subject: Reclaimed Timber: Low Carbon, High Quality [print this page] In the construction or renovation of buildings, many people are now looking for reclaimed timber. It has become quite fashionable as people move away from the style of new builds and it helps a house look aged and 'lived in' and as such sometimes comes with the price tag to match.
Due to our high demand for timber these days, modern supplies are quick grown and thus of a lower quality. Reclaimed timber is often of exceptional quality and far more resilient, it will also match existing timber in older houses.
There is an obvious advantage to the environment by using reclaimed timber, firstly is the reduction in the need for cutting down trees but it will also reduce the volume of timber that gets discarded, burned or wasted. It also reduced the costs of logging, sawing, kiln drying and transporting new timber, the cost to the environment of this is far more than the cost of cutting a tree down in the first place.
By using reclaimed wood you can drastically reduce the costs of construction, if you can source it locally you will avoid large transport costs and it should be much cheaper than new timber. However, this may not always be the case as people will seek out specific types of wood that is aged the way they want and possibly reclaimed from somewhere important which can often cost much more than regular timber.
Every year an area of primary forest land the size of Ireland, approximately 60,000 square kilometres, is being cut down for the timber trade. This does not account for illegal logging which occurs in many countries but has no way of being measured. This equates to roughly 3 - 6 billion trees each year.
Around a third of all modern timber production is for construction or purposes from which it can later be reclaimed, a figure which used to be much greater. Considering the rate of timber production, this means there is a substantial amount of lumber out there that could potentially be recycled rather than disposed of.
