"Unlike steel sheds, the structure of ecoBarn is plantation grown timber – a 100% renewable resource"
"Building an ecobarn stores carbon – 50% of the weight of timber is actually pure carbon"
"Timber is quieter, softer and warmer to the touch – for your studio, work shed or holiday retreat, ecoBarn is the timber built solution"
"Every piece of structural timber in an ecoBarn is precision cut, drilled and labelled for easy assembly and guaranteed performance"
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Environmental Advantages
Timber has been utilised throughout history in the building industry. From the very first housing, timber has offered humans with a broad range of building products and materials for construction. Timber is an adaptable, attractive, cost effective, renewable resource and an environmentally conscious choice.
Unlike steel sheds, the structure of ecoBarn is plantation grown timber – a 100% renewable resource
Designing with Timber
- Using wood also helps to save energy as it provides outstanding thermal insulations: 15 times better than concrete, 400 times better than steel and 1700 times better than aluminium.
- Timber has a wonderful characteristic of being able to be recycled.
- Very little waste is generated during the manufacturing of Carter Holt Harvey LVL and Plywood products as almost all by-products are used.
- Carter Holt Harvey has adopted the latest waste management technology to provide efficient recycling and disposal methods when manufacturing LVL and Plywood.
- Waste wood products from Carter Holt Harvey LVL and Plywood mills are combusted to produce energy. This reduces the amount of solid waste going to landfill, and reduces the use of fossil fuels for energy.
The sequestered (stored) carbon in an ecoBarn12 would offset an average car’s CO2 emissions for a year
The Herald Sun Home Gardener edition on the 14th November 2009 featured a stunning photograph of an ecoBarnStudio which was sold to Phil Johnson and built on his Olinda property. This image shows the ecoBarnStudio cladded with colorbond with an ecoBarn6 extension as a beautiful and functional building which blends magnificently with its surrounds.
A medium car in Australia travelling an average of 15,000 km per year produces 2.93 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2). Trees breathe in carbon dioxide, which is turned into the wooden fibres of a tree. In fact, 50% of the dry weight of timber is carbon, stored for the life of the timber.
An ecoBarn12 has 6.1 m3 of radiata pine LVL, so around 3 tonnes of CO2 is sequestered in the frame, offsetting the car’s emissions.
No other mainstream structural material can store carbon and positively offset CO2 emissions
Carbon Friendly Production – “The Lightest Carbon Footprint”
When compared with steel or concrete, the energy cost of production (and hence the amount of CO2 we produce to make it) of timber is very low. The chart below shows LVL (laminated veneer lumber), the major structural timber used by Timberbuilt Solutions, requires an average of 15 kg/m³. In contrast, steel requires around 5530 kg/m³.
Steel production is one of the largest polluters on our planet, and if the manufacturing company is a steel/alloy composite then there are even bigger issues to consider. These mills can leave a vast carbon footprint along the entire production process. The above table shows the clear environmental advantages of timber over other synthetic materials.
Increased human activity with global industry and development has increased the emission of carbon and this in turn contributes to the greenhouse effect, a cause of climate change. Modern, sustainable forestry practices mean that each plantation tree harvested is replaced with at least one new tree, whose rapid growth in its early life cycle will absorb significant carbon.
Research clearly demonstrates that timber is a more efficient building product in environmental terms than synthetic equivalents. By using timber over another material, we can reduce a structure’s carbon footprint. This makes ecoBarns' structural “carbon footprint” the lightest of all.