As the world needs to move towards a net zero economy, it is an imperative for companies to help their customers and wider society to understand the sustainability impact of their products through clear and transparent information.

To that end, Accoya is supporting our customers to understand the impact of Accoya wood’s transportation emissions through our timber transport emissions calculator.

The calculator allows you to compare the different transportation methods (which includes approximate distances by road, sea and air freights) and uses the weight and volume and the expected lifespan of the different types of wood to calculate annual transport of Accoya wood and other wood alternatives transportation impacts.

Compare the transportation emissions to Brisbane, Rotterdam, London and Virginia to see how Accoya wood’s impact compares to other wood species.

To use the calculator, click here.

Choosing the right wood
When it comes to choosing which type of wood you need for a project, you might assume it to be quite straightforward… but making the best choice now could save a lot of time, hassle and money later.

So, what do you really know about the differences between pressure-treated wood and modified wood?  What do they mean, and what are the key benefits of one over another?

Wood is something that we all know a little bit about, and sometimes that’s enough. There’s hard wood, soft wood, MDF, and they all have typical uses… but we all also know that really there’s a bit more to it than that.

So, how much do we really know about the oldest building material of all, and – more importantly – how do we know what wood is actually best for a particular application?

Cost vs value
We all want the best value for our money, and sometimes that means shopping on a budget in search of value – but often at the expense of performance.

For this reason, most of us have probably heard the term ‘Pressure-treated Wood’ as a ‘cheap’ option, and perhaps ‘modified wood’ or ‘engineered wood’ as the high performance choice… but there is more to consider than the up-front cost and more to ‘cost’ than just money.

The word ‘Treated’ suggests that something has been added to the wood to improve its performance or durability… and if you think that, you would be right.

What causes pressure-treated wood to rot?

The decay or rot of pressure-treated wood is sadly an inevitability due in part to the way that the wood is treated. The chemicals added in the pressurised treatment vessel are only able to penetrate so far into the wood, meaning the core of the wood is still technically untreated. This is fine until the construction process starts and you need to cut planks to the correct length. When you cut through pressure-treated wood, you leave exposed ends that are significantly more susceptible to rot.

However, the biggest issue when it comes to decay in pressure-treated wood is a simple one, and the same one that affects completely ‘raw’ wood: moisture.

Although the pressure treatment delays the onset of fungal infestation, it is water that really causes the biggest issues. You only need to put an off-cut of pressure-treated wood in a bowl of water to see it being absorbed in just a few minutes. This causes the wood to swell, and then to shrink when it dies out, which in turn can cause the wood to warp, cup, split or crack – and potentially break the structure of your finished product if the gaps between pieces of wood become large enough. All these cracks and splits allow water to penetrate deeper into the wood, accelerating the effect by preventing the wood from completely drying out, and ultimately creating the ideal conditions for decay.

Pressure-treated wood – should you go with it?

Sometimes your budget must govern your decision-making, and for people looking at a low-cost option without much care or need for assured performance, then pressure-treated wood can be a good choice.

If you only need your structure to last for a relatively short time and you’re happy to commit to regular, frequent, and careful maintenance, then pressure-treated wood certainly has appeal.

But, if you’re creating something you really want to last and enjoy for decades to come, then you might want to think about some other high-performance solutions for your deck or other garden and outdoor uses.

What is the best alternative to pressure-treated wood?

When you’re going to the effort and expense of creating a deck or cladding a building, it’s important to know that it will last – you are creating it, it is yours, and you want to own and enjoy it for years (or decades!) to come.

Naturally, you also definitely don’t want to be in the position of having to pay for the materials and labour again in just a few years.

In summary – choose what’s right for your needs

There’s no hard and fast rule in selecting the best type of wood for your needs. As always you will need to balance cost with performance, monetary value with time, effort, ongoing costs and peace of mind.

So, before you start, remember that your choice now is one you’re making for years ahead.

Selecting pressure-treated wood could well be cheaper in the moment, but also a false economy, especially if you’re going to have to replace your construction or project a couple (or even five!) times compared to modified wood.

With enough uncertainty in our lives already, you can depend on the fact that Accoya is most durable and stable wood on the market, and if you want your project to go the distance then you need to build with the best.

For more information see www.accoya.com

As the covers come off this spring, we expect homeowners to once again prioritise their outdoor spaces when it comes to home improvements. Summer lockdown in 2020 saw a DIY boom with online sales of garden and home improvement materials tripling, and this year looks set to be no different.

