Sales push includes pressure treated wood

By Mac Epley Western Wood Products Association Portland, Oregon

ern Forest Products Association, houses are either already under construction or will soon be started in Stockton, Ca., Atlanta, Ga., and Kansas City, Mo.

These houses will be the pivot demonstrations for local promotion "blitzes" designed to convert those metropolitan areas to acceptance and use of wood foundations.

Another major WWPA push this year is on "raised floors," a construction technique still used by many quality homebuilders. However, the concrete slab has been assigned initial advantages under California's new energy standard, based upon the theory that concrete's thermal mass helps conserve energy consumption in heating and cooling.

Every home with a floor raised off the slab is worth an extra 2,000 board feet of lumber and an equivalent area of plywood. This is of major importance to lumber retailers as well as lumber manufacturers. Where the foundation material is treated wood, even in crawl space construction, the added lumber and plywood is significant.

The uses and advantages of pressure treated wood are also important elements in the large number of seminars presented each year by the WWPA staff. More than 150 technically oriented seminars are scheduled for 1985 to reach architects, builders, contractors and retailers.

ln addition, more than 35 similar seminars, by WWPA in cooperation with WPPC and under the sponsorship of local lumber retailers, will tell the western wood products story to the remodeling contractors serving this steadily growing market. The upgrading of homes has become a good market for pressure treated wood, as homeowners improve their residences instead of buying a more expensive home.

Story at a Glance

Pressure treated wood part of WWPA marketing program...

Permanent Wood Foundation demonstration homes built... raised floor uses 2,000 b.f. more lumber...seminars for builders, remodelers.

Then, there is the very effective WWPA literature distribution program. Year in and year out, this literature is among the association's most effective promotional vehicles for telling and selling the western wood products story.

Each year from 20 to 25 new pieces

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