Western woods big in building component market

EMAND for engineered wood building components continues to increase with western woods playing an important role.

Story at a Glance

Reasons behind growth in engineered building components market forecast for next five years . profitsavailableforretailers and home centers.

current open interior designs specifying exposed ridge beams and cathedral-type ceilings. Architects, contractors and builders find the wood building components offer many advantages.

usually provide faster construction time and lower installed costs than conventional stick-built lumber construction or steel bar joist systems.

An estimated 850/o of all housing in the United States contains some type of plant fabricated truss, joist, wall panel or other building component. Reasons for the upsurge in the market range from practical to aesthetic.

In addition to speeding up construction and lowering costs, the engineered products fill a need in

Engineered wood building components are not new. Glulam beams have been in use for more than 30 years. However, more of the manufactured products such as engineered floor and roof beams, headers, joists, rafters and purlins are in use today than in previous years. Growth of the market is not expected to stagnate or taper off. Weyerhaeuser predicts its component sales volume to triple in the next five years.

Field contacts and research conducted by Weyerhaeuser break increased demand into seven categories, according to Michael S. Cohen, Weyerhaeuser Engineered Components Business marketing administrative manager.

. Engineered wood components o With increased demands for higher quality construction, builders and designers prefer the strength and stability of engineered building components (such as floor beams) to reduce customer complaints and callbacks. o The industry's raw material mix is changing. Future supplies of old-growth timber are limited bY available resource and forest setasides, creating a declining supply of solid wood timbers and framing lumber in wider widths. o Increasing preference for open interiors has more designers specifying exposed ridge beams and cathedral-type ceilings. o More builders are diversifying, going beyond single family construction into markets such as multi family, remodeling, and light commercial construction where components are widely used. o Pressure is increasing on manufacturers to provide more specialty, custom products designed to meet specific customer needs, as opposed to conventional commodity products. o Builders and designers have become more confident about engineered wood components because they can, in many applications, carry higher loads at longer spans than conventional framing materials.

Engineered building components represent a big profit opportunity for home centers and retailers. Builder and contractor customers who are turning to custom homes, offices, restaurant, schools, shopping malls and other light commercial building need them to fulfill the design requirements of architects. Even remodelers will use them in building additions or updating to more current architectural designs.