PureWood - treated with heat rather than chemicals

I picked this up from Building Green today. A new outdoor decking wood made from Southern Yellow Pine and treated with heat - no copper arsenate or other chemicals at all. Hence the name, Pure Wood.  This process that was developed in Finland by Stellac Oy, and is licensed by Bay Tree Technologies here in the US, lasts about 50-60 hours.  The lumber is heated to 210°F then to 370°F or as high as 480°F when the sugars in the wood are transformed rendering them undigestible to insects or other decay organisms. They then recondition the wood with steam to restore some of the moisture.

The end result is a decking material that has no chemical preservatives, just pure wood, which is a relief. And it will be guarateed for 25 years even with ground contact. Some of the downside are that it's expensive, about the price of composite decking; and that a great deal of energy goes into making it. Currently it's mainly oil used to fire the burners, but the company are hoping to be able to operate with as much as 80% renewable fuels.

Bay Tree are currently establishing its distributor networks for the product so it's not yet available. But I'm looking forward to seeing some real world applications.

See www.purewood.net.