The Wood Protection Association - Industrial Wood Preservation Specification and Practice

The Wood Protection Association (WPA) has issued a new manual which provides a comprehensive guide to the industrial pre-treatment of solid timber and wood-based board and engineered wood products with preservatives. The document was prepared by industry experts with advice from BRE.
Dr Andrew Hughes, chairman of the WPA Technical Committee commented, “The last time the association issued a fully revised manual was 1999 and the new edition is the result of intense work to bring the association’s advice to specifiers, treaters and users of treated timber up to date.
The new manual is being released in electronic format for the first time making it both more accessible and readily updated – an important feature in an industry where changes in standards and regulations are frequent. The PDF format makes navigating through the text and finding what you are looking for much easier.”
The new manual includes the association’s widely used Commodity Specifications updated to the latest standards with the addition of two new specifications covering preservative treatment of wood-based board and engineered wood products and timber for decks and associated structures. The specifications show which preservative types are suitable for each application and preservatives supplied by WPA member companies are listed with details of their properties and suitability for each Use Class, the new system of timber uses brought in through changes to European standards in late 2006.
Dr Chris Coggins Director of the WPA said, “This manual is the latest in the series of publications from the association in electronic format making it possible to create a new user-friendly style with links that take readers quickly to the sections they need. We are already working to take the user-friendly concept further by developing a website-style system for treatment