Quality timber is a vital part of any good project. It’s durable, weather-resistant, and impressively insulating, too. At the end of the day, there’s a reason why it’s been humanity’s favoured building material for centuries.
In this article, let’s run through some of the main reasons why quality timber is an important part of any home construction process.
Durability
When quality timber is well-sourced and well-maintained, it is exceptionally durable. While timber may sometimes be known to rot or crumble, that is typically due to a failure in some other part of the building process that leads to issues with timber that would never normally arise.
Searching for quality lumber with a reputable merchant like macblair.com allows you to find appropriate lumber for several house-building applications, from support joists to panelling and everything in between. Experts will be able to ensure you select the appropriate levels of weather-proofing, heat resistance, and tensile strength for several different applications.
Weather Resistance
One of the primary impressive features of timber is that it can both absorb and lose water with time. This might sound like a flaw at first glance, but consider it in the same way that a human breathes – the timber can take in some water as we take in air and then release it again later.
This process allows a home to be built to be compliant with the nature around it—it shifts and changes as the natural world does. This ensures that your home will weather storms and scorching heat alike and, if well cared for, stick around for several generations.
Insulation
One of the primary concerns when building a home is the insulating properties of different materials that you might use. This is important both to keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Often, modern homes are so well insulated that we forget how important this is, so do not underestimate it in your construction process.
Essentially, the physics of insulation breaks down to this: how much energy can get through a given material? When the material is a solid like a piece of metal, a lot can get through. When the material is several solids pressed together, like the stuffing of a quilt, less can get through.
Quality timber consists of cellulose fibres that are pressed together with lignin in the natural growth process of the wood. This fibrous, dense construction means that very little energy can get through the wood – it’s comprised of several solids pressed together in much the same way that a quilt is.
Tracking down quality timber is always worth the time, effort, and slight additional cost. While you can pay a little more for time and labour upfront, the final product will last a lot longer and be of much higher quality. This ensures that your home construction process, whether it’s a whole house or an extension for a bit of extra room, will be more durable, weather-resistant, and insulated than if you used cheaper materials.
