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Home & Garden Articles
Wood Preserver - Why it is Essential in Protecting Your Home
Mon 04 May 2009 - 15:50
Wood Preserver - Why it is Essential in Protecting Your Home
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Mike_Drabble]Mike Drabble
All homeowners know the importance of paying attention to property maintenance: without an effective program it is easy for properties to fall into a state of disrepair very quickly, thus becoming vulnerable to extremes of temperature, damp, and all manner of pests. Since many properties use wood in their construction, either for foundations, building frames or cosmetic ornamentation, it follows that wood protection and maintenance is extremely important. Protecting wood in this way is made much easier with the application of a good wood preserver.
Wood preservers are treatments applied to wood, either at the time of initial construction or later on in the life of the property, that act to protect the wood from weathering and from threats such as woodworm, dry rot and wet rot.
The main types of wood preserver used are chemical wood treatments. Though there are many different brand names, they fall into three main categories: Copper Chromium Arsenic, Alkaline Copper Quarternary and Organic Solvent Preservatives. All three types have the action of protecting wood, but in general Alkaline Copper Quarternary preservers and Organic Solvent Preservatives are safer and less toxic, not containing either chromium or arsenic, two highly noxious substances. Indeed, the use of Chromium Copper Arsenic wood preservatives is in sharp decline, with their use in domestic settings being banned outright in a number of jurisdictions. The use of Alkaline Copper Quarternary preservers and Organic Solvent Preservatives is correspondingly expanding to fill the gap, and research is continuing into new preservatives that are even less toxic.
Creosote, despite being one of the oldest wood preservers (used historically in maritime industries), is still in use, mainly for telegraph poles and railway sleepers. Despite this, its use is restricted, and homeowners should not attempt to use it.
With present concerns that exist for the amount of toxins humanity releases into the environment, there is also a move towards the use of natural wood preservers. These are not based on chemical treatments, so are generally less effective in guarding against insect infestations and rot, but their use can show some limited benefit. Linseed oil and tung oil are both applied, but other methods can also be used. Heat treatment - heating timber to a certain temperature prior to use - can be partially effective against woodworm and rot, but can have the effect of altering the look of the timber. Another approach is to use wood that is naturally rot resistant, but such wood is usually very expensive, and often endangered as it has been harvested too aggressively in the past. It is questionable whether using rot resistant wood damages the environment less than the use of chemical wood preservative.
The main use of wood preserver is as a woodworm treatment and a rot treatment, whether for wet rot or dry rot. Though each of these affect wood in a different way, by breaking down the nutrients in the timber a wood preserver can, when applied correctly, resist their incursion, giving the fungus and woodworm less reason to attack. If combined with other preventative measures the application of wood preservative can ensure the integrity of structural timber and wood for many years.
To find out more about how [http://www.woodpreserver.co.uk]wood preserver can protect your home, more about ways of dealing with an attack of dry riot, wet rot or woodworm, and more about the different methods of applying wood preserver, visit [http://www.woodpreserver.co.uk]http://www.woodpreserver.co.uk.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Drabble http://EzineArticles.com/?Wood-Preserver---Why-it-is-Essential-in-Protecting-Your-Home&id=2298215
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