In this Pro-Talk podcast, Mark Petersen talks with Paul Mackie (aka Mr. Cedar), a cedar specialist with the Western Red Cedar Lumber Association. In this episode, Mark and Paul discuss the properties of western red cedar, the differences between cedar decking and cedar fencing, and installation best practices. Paul also shares some great finishing tips and tricks so your project will last many years regardless of how harsh the weather gets. To find out more about western red cedar, visit realcedar.com. [44 minutes long]
Current supply chain difficulties that extend lead times on commodities such as steel I-joists and pre-engineered building are creating new opportunities for mass timber products in the construction of lowrise commercial buildings across Canada. So says Patrick Crabbe with Bird Construction, pointing out mass timber beams and columns can make a leap into the one-storey, 10,000 to 15,000 square foot office-retail building world because they can be manufactured in only eight weeks and installed in another two. …Prior to the pandemic, Bird could deliver a multi-tenant, 10,000-square-foot bricks and mortar project in six to eight months. “Now, it takes like 16 months. Over the past eight months it has been steel components that are creating the scheduled delays.” He says while steel prices are rising, lumber costs have dropped “substantially”. While mass timber might cost a bit more than steel, delays in delivery has brought up the end costs of buildings constructed in steel.
Thank you to all the buyers and suppliers who participated in the online one-to-one meetings! We had a little over 300 meetings over the two days. We have seen a lot of innovative and creative marketing activities to connect with buyers over the last 20 months; however, one has stood out as particularly impressive. Dai Ona and his company, Daizen Joinery, offered a factory tour of their facilities as part of the WoodTALKS event at the GBM. As I understand it, Dai had over 110 architects and builders from across North America participate in his factory tour. They pulled out all stops using multi-cameras, staff interviews, humming machinery and a question-and-answer segment to make the 45-minute presentation visually appealing and extremely interesting to the audience. Making it more impressive is this was done live. It was very well executed and kudos to the team at Daizen.
Canada’s forest products sector and its workers strongly believe that we have a shared responsibility to protect our environment and fight climate change. Our sector is proud to be an early supporter of Canada’s commitment to Paris Agreement targets and our move to a net-zero carbon economy by 2050. Despite this, an item recently appearing in your publication, “It’s time to talk about toilet paper,” misrepresents how Canada’s forests are managed and how toilet paper is made. In Canada, trees are sustainably harvested to make low carbon building materials like lumber. Leftover wood chips, bark, and sawdust go into other products like toilet paper, sanitary products, biofuels, and other low carbon biomaterials. This represents our ‘Made in Canada’ commitment to reducing waste by getting value from every part of the tree.
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PORTLAND, Oregon
Greater Helsinki, Finland — Simple changes in urban planning can reduce carbon emissions and increase carbon storage, offering readymade tools to help meet emissions targets. By combining complementary approaches, cities can build a sustainable infrastructure and encourage environmentally friendly development. Construction and building … account for about 40% of primary energy demand worldwide and generate one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions – tenfold more than air traffic. … Building with wood instead of concrete would require fewer industrially produced, carbon-intensive materials, meaning lower emissions. Wood-based buildings also serve as carbon storage, trapping carbon which might be released back into the atmosphere from shorter-lived wood-based products. Research by Seppo Junnila’s team at Aalto University showed that using wood to build 80 percent of new residential buildings in Europe would sequester 55 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to nearly half of the annual emissions of Europe’s cement industry. 
