Well, here's one of my (seemingly) three-times-a-year Blogs....having noticed that I hadn't done one for about 6 months - last August, I believe! But things should be better now: our IT department have "simplified" the process of my getting onto the Blog page (because in the past, I've had a tendency to forget the process and then the password - so even if I get 5 minutes to write a Blog, I use the time up trying to remember how to even get started!)
Having got that little admission out of the way, I'd better write something that has some meaningful content to it: so perhaps the upcoming revision of EN 14081-1 (which is the European Structural Timber Grading Standard) may interest a few of you out there?
I have recently been co-opted onto a thing called TC-124, which is the Committee tasked with making recommendations on the UK's behalf for amendments to certain structural timber standards in Europe: and we also have to resist changes being made by other European countries, where we deem those not to be in our interest. And a good example of this is the marking of Strength Graded Timber.
For over 35 years, the UK has insisted every piece of structural timber (floor joists, beams, posts, etc) should be stamped with its grade or Strength Class mark; but certain European countries, who shall be nameless (but one of them has a famous but fictitious detective with a waddling gait and a small waxed moustache: and another has its occupants cycling around in stripy tee shirts with onions hanging off their bikes...), have decided that they do not wish to mark every piece of timber and just want to mark the packaging. That's all very well; but when the pack is opened and the timber distributed and used, who is to say whether an unmarked joist was then ever graded or not?
So we have tried - but failed, I'm afraid - to ban package marking altogether: but we have at least managed to restrict it to packages only ever intended to be delivered to one specific project for one customer: and not for general distribution and resale. So that should prevent unmarked graded timber generally from finding its way into our market and thus into our timber and building industries, here in the UK. One small step for wood, but a moderate leap for woodkind...
