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Hardwood & Embodied
Energy
Industrial processing of all natural resources into
forms useable by people requires energy, most often in the form of
fossil fuels. In burning fossil fuels to release energy, carbon is
also released into the atmosphere. A measure of the amount of energy
used to prepare, for example, building materials from iron ore,
bauxite or forests, is embodied energy. Embodied energy is a useful
way to compare the environmental friendliness of building materials.
Compared with other common building materials such as steel,
aluminium and concrete, hardwood timber not only stores carbon it
uses up to 85-times less energy in processing. In simple terms, a
concrete slab floor uses 60% more energy than a timber floor, double
brick walls use almost 5-times more energy than weatherboards on
timber framing, and an aluminium window uses 45% more energy than an
equivalent timber window. The substitution of timber elements for
more energy expensive products in the building process results in a
worthwhile energy saving. Even highly processed timber products,
such as glue laminated timber, store more carbon within their
structure than is released by their manufacture.
Buildings are
seldom constructed of a single material, so the embodied energy of a
structure depends on the mix of materials used. Research continues
to refine the measurement of embodied energy of buildings. One
analysis suggests that construction of a brick-veneer house with
timber framing gives savings of about 8.8 tonnes of CO2 per house
compared with double brick construction(Attiwill et al 2001).
CO2 production
from construction materials used in an average Australian
House
Source:
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Timber-frame brick veneer saves 8.8 tonnes of CO2
per house compared with double brick
construction.
So remember when selecting materials
for your next project, timber is processed from a renewable resource
- an actively growing, sustainably managed forest - making it the
material of choice for environmentally aware
consumers
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