Quality assured wooden sidings - Criteria, performance evaluations and current status

IRG/WP 00-20216

F Englund, I Johansson, J Ekstedt, R Nussbaum

Quality assured wooden sidings were brought to the Swedish market in 1998. The system was worked out during a six year period in a close cooperation between the sawmill industry and several research institutes. Centuries of use have given a wealth of experience of spruce boards as a siding material, showing that it works well in most cases but also that its longevity is highly variable, depending on the wood raw material, climatic conditions, and not least the coating system. The quality assurance system sets criteria for the quality and the freshness of the wood, for the industrially applied primer, for acceptable time limits in each processing step, and for construction and design. Particularly sensitive parts, such as board ends, are treated with an oil product containing fungicides. The durability of a siding will still be subject to considerable variations, but the service life and the maintenance intervals can be predicted with more confidence, and these times are substantially lengthened. This gives added value to the product, to the benefit of the consumer. Examples from the criteria development are given with some field tests where boards with exposed radial or tangential surfaces are compared, and where attempts to provoke premature failure was made by extending the panel ends close to the ground.


Keywords: QUALITY ASSURANCE; SIDINGS; PREDICTION; SERVICE LIFE; PRIMER

Conference: 00-05-14/19 Kona, Hawaii, USA


Download document (56 kb)
free for the members of IRG. Available if purchased.

Purchase this document