A bok at how glulams are manufactured

garage doors. The single-piece, longspanning, glulams allow double garage doors without center posts, spacious bay windows, and imposing entry doors.

Surprising to many, glulams are often as much as a third cheaper than LVL to buy. Equally important, glulams are much easier to install in most applications. Typically, several LVL pieces must be nailed together to achieve structural integrity, while glulams come as a single member.

All Bohemia glulam products are made to the rigorous criteria established by the American Institute of Timber Construction. They bear the AITC certification stamp. Neither LVL nor PSL products have such certification.

In all three of Bohemia's modern glulam manufacturing facilities, the company takes pride in its exhaustive Quality Assurance system. Not only must Bohemia beams and headers meet and exceed AITC criteria in on-site testing labs prior to shipment, they must also pass numerous rigorous inspections and tests conducted by the company's QA personnel. As a result, their reputation for glulam quality circles the globe.

sweat, tear or blow off in gusty or rainy weather.

Since glulams are manufactured with only a 120lo moisture content by Bohemia, their dry and sanded surfaces take stains beautifully. Plus, glulams will not twist, shrink, nor split like today's hard-to-get and expensive solid-sawn lumber. Checking is virtually unknown. Glulams can absorb large impact loads or temporary overloads, including a roof full of snow. They also stand up ruggedly in the face of wind, rain, and even earthquakes.

The company maintains a daily inventory of stock beams and headers equalling millions of board feet. They sell through wholesalers. Bohemia's structural glue laminated beams and headers enjoy unprecedented popularity across the nationand the worldnot only because of their superior strength and loadbearing capacities, but because glulams are economically priced as well.

In the past few years, there has been a near explosion in the use of glulams by architects and builders as framing members, door, window and garage door headers, floor beams, roof joints and basement beams as well as cathedral beams. Consequently, glulams constitute the fastest-growing segment in the entire wood products industry.

In the past several years, building designers, builders, contractors, architects and retail dealers have realized that long, strong engineered glulams are typically much less expensive than other engineered wood products. Glulams have replaced laminated veneer lumber (LVL) and parallel strand lumber (PSL) as headers for doors. windows and

Bohemia was the first U.S. glulam manufacturer to earn JAS certification for importation to Japan. Likewise. Bohemia manufactures beams bearing the CSA approval stamp for shipments to Canada, and their glulams have earned the DIN certification for Germany. A thriving offshore market for Bohemia beams and headers is Australia. Bohemia's worldwide marketing map encompasses all of Europe, the Far East, Near East, South America and Africa.

Before shipment, Bohemia glulam beams and headers are wrapped in a special paper that is designed to stay on the beam, regardless of climatic conditions. The company prefers this to plastic which can