Whether it’s building a new set of planters or digging new flowerbeds, we Brits love to garden – in fact, 42% of us regularly partake in gardening – that’s a huge 27 million people nationwide. Working in the fresh air of the garden is well known to reduce stress and boost your mental and physical wellbeing, giving you a renewed sense of purpose and achievement (which we can all agree is much needed this year).

We all now have a golden opportunity to spend more valuable time in the garden, and for many, that will mean rolling up the sleeves and getting stuck into jobs like recoating our deck and repainting the garden furniture.

Cladding performance is key. No one wants to wear a raincoat that leaks and your house is no different. Look for cladding with these six qualities:

1. Beautiful – almost goes without saying
2. Durable – it should last for decades
3. Easy to maintain – no one wants to spend their time repainting and staining
4. Resistant – able to stand up to rot, decay, and insect damage
5. Dimensionally stable –  won’t warp or twist
6. Warranty – that will protect you for decades

It’s not easy to find a product that meets all these criteria, but one great option is Accoya. Accoya cladding provides sleek, modern protection.

Accoya is one of the hottest wood cladding products on the market. Made using natural wood, Accoya is FSC^® certified, made from responsibly harvested wood. Accoya is also non-toxic and contains no harmful chemicals, which leaves your home feeling and looking good.

The beautiful thing is that there are no rules for modern home design. Accoya gives you the flexibility to do almost anything you want with your home’s exterior. You can be creative, but then you can sit back and relax, knowing that your home will be protected for decades while still looking good.

Accoya wood is highly rot-resistant and very stable across varying climates. Containing no toxic substances as the process simply increases the levels of already present elements within the molecular structure of the wood.

Every piece of Accoya has been modified through to its core, providing the same performance and protection no matter how the wood is cut, planed, drilled, shaped, or more…

This makes Accoya ideal for many applications including window frames, doors, façades, cladding, decking, all without the use of preservatives. Accoya wood is Class 1 durable and surpasses even the most durable old growth tropical hardwoods such as teak.

Façade cladding

Windows, doors and shutters

Decking boards and walkways

Garden furniture and play equipment

Interested in Accoya? Do you want to request a sample or know where you can buy it? Visit our where to buy page to get in contact.

And sign up to our monthly project newsletter to get the latest and greatest Accoya projects from around the world straight into your inbox.

Hopefully you now know what Accoya is. It’s natural, high performance wood.

Accoya wood is highly rot-resistant and very stable across varying climates. Containing no toxic substances as the process simply increases the levels of already present elements within the molecular structure of the wood.

Every piece of Accoya has been modified through to its core, providing the same performance and protection no matter how the wood is cut, planed, drilled, shaped, or more…

This makes Accoya ideal for many applications including window frames, doors, façades, cladding, decking, all without the use of preservatives. Accoya wood is Class 1 durable and surpasses even the most durable old growth tropical hardwoods such as teak.

Because you already know that anything less is potentially harmful to your health.

So why then do we accept the status quo and not challenge?

Given the opportunity to feel better, have less sick days, potentially help to avoid life threatening conditions. The majority of us should jump at the chance, but we need to transition away from should into will.

If almost your entire day is spent inside. It is our responsibility to ensure that we have a healthy working environment.

And wood is very much an answer.

Switching to wood for construction doesn’t mean that we will suddenly not have to worry about carbon emissions and defeating climate change. But it does offer one strand of possibilities in a much larger environmental piece. Making many smaller changes will build up into widespread change. From the perspective of personal responsibility, is it not your duty to preserve the planet for future generations? We won’t achieve that through continuing with the same high carbon, low re-use practices that we are accustomed to.

Proactive vs. reactive

Did you know that NASA published a list of air filtering plants that remove chemicals like formaldehyde, benzene and ammonia from the air? Naturally improving the air quality around you.

This is great. It’s great that a research organisation has put in the time and funding to compile a list of natural reactive treatments for an unhealthy environment.

But wait a second…

Why are these chemicals in your home in the first place?

Draw a timeline of your life. Hopefully not… But at some point you may become ill as a result of the environment you work and live in. Now would you rather treat that illness with medication? Or would you rather prevent that illness from ever having the opportunity to affect you.

This is essentially the question we must ask ourselves in modern environments.

Don’t look for a cure, look for prevention.

The BRE Biophilic Office is a great example of this.

