heGrcen.

Wood is the original green building material, Consider the following:

Green fOf life - ln a cradle-ro-grave analysis of identically constructed wood, steel and concrete homes, the wood home was more environmentally beneficial i.n terms of energy consumed, air/water poliution, waste production and global warming potential.*

Demand keeps it growing - Foresr growth in the U.S. has continually exceedecharvest since the I940s. We now grow 27 percent more timber each year than rs harvested.

More product, less energlr - Compare the energy requirements for manufacturing one ton of wood to one ton of other building materiais. It takes..

5 times more energy to produce cement

14 times more energy to produce glass

. 24 times more energy to produce steel lr - ! | .n fN TANDEM with the weak U.S. lhousins market.2007 will be a down year"for production of structural wood panels (plywood and oriented strand board) and other engineered wood products.

NaUfeSallpUnnef -A2400 sq. ft. house locks up 28.5 tons of CO: , or roughly 7 years of emissions from a small car.

Dig into the facts surrounding wood, steel and concrete. Keep your staff and customers informed by downloading Wo o d: Sustainable Building S olutions from www. apawood.org today.

U.S. single-family and multifamily housing starts will total just 1.52 million units this year. down approximately l5%o from last year, according to APA-The Engineered Wood Association's annual spring forecast.

And with new residential construction accounting for 7O7o or more of demand for OSB, wood I-joists, laminated veneer lumber, and glulam, that means U.S. and Canadian production of those products is poised to decline. The outlook is for OSB, I-joist and glulam output to slide by 6Vo to 7Vo compared with 2006 and for LVL output to fall by approximately l2Vo. Prospects next year and beyond, however, look to improve. Housing starts in 2008 are expected to climb back up to 1.65 million and to keep rising each year through 201 l, reaching as many as 1.9 million that year.

The remodeling market remains a relatively bright spot in the forecast, with panel demand this year down less than l7o from 2006. The nonresidential construction and industrial markets also remain strong. (See related c'ommercial construction market stctry, p 44-46.)

Unlike the residential construction market where OSB predominates, the industrial market favors plywood and will consume an estimated 5.3 billion sq. ft. this year, or abofi 34Vo of U.S. and Canadian plywood production.

Given the importance of the industrial sector, APA last year developed a website devoted exclusively to structural wood panels for use in industrial applications. Located at www.performancepanels.com, the site covers panel product attributes and properties specially suited for a wide variety of industrial applications, including furniture, cabinets, displays, pallets, crates and boxes, agricultural bins, racks, reels, mezzanine floors, trucks and railcars, recreational vehicles, boats, signs and specialty applications. Links to APA manufacturers based on various panel characteristics and features also are provided.

At the peak of the housing boom in 2004-2005, the panel industry operated at nearly full capacity. With the housing market now substantially cooled, the forecast is for the industry to operate at closer to the historical average of 90Vo of capacity.

That reversed relationship between supply and demand has yielded extremely good bargains in the marketplace not only for residential builders, but for users and specifiers of the products in the remodeling, nonresidential construction, and industrial markets.

The "value proposition" of engineered wood, of course, is also linked to the products' numerous performance advantages, including strength and stiffness (especially important in areas subject to high wind or seismic events), superior performance as a nail base for finish siding materials, high impact resistance, ease of installation, and proven durability in all kinds of climates.

Those attributes led most residential builders to stick with plywood, OSB and other engineered wood products even when the cost of the products was driven higher by the red-hot housing market.

With the recent housing slump, there is good reason to expect that many builders, remodelers, industrial fabricators and others now using alternative materials will switch to structural wood panels and engineered wood oroducts.

Anyone can make plain-vanilla plywood and OSB. But for something really special, Roy O. Martin is the one name you need to know.

SmartCore@ Plywood Sturd-l-Floor@ and SmartGore@ Plywood Rated Sheathing are built for superior dimensional stability and to deliver exceptional performance in all climate conditions.

Structural One rated StructWall'" and StructWall XL" OSB Sidewalls deliver greater strength and less deflection than conventional OSB sheathing - providing a cost-effective solution for meeting the tougher building codes in seismically active areas. And with new, oversize WindBrace'" OSB Wall Sheathing builders can tie top plates to bottom plates with one continuous sheathing panel - so they can meet hurricane codes while saving money on metal connectors and labor.

There's more. Roy O. Martin can deliver these innovative panel products with the green-building benefits of EclipserM radiant-barrier foil and FSC certification.

To get to know the full line of Roy O. Martin panel products, visit us online at www.royomartin.com or call 866-739-8288.