occasional Friday. Michael also serves on the board of Minnesota GreenStar and is CEO of Verified Green, Inc., which consults with builders, remodelers, architects, and state and city officials on Green building. To read Michael's other posts on Green remodeling, click on the link to the right, at the bottom of "about the blogger."
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