RECOMMENDATIONS

Select wood from sustainable yield management. Ask for sustainable management wood. Do not use tropical wood, or preserved softwood.

Use local wood products, such as birch, maple,and beech

Use wood that has been certified from scientific organization like from Scientific Certification Systems, Inc. that provide a "chain-of-custody" certification.

Prefer products made from wood chips instead of solid wood, that help to reuse waste and save raw materials

Optimize building dimensions to correspond to standard lumber sizes, this avoids waste of material and job site operations.

Timber harvesting provokes habitat change, solid waste, runoff (soil erosion) and old growth depletion besides air pollution.

Construction and demolition are two important phases that have to be considered carefully to be able to control/reduce waste production and the possibility of reuse or recycling.

Transport is another key issue both because of the use of nonrenewable resources and for the creation of air pollution.Transport and air pollution are factors present in all phases and they are both to be considered as determining selection factors.

We should be able, through a careful project plan, to avoid disposal in landfill. Incineration is considered the last resort, but is better than landfill.

The production of wood preserving treatments has an important impact on the environment, because of the emissions its releases into the environment. When possible, use domestic woods that don't need treatments.

Wood preservatives often include copper, chromium and arsenic.

Use alternative wood treatments formulated with BORATE. In some instances it is possible to completely avoid the use of treated wood by selecting a durable substitute.

Use Borax-base treatment for fungus and insects.

Wood needs to be preserved when there is a threat of decay. Preservation can often be completely dispensed with, provided that the building element is well specified, a high-quality durable wood (properly seasoned and without knots) is used and that a protective finish is applied and well maintained.

Overall preservation of wood is hardly ever necessary, nor is it recommendable from an environmental point of view.

Where possible, prefer wood perfectly seasoned, without treatments.

Avoid wood treated with the following products: fluorine acid, alkali, arsenic, benzene.

Use engineered lumber assembled using MDI resin. Avoid resins made with urea-formaldehyde.

Reduce the amount of scrap and disposal.

Optimize building dimensions: the use of standard dimensions is equal to less waste production.

Reuse of wood reduces the impact on waste production. The waste generated from adapting to the size of the frame parts can be reused, recycled or incinerated to produce energy.

Frame elements should be nailed to facilitate disassembling and reuse.

Reuse elements. Be careful in the selection of elements. As an example: telephone poles have been treated with creosote. Reusing them is hazardous. Dispose of them properly.

Increasing the on-center distance of framing members reduces wood use by 17-30% without jeopardizing structural strength (use of advanced framing systems) (3)

Using framing with 5/4 studs,rather than the 1 1/2" thick lumber (thinner studs)

Provide adequate ventilation when applying finishes.

Control moisture because can be a font of sickness.

Estimate material package, to be able to minimize the amount of job site wastes.

 COMMENTS

Reduce lumber waste during construction: buildings construction produce a large amount of wood waste. Efficient wood use helps to reduce the pressures on forests

Minimize lumber without compromise structural integrity.

Use Advanced or Optimum Value Engineered framing, use framing module

Use nontoxic preservative as surface treatment, such as Borax. Wood finishes emit volatile organic compounds during application and curing that lead to ground-level ozone formation.

Wood products naturally emit small amounts of organic compounds such as aldehydes.

Caution for installers, if wood is CCA-treated.

 SOME DATA

90% of the nearly 1.5 million new homes built each year in the US are wood framed. Framing represents a significant amount of lumber consumption (3)

41 trees are necessary to build a house. 23 go to the construction of floors and walls,13 to the roof, and 5 to the interior.

The current deforestation rate predict that tropical forests will be gone by the middle of the next century.