Let's Talk Timber Event Recap

It is not enough to create a beautiful urban landscape; the landscape created must be sustainable, durable, and above all, environmentally friendly, in everything from the design itself to the materials used. Arguably the greatest impact on the environment is in the choice of materials.

On May 1st, we held the Let’s Talk Timber CPD event in our showroom to explore and explain our reasoning behind our two new timber sources, why we are supplementing our favourite FSC Iroko with reclaimed tropical hardwood wood and thermally modified ash, and how we move forward from here.

We also took the opportunity during this event to launch our two new timber ranges – reclaimed timber, and ‘Endura’, a thermally-modified timber range.

The way we use and assess materials has changed over the years, and we have had the privilege to contract with, and work, with two excellent timber partners as a result of this. Both Tom Barnes from Vastern Timber and Deb and Janine Davies-Tutt from Ashwells Reclaimed Tropical Timber have helped us identify two excellent sources for timber within the UK.

Why Timber?

Wood is ubiquitous in our industry for good reason. It compliments the structural integrity of steel support, while providing key benefits that no other material can fully replace without introducing significant downsides:

Sustainability

When managed responsibly, wood is one of the few naturally occurring resources that is 100% renewable, and often yields the lowest environmental impact of any building material. That said, effective reforestation and regrowing of trees is more complicated than it may sound. Thankfully, reusing existing timber is a viable option – more on that later.

Identity

Wood provides a unique, organic aesthetic and sensory experience not found in any other material. Studies even indicate that wooden furniture and facades contribute to emotional wellbeing, particularly via a reduction in stress.

Versatility

With excellent strength to weight ratio and workability, wood can be fashioned into a vast variety of forms with greater ease than other materials, reducing the energy required and waste generated during its manipulation.

Economic Utility

All of the above characteristics enable a breadth of design opportunities at viable cost – both financially and environmentally, as long as all factors are well considered.

In our work, we have used FSC Iroko timber in many of our benches and cladding of planters and litter bins. As a tree species, it meets the criteria of what we look for in our naturally-occurring products: it is outstandingly beautiful, highly durable, and is available from sustainably managed forests located in the West Coast of Africa. When managed properly, it’s one of the most sustainable materials around.

However, our promise as Furnitubes is to leave the future better than our present, and this location represents one of two significant problems with FSC Iroko: to transport it across the water to Great Britain introduces transportation emissions, and while these are generally the smallest proportion of the overall material’s lifecycle, our efforts are to reduce these emissions whenever possible. Additionally, sourcing FSC Iroko is becoming far more difficult.

Pivoting from tropical hardwood to a different tropical hardwood would not have solved these issues, necessarily, so we wanted to look further afield for a sustainable addition to our timber line-up.

Sourcing timber to supplement FSC Iroko

There are specific criteria that we need to meet with our timber: we need it to have the same aesthetic appeal of FSC Iroko, we wanted it to be sustainable, and we wanted it to be both easy to source and just as strong and durable as Iroko timber so that it could last at least 20 years of rigorous use.

The Case for Reclaimed Tropical Hardwood

Speaking over the sound of hands passing along samples, Deb Davies-Tutt from Ashwells Reclaimed Tropical Hardwood explains that they work with marine civil engineers around the coastline of the UK, to reclaim the tropical hardwood and either refresh it to be used in future marine projects or to be used in adjacent industries such as outdoor furniture. Both ways give a second lease of life to the timber.

At Ashwells, every piece of reclaimed timber taken into the workshop gets FSC audited. It’s then processed to remove every little bit of metal out.

The wood is highly durable – originally grown in the tropics, grown slowly and in humid conditions, which gives it density and strength. A two inch by two inch section of greenheart, untreated, can last for 25 years – as the section gets bigger, the durability increases. Tropical hardwood will surpass any hardwood grown in the UK for durability, and thus reusing this source is important. The environmental benefits are clear, reclaimed tropical hardwood has a low carbon footprint, as the timber is already in the UK and extending the life of its sequestered carbon.

As a zero waste company, Ashwells keep the skimmings and reuse them as fencing. Every piece of this wood is worth saving. Some of these skimmings have been used as viewing platforms in London Zoo.

