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Home & Garden Articles
Selecting Your Timber Merchant
Thu 06 Aug 2009 - 19:08
Selecting Your Timber Merchant
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Nigel_Cutler]Nigel Cutler
Purchasing timber from a timber merchant should be much more than a sequence of lucky encounters. There are a number of things that need to be considered when deciding upon a timber merchant to fulfil your building needs.
Timber is the most sustainable building product available. It is a naturally renewable resource. Over 97% of softwood timber purchased in the United Kingdom is sourced from Europe, where the wooded area is increasing by the equivalent of 3 football pitches each hour, 24 hours a day. To guarantee the renewable nature of for softwoods and hardwoods check for certification labels like PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest or FSC (Forest Stewardship Council). Always ask your local timber merchant about their responsible purchasing policies.
There are many different purposes that timber can be used for and each purpose may call for specific characteristics. It is essential to know how strong timber is. Timber strength grading is needed to ensure timber has enough strength for a particular job, e.g. a floor joist or a roof truss. Knowing the strength of timber reduces costs by helping to avoid over-specification. Grading can be undertaken visually or by machine. Visual strength grading uses the grader's experience across lots of diverse factors to estimate the load that a length of timber will be able to carry in service. Machine strength grading is best suited to high volumes of timber where the variety and cross section are not changed very often. When a piece of timber is cut, for example when it is sawn into smaller pieces, it has to be re-graded.
Machine grading is based on the link between strength and stiffness. The machine grades individual piece and stamps it with the relevant mark. The rules governing strength grading and structural uses of timber are detailed in British and European standards. A section of low grade timber cut from a strong species may be equivalent in strength to a high grade timber from a weaker tree variety. To make specifying easier, species and grades are grouped into strength categories of similar strength. Strength classes range from C14 to C50 for softwood and D30 to D70 for hardwoods. The higher the number, the stronger the timber. The most common grade for softwood carcassing is C16.
When calculating the size of a timber member that is required for a particular span then the required strenth class can be identified by consulting span tables. These tables also specify what the greatest gap should be between each section or timber member.
The information in this article provides general advice only and is not intended for the specifications of a particular building project. If you are in any doubt then talk to your timber merchant.
Before you go anywhere now visit http://www.timbco.co.uk for the very best timber deals. Click Timber Merchant.
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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nigel_Cutler http://EzineArticles.com/?Selecting-Your-Timber-Merchant&id=2676149
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