Carter Holt Harvey eco friendly engineered building products 
Carter Holt Harvey's range of termite resistant engineered building products Hyspan, Hybeam and Hychord are by nature, incredibly eco-friendly. Not that long ago, applying an energy rating to a new home was the exception to the rule. Now it's the law. Embodied energy is the big issue now. It's not just about how much energy a product will use in the next 10 or so years, but how much it will use for all time. Dr Selwyn Tucker of the CSIRO's Manufacturing and Infrastructure Technology division explains, "Embodied energy is the energy consumed by all of the processes associated with the production of a building from the acquisition of natural resources to product delivery including mining, manufacturing of material and equipment, transport and administrative functions." The consumer may be educated in the more superficial aspects of a house such as appliances, but it's those with a hand in the building of houses who can influence the energy a house consumes as a whole. The common building material with the least embodied energy is wood, with about 640 kilowatt-hours per tonne (most of it consumed by the industrial drying process, and some in the manufacture of and impregnation with preservatives.) Assuming that the wood in question comes from sustainably managed forests (which it does in the case of Carter Holt Harvey), it has to be the greenest building material available. The Carter Holt Harvey Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) range is just one example of this. The Carter Holt Harvey LVL range has one other major advantage and it's to do with a very costly little pest, the termite. According to Jim Creffield of the CSIRO's Forestry and Forest Products division, the annual cost of repair of damage to timber-in-service caused by termites in Victoria alone has been estimated to be in excess of $200 million. If you think that's big bickies, it is estimated that 650,000 Australian homes have been infested by termites over the last five years. The cost of treatment Australia-wide is estimated at around $3.9 billion. Carter Holt Harvey range of LVL products are termite treated thoroughly and safely during manufacture. Its LVL is made from 3mm thick veneers of Radiata pine, bonded together with a phenolic resin. The bifenthrin-based insecticide, DeterMite, is added to the resin before application ensuring it impregnates every single layer, not just the surface. This process can be applied to Carter Holt Harvey's Hyspan, Hybeam and now, Hychord. 
For further information contact:
Carter Holt Harvey
Phone: 1300 658 8...
Fax: 02 9468 5....
Web: www.chhwoodproducts.com.au
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