Why Use Wood?

One of the key phrases that we hear repeated again and again is that we 'need to be green' and be aware of how we consume in our modern lifestyle

. We are all aware of recycling and being careful in how we travel but the biggest impact we can have is reducing our energy consumption.

The energy we consume in our homes results in the emission of the greenhouse gas CO2 which is released when we burn fossil fuels. It does not matter whether this is burning the gas in your boiler or using electricity generated in a power station; all energy use results in CO2 emissions and these in turn contribute to global warming.

So what can we do to reduce our emissions and so help safeguard the future of the planet for our children and their children? The simple answer is to use less energy. In our homes we can do this by making our homes more energy efficient and this does not mean buying more energy efficient appliances although this helps.

If we are cold when we go out we put on a coat - this is what we need to do with our homes by improving insulation and air tightness so preventing drafts. Building Regulations for new homes have drastically improved the required insulation and air tightness required of them. This, however, is not so easily applicable to older homes but there are still some things that we can do relatively easily and one of these is replacement windows.

The replacement window market has been big business for a long time. Windows are now not just a pane of glass in a frame as a means of letting in light, and openable to let in fresh air, but have become a key feature in combating global warming. Old windows are one of the biggest sources of energy loss and they also tend to be very leaky resulting in cold drafts so replacing them with modern properly sealed units makes sense.

At Wickes we stock a wide range of replacement windows and doors made from PVC and also wood. But why would anyone consider replacement timber windows? Well there are several reasons apart from the sentimentality of using a traditional natural product. The first is that timber is a 'green' product. As wood grows it absorbs nearly a tonne of CO2 for every cubic meter of growth. This is locked into the structure of the wood and is not released unless the wood is burned.

Timber windows are also naturally thermally efficient and do not suffer from thermal bridging. They are also easy to seal into the window surround and do not have any leakages at joints.

Wood is also a renewable building material. In Europe we currently plant more wood than we actually use. In fact we are increasing our forestry by approximately 100 football pitches an hour. By turning to timber products we ensure that there is continued stimulus for this growth.

So you see using timber windows is not just a sentimental quirk but actually makes sense in this 'green' world we live in.

by: Emma McCann

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