Did You Know That...

• …wood is the only renewable building material.
• …the production of a glue-laminated timber beam consumes 6 times less energy than the production of a steel beam, and 5 times less than that of a reinforced concrete beam.
• …up to 70-80% of the necessary energy for producing timber products comes from wood waste created during the production process.
• …using wood instead of other building materials saves at least a ton of fuel oil for every 5 solid cubic metres of timber.
• …wood lasts long – the oldest wooden building in Estonia is Ruhnu Church that dates back to 1644; Borgundi Church in Norway is even older – it was built in 1200.
• …wood is warm, its thermal conductivity is 1500 times lower than that of aluminium and 12 times lower than concrete. Wood never feels cold when touched, not even during winter; cold bridges never occur either.
• …indoors wood acts as a humidity buffer – it absorbs humidity and releases it when the air is dry – a wooden house breathes.
• …softwood is 16 times lighter than steel and 5 times lighter than concrete, due to the ratio of weight and strength a wooden house is 8 times lighter than a stone house.
• …although wood burns, its conduct in case of fire is predictable. A fire resistance of 30-60 minutes can easily be achieved, but a steel beam might break because of the heat at a random moment.
• …if a 100m2 house is built of wood instead of other building materials the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere lessens by 11 tons, by an amount that is equal to the amount released during a 63 000 km long drive.
• ..in the USA 80% of all houses are wooden, it is the main building material of detached and terraced houses.
• …36% of all detached houses built in Estonia in the year 2000 were wooden.
• …in Estonia, 0,3 solid cubic meters of sawn timber was consumed (incl. raw material for production) per person in 2000; in Finland, the same indicator has raised from 0,5 m3 to 1,0 m3 during the years 1995-2001.
• ...if a wooden house or a wooden product is no longer usable, it can easily be used as fuel or raw material, handling the waste is not complicated.