As local authorities increasingly turn to street furniture to enhance their open spaces, the choice of construction materials is now becoming just as important as the aesthetic appeal when selecting the type of furniture to invest in, bringing hardwood timber to the forefront.
High quality street furniture built from Naturally Very Durable Hardwood makes a much bigger contribution than purely good looks, here’s just a few of the features and benefits of hardwood street furniture:
• A construction material, sourced from sustainable forests, that renews itself naturally
• A life expectancy of around 100 years in UK ground conditions
• The simple, natural appearance of Hardwood allows our designs to blend seamlessly into both rural and urban environments
• Highly fire retardant and able to resist vandalism
• Requires little or no maintenance
• No preservative treatment is necessary
• The ingress of water will not result in internal decay
• Hardwood can be manipulated into a range of unique designs, meaning tough can also be beautiful
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Characteristics Of Hardwood
The natural durability of timber is classified in five broad categories based on their performance in ground contact.
Timbers in the Naturally Very Durable category have a life expectancy, without preservative treatment, of more than 100 years in UK ground contact for section sizes of 200mm upwards. These timbers are usually very hard, extremely strong and have good fire and chemical resistance.
Dense Very Durable Hardwood in large sections seasons slowly over a number of years. During the acclimatisation process cracks/checks may appear, especially during periods of hot dry weather. These are more noticeable early in the seasoning cycle, than after indepth equalisation of moisture content has taken place.
The above characteristics of solid timber may cause a certain amount of concern until it is understood that they do not generally compromise the strength or durability of manufactured components. Unlike preservative treated softwoods, the durability of NVD Hardwood is throughout the full section and any moisture ingress would not normally result in internal decay.
All hardwoods exude tannin as part of the natural weathering process, when certain tannins (particularly Oak) come into contact with ferrous particles they can react and create a blue/black ink type stain. This is perfectly normal and can be removed with standard household detergents/bleach. For more stubborn stains an Oxalic Acid based product can be used.
No preservative treatment is necessary although a pigmented stain may be applied at any time. If left in the natural state, the long life expectancy is not impaired and over a period of time the timbers will weather gracefully to a beautiful silver grey colour, alternatively they can be stained to maintain a fresh look.
Sustainability
FSC certification is internationally recognised as the benchmark for responsible forestry with certification meaning that the forest of origin of FSC® timber has been independently inspected and evaluated according to strict principles and criteria as agreed by the Forest Stewardship Council. Woodscape is an FSC® certified supplier.
Well-managed forests provide a wide range of social and economic benefits and environmental services, such as livelihoods for people and habitats for animals and plants. FSC® standards ensure that these benefits and services are realised and are not disregarded in favour of other management objectives, such as carbon storage. You can read more here about Forests, Climate Change and the FSC.
The FSC® trademark makes it possible to choose timber for construction projects with the confidence that you are not contributing to the destruction of the world‘s forests. By buying from certified sources, with chain of custody certification, an incentive is provided through market forces for good forestry practice.
Benefits Of Specifying FSC® Timber:
- Many organisations are now implementing timber specification policies to ensure that all timber specifiers within an organisation are clear about what timber is acceptable for use.
- Using FSC timber helps to achieve excellent ratings under both BreeaM and ecohomes schemes. The Government‘s Central Point of expertise on timber Procurement (CPET) has stated that FSC certified timber meets its criteria for both legality and sustainability, of vital importance in public sector contracts.
- FSC delivers environmental requirements
- FSC is simple: a single global label on all timber and forest products which ensures equivalently high responsible forest management standards for all forest types worldwide.
- FSC is credible: their certification system is currently the only one recognised by the main environmental organisations such as WWF and Greenpeace, social groups, including indigenous people‘s groups, and trade unions.
- FSC provides an advisory service and support services including consultancy and training
We are also members of PEFC, who work to safeguard the world’s forests and Britain’s future timber supplies. They encourage forest owners to improve management practices, ensure members source timber responsibly, and promote the environmental benefits of wood as our only naturally renewable building material.