Taking a human-centred approach to the spaces we sit in. Following research into using nature to inform the building choices and decisions best suited for a healthy environment. Leading to quantifiable improvements in productivity, wellness and a reduction in days absent due to illness.

We have proof. We have examples and we have common sense.

Now we must act, for the sake of our future health.

Accoya wood is highly rot-resistant and very stable across varying climates. Containing no toxic substances as the process simply increases the levels of already present elements within the molecular structure of the wood.

Every piece of Accoya has been modified through to its core, providing the same performance and protection no matter how the wood is cut, planed, drilled, shaped, or more…

This makes Accoya ideal for many applications including window frames, doors, façades, cladding, decking, all without the use of preservatives. Accoya wood is Class 1 durable and surpasses even the most durable old growth tropical hardwoods such as teak.

Looking to Accoya, the world leading, high performance and sustainable wood product, this is a softwood but with all the key qualities associated with a hardwood, and even surpassing many hardwood characteristics. Manufactured using Accsys Group’s propriety acetylation process – a cutting edge patented technology – Accoya^® wood’s key features include exceptional durability, outperforming the likes of teak, sapele and iroko, along with outstanding dimensional stability and superior consistency.

The acetylation process works by altering the chemical make-up within the wood’s cell wall, creating a marked improvement in durability, stability and hardness. Exceeding the high performance attributes of tropical hardwoods, Accoya is proven to withstand the harshest external environments. With a guarantee of 50 years above ground and 25 years in ground or freshwater, Accoya can be used for both external and internal uses and stands up to extreme application challenges – from decking and cladding to doors and windows – with minimal maintenance required. With Accoya’s high level of performance and low maintenance requirements, it offers value for money and extends the design opportunities for architects.

The current use of different timber species for external applications in different countries is typically linked to factors such as local availability, historic colonial trading, and the severity of climate. In the UK, our warm and wet climate, though not extreme, is amongst the most challenging for timber. Conversely, trees tend to grow relatively quickly in our climate and are consequently of poorer quality than the same species grown in colder climates. This, together with the fact that there are relatively small areas of land available for forestry, means that we import most of our timber for high performance applications, such as joinery.

For many years the relative proportions of softwood and hardwood species used in the UK has remained largely unchanged, with softwoods tending to be favoured in situations where cost is a key driver and hardwoods where their appearance and/or natural durability is preferred.

Sustainability is an increasingly important factor in the sourcing of timber. On top of legal requirements for anyone importing timber into the EU to ensure that it is both legal and sustainable, there is a trend for increasing numbers of end clients to require some sort of sustainability certification. There are many different measures of sustainability for timber, ranging from schemes such as FSC^® or PEFC^TM that are a measure of the sustainability of the forests in which the timber is produced, to various ecolabels that measure the impact on the environment of products made from the timber. A fairly basic measure of sustainability is carbon footprint, i.e. the net output of CO₂  equivalent gasses during the production and use of timber products. In this regard locally-grown softwoods that grow relatively quickly and thus rapidly absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere and use less energy in transport to the UK market will generally have a lower carbon footprint than both tropical and temperate hardwoods. However, since the service life of products made from locally-grown softwood products is not as long as the same products made from most hardwoods, to get the full picture one must consider the carbon footprint per year over the life of the product.

Modified woods offer the potential to combine the carbon benefits of a fast growing and sustainable softwood with the longevity more normally associated with hardwoods. In the case of Accoya, the trees from which it’s made take less than thirty years to reach a harvestable size, yet Accoya can be expected to last at least sixty years in above ground applications, meaning that the wood can be replaced at twice the rate that it is used up. Accoya has additional sustainability benefits since it is made from wood from FSC^® certified (C012330) forests and achieves its performance without the use of any toxins. It can be upcycled or recycled like any non-toxic wood and has been positively assessed by many ecolabels. One being the prestigious C2C (Cradle to Cradle) for which Accoya is attributed the Gold status overall, with the highest possible status – Platinum, in the Material Health category.

Some of the most innovative, exciting and award-winning architectural projects have been crafted from sustainable timber and the desire for ecological healthy structures is growing within the joinery and architectural industries. Accoya has been used in worldwide commercial projects for over 10 years, and there are more than 1,000 manufacturers using the material in the UK alone. A tried and tested, recognised model, Accoya is an innovation in wood and a revolutionary material ideal for those who don’t want to negotiate on aesthetics or the environment, and one that stands up to challenging conditions time and time again.