Wallowa County Chieftain
From A1
wallowa.com
October 10, 2018
A11
TIMBER
Continued from Page A1
The first CLT buildings
were constructed in 1993-95
in Germany and Switzerland,
and the majority of production
remains in Europe. The first
U.S. commercial CLT build-
ing was completed in 2011 in
Whitefish, Mont.
A study by Grand View
Research, a market research
company in San Francisco,
anticipates the global CLT
market will be worth more
than $2 billion by 2025, tied to
demand for “green” homes.
The U.S. Senate in June
added provisions to its ver-
sion of the 2018 Farm Bill
that would establish a federal
research program for mass
timber. Originally known as
the Timber Innovation Act, the
bill was sponsored by Sen.
Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley
said he wants to see Oregon
become the national leader in
mass timber, an industry with
“enormous potential.”
“We think about the fact
that we build these medium
high-rise buildings out of con-
crete and steel,” Merkley said.
“If we can open that market
effectively to mass timber,
then it could be huge.”
Benefits, skepticism
First, Locke said, there
are cost savings on construc-
tion and installation with mass
timber.
Construction can be com-
pleted in roughly half the time
as steel and concrete with half
as many workers.
Then there is the environ-
mental element. Production
of CLT emits 26 percent less
greenhouse gases than making
steel and 50 percent less than
concrete.
CLT was initially devel-
oped to create a high-end use
for lumber. Locke said it could
also provide a market for
small-diameter trees and the
wildfire fuels building up in
western forests.
Others, however, have tem-
pered expectations. According
to University of Washington
and Washington State Univer-
sity researchers, the predicted
Courtesy Shanna Hall Photography.
A closeup view of mass plywood manufactured at Freres
Lumber Co. shows the layers of veneer. Mass plywood can
be made up to 12 feet wide, 48 feet long and 24 inches thick.
George Plaven/Capital Press
Carbon 12, an eight-story condominium in Portland, is made with mass timber that accounts
for 223 metric tons of avoided carbon dioxide emissions, while also storing 577 metric tons
of CO2 in the wood itself. That’s equivalent to taking 169 cars off the road for one year.
demand for softwood lumber
to manufacture CLT panels is
still less than 1 percent of the
annual Pacific Northwest tim-
ber harvest, making it a bou-
tique industry at best.
Doug Heiken, conservation
and restoration coordinator for
the environmental group Ore-
gon Wild, described CLT as
a side product of the timber
industry that would not change
its overall carbon footprint.
He said there is no guar-
antee wood for mass timber
would come from sustain-
able forestry practices and not
industrial clear-cuts.
“Mass timber isn’t really
that different from any other
timber in that way,” Heiken
said.
Building codes
The main limiting factor,
Locke said, are international
building codes, which are
slowly being adapted to catch
up to tall wood buildings.
In April, the International
Code Council moved to update
codes allowing for wood build-
ings up to 18 stories, although
the proposed changes would
not be adopted until 2021 at
the earliest.
Oregon took the extraordi-
nary step in August of adopt-
ing the recommendations
under its Statewide Alternate
Method — the first state to do
so. Locke said mass timber has
passed every required test and
is proving to be just as safe as
concrete or steel.
Such tests are conducted
at the TallWood Design Insti-
tute, a collaborative research
program of the University of
Oregon College of Design and
Oregon State University’s Col-
lege of Forestry and College of
Engineering.
Iain Macdonald, associate
director of the institute, said
20 to 30 professors are work-
ing in research and product
development, studying fire
performance, building phys-
ics, environmental impact and
economics.
“Urbanization is going to
drive a huge demand for hous-
ing around the world,” Mac-
donald said. “Our role is to do
applied research on this, to put
together educational programs
for stakeholders like archi-
tects, structural engineers and
construction companies.”
Macdonald
acknowl-
edged fears about mass tim-
ber, especially regarding fire
safety. Fire tests involve roast-
ing panels in a furnace at 1,832
degrees F. for up to two hours,
and Macdonald said the results
so far are promising.
While the surface does
char, Macdonald said the inte-
rior of the panel remains insu-
lated from the heat. He com-
pared it to throwing a whole
log onto a campfire, versus
small pieces of kindling.
William Silva, precon-
struction manager for Swin-
erton Builders — a Portland
company that has experience
with the product — said that
as product testing and build-
ing codes come together fel-
low builders should get over
their fears.
“It’s become more than just
a progressive concept,” Silva
said. “I see a lot of develop-
ers looking at this as a value
proposition.”
Rural prosperity
Set in the forested can-
yon near Lyons, Ore., Freres
Lumber Co. has pioneered a
new form of mass timber to
sustain its business and 470
employees.
The company, founded in
1922, debuted its new mass
plywood factory in December
2017, a sparkling $40 million,
four-acre facility that manu-
factures panels using veneer
lumber up to 12 feet wide, 48
feet long and 24 inches thick.
Tyler Freres, co-owner and
vice president of sales, said
the company received patents
for its mass plywood panels
earlier this year. He believes
mass plywood is a more effi-
cient product than CLT, using
20 percent less wood while
holding up in every facet of
construction.
“This is a truly unique
facility,” Freres said. “We had
to design all the processes
ourselves.”
Freres, who lives in nearby
Stayton, said the prosperity of
local schools and communities
is tied to the success of the tim-
ber industry. Mass timber can
be a lifeline, he said, though it
will require a more productive
approach to thinning federal
forests to boost volume.
In the ‘70s, Oregon’s tim-
ber harvest totaled more than 8
million board-feet, according
to the state Office of Economic
Analysis. Today, the timber
harvest has dropped by more
than half that amount, and log-
ging on federal lands is down
nearly 90 percent.
“It’s been an absolute disas-
ter, losing timber,” Freres said.
Freres said mass plywood
will be key to supporting his
family’s business for another
100 years. He said the com-
pany receives many inqui-
ries from builders interested in
mass plywood.
“The potential is almost
limitless,” he said.
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