Sustainable Building Materials

IN USE

Due to Accoya’s improved properties – such as increased durability, improved thermal insulation and longer coating life Accoya wood provides several environmental gains during its use phase. This makes Accoya a good option for those wanting to use sustainable building materials.

Highly durable

The durability of Accoya is Class 1 (EN 350), the highest durability class possible and has extensive quality certifications (KOMO, RAL, BBA, WDMA, etc.) and is warranted to last 50 years above ground and 25 years in ground or freshwater. Compared to most materials Accoya’s longer lifespan enables lower material consumption and less replacement! This also means that Accoya has carbon sequestration advantages as it locks CO₂ for a longer time from the atmosphere. In fact, because of low emissions during production combined with the increased life span and good recyclability, Accoya window frames are even assessed to be CO₂ neutral over the full life cycle. This is why Accoya is one of the best sustainable building materials. For more information see environmental assessments.

Highly stable

The superior dimensional stability of Accoya means that it requires less frequent coatings maintenance leading to subsequent environmental benefits and lower costs as well. Combined with increased durability the planned Service Life as established by Heriot Watt University is 77 to 90 years, depending on exposure conditions. This means Accoya is much more superior to regular timber but also aluminum and PVC windows.

Finally, compared to other durable wood species, Accoya offers superior thermal insulation, which yields energy conservation advantages in applications such as window frames.

Expected Service Life

This graphs shows the service life of Accoya versus other building materials as reported in the Heriot Watt report.

This report determines Accoya timber windows expected service life to be between 77 and 90 years, with the range representing exposure conditions from severe to mild. This expected service life far exceeds that of PVC-U windows which have an expected service life maximum of 35 years in mild exposures, whilst placing Accoya timber window frames in a similar performance category to aluminum-clad timber (perhaps exceeding the service life by 6-7 years for each exposure category). The maintenance actions for these two window frame materials are, however, radically different. Accoya timber frames require a rub down and repaint on a 10-12 year basis, while aluminum-clad timber frames are assumed to have a new aluminum profile every 20-30 years.

Accoya

Planned Service Life as established by Heriot Watt University is 77 to 90 years, depending on exposure conditions.

Alu-Clad

Alu-Clad expected service life is lower than Accoya

Timber

Timber expected service life as outlined in the graph is much lower than Accoya and Alu-clad at 40 – 60 years

PVC-U

PVC-U expected service life is between 20 – 30 years

PVC-U

PVC-U expected service life is between 20 – 30 years

Additional Resources

Sustainability

8.29MB

Service Life Report for Window Frame

555.98kB

Thermal Conductivity Performance

480.06kB

Where to Buy

You can buy Accoya and Accoya products from our selection of distributors or manufacturers in your region. Use our map search tool to find your nearest Accoya supplier.

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