Engineered wood proves it’s possible to create man-made products that are superior to nature. With engineered wood, lumber is chopped up into strands and chips, reassembled, and glued together into solid pieces of wood to form studs, beams, and other framing components. Engineered wood is quickly replacing standard lumber as the preferred framing material. Engineered wood products include oriented strand board (OSB), glued-laminated timber (glulam), laminated veneer lumber (LVL), I-joists, plywood, and rim board.
Engineered wood is not just a hodge-podge of wood parts; in fact, when joined together, the final product is structurally superior to the raw material. Engineering simply builds on the natural strength of wood by imitating the wood’s cellular structure and load-bearing capability, while creating a more uniform material that's free of defects.
Initially, builders feared that engineered wood would be weaker and more susceptible to moisture damage than traditional lumber. But over the past several years, manufacturers have demonstrated the quality and performance of engineered wood through testing and evaluation reports. The adhesives used to bind the wood are durable and waterproof, and engineered wood has proven to be resistant to swelling.
Engineered wood offers many environmental, cost, and quality advantages over plywood and dimensional lumber:
Environmental benefits. Engineered wood puts less pressure on old growth forests, which builders have traditionally relied on for large dimension lumber and timber. As these forests disappear, younger and smaller trees take their place. While young wood doesn’t produce the most stable and useful lumber, it works well for engineered wood materials, which are composed of smaller fragments of wood. Engineered wood also allows manufacturers to make use of different tree species, rather than relying on a single species. In addition, engineered wood reduces the amount of jobsite waste that ordinarily would accumulate because of imperfect lumber.
Cost reduction. Builders may pay more for engineered wood upfront, but they'll save money in the long term with reduced waste and labor costs. Less wood is scrapped on the jobsite, and pre-assembled framing components mean that fewer framers are needed at the site.
Quality improvement. As homebuilding moves more and more towards componentization, engineered wood materials will help fill the demand for standardized, customized, and reliable products. Builders can order wood engineered to their precise specifications. Engineered wood also improves the structural integrity of homes by distributing loads in all directions. Engineered studs bow and twist less, have fewer defects, and result in less waste.
Engineered wood is an environmentally responsible material that reduces costs and framing errors. For more information on engineered wood, visit the Engineered Wood Association site. More Best Practices® for ensuring high-quality, durable framing can be found in BuildIQ University’s Framing Suite of online training courses.