In our work, reclaimed tropical timber has also proven to be beautiful, growth rings telling a unique story of each piece, it needs less treatment and feels fantastic to the touch. To further support forestry in Africa and South America we have partnered up with Ecologi, so that every time we sell a Fordham bench – a product of ours that already uses reclaimed tropical hardwood – four trees are planted in Africa or South America.

The Case for Thermally Modified Ash

Our research into adding further timber for FSC Iroko yielded an interesting option: thermally modified ash.

Sourced from within the UK, it’s widely available in a number of different dimensions, and it’s durable. In the UK, it’s most commonly used outdoors for cladding and decking.

Tom Barnes from Vastern Timber introduces the subject by pointing out that the timber coasters given as gifts to the event’s guests are made out of thermally modified ash, and inviting us to sniff them – the smell of thermally modified ash is like a sauna or a wood fire and has an attractive warmth. He explains that thermally modified ash is uncoated and untreated – it’s wood that has, essentially, been baked.

Thermally modified ash is ash hardwood that has been subject to temperatures up to 214°C. It’s based on ancient processes – typically, when you subject wood to heat in this way, it improves the quality and essentially acts as an additional layer of protection to create a more durable and stable product.

This technique was first pioneered in Scandinavia to try and mitigate the use of tropical hardwood and use the ash and pine that they were surrounded by to replace that tropical hardwood that they were so reliant on.

It fit our criteria beautifully: not only was it beautiful, it could be sourced from the UK, thereby cutting down emission costs, and it was durable enough to withstand British weather conditions for a number of years.

However, in the UK, it was primarily used for outdoor cladding or non-load-bearing specifications, and we wanted it to withstand the pressure of people sitting on it throughout the day.

Re-jigging stress testing

When you leave wood outside untreated, especially in wet or damp environments, it won’t last long, Tom explains. Thermally modifying hardwood means that it can better withstand the environmental conditions, but in addition, it creates a stronger, more durable material that can be used in a variety of different ways. For example, ash would rot outside untreated, as a C Class Four or Five wood – but with thermal modification, it comes up to Class 1, thus minimising that risk.

Tom points out that this is all based on lab-testing, and the wood was reported durable and under lab conditions. We needed practical strength performance data before we worked thermally modified ash into our benches.

As a solution, we created our own stress-test based on BSI standards. Our initial round of testing took a piece of our typical FSC Iroko slat profile, untreated and unsupported over 1 metre, and subjected it to a rigorous material test to create data points. Once we had those at hand, we tested the thermally modified ash, – cut in the same way, with the same unsupported length – using the exact same methods.

The results of the stress test

Endura performed just as well, if not better, for our purposes than FSC Iroko timber. It is lighter, therefore easier to transport and assemble, and durable enough that it could hold the average weight of up to nine adults at a go – more than enough for a bench placed in a public setting.

With that in mind, we created a prototype of our signature modular Railroad bench range using Endura, and installed it in our outdoor showroom so we could assess it in-situ. Over the past eight months, we’ve studied the bench’s performance, and we are confident in its performance for outdoor purposes.

Where we go from here

The Endura range and reclaimed timber are both excellent additions to our lineup of timbers, meeting our criteria at several points. The process of identifying and finding which of the available timbers meet our specific needs for our products has also been invaluable, giving us an opportunity to streamline a way of sourcing materials that will fit the company purpose: to be durable, to limit emissions, and to perform beautifully.

Over the average length of a bench’s life, it will seat thousands of people, depending on the location and the experience surrounding it. Public benches placed at the pinnacle of historical or restorative landmarks – think of the bench outside the Roman Baths in Bath, or along the sea-front in Cleethorpes – will see many more, and it is a constant battle between the elements and available funding to makes sure that these benches remain in as-good-as conditions.

Our commitment to creating beautiful, lasting products that will retain their character over years of use cannot be completed in a vacuum. By sourcing and researching viable products that can be used in tandem, or instead of, naturally-occurring materials, we hope that we can help other organisations in the same situation identify more sustainable solutions and join us in the process of creating better outdoor furniture for the good of the environment, and the soul.

For more technical information about our products and chosen materials, click here or get in touch.

Remove this item

Remove all items

My Enquiry List
(0 products)

We'll need some info

Let’s Talk Timber: Event Recap

It is not enough to create a beautiful urban landscape; the landscape created must be sustainable, durable, and above all, environmentally friendly, in everything from the design itself to the materials used. Arguably the greatest impact on the environment is in the choice of materials.