The last decade wood modification systems have become new wood treatment methods in Europe. Alongside several industrial initiatives for heat treatments also scaling up and pilot plant projects for chemical wood modification have recently been carried out. In 2000 an initiative to create a network related to these new developments was supported by the European Commission. Within the work proposed by the "Thematic Network on Wood Modification" one work package is fully dedicated to ‘Test methods and standardization’. The network members are university laboratories and wood research institutes together with the wood modification industry and several application related companies. It is their opinion that modified wood should be looked at as a new material that needs testing using generally accepted standards. Many characteristics that are not necessarily envisaged to be altered are important yet should not be affected in a negative way. It concerns several physical and mechanical properties, flammability, glueability, weathering resistance, paintability, emissions. However, wood modification focuses on increased dimensional stability and improved biological durability. For dimensional stability the test methods used by the different partners may potentially lead to new standard methods. The biological durability topic should be examined in relation to the European test methodology for wood preservative assessment and be in line with the natural durability approaches.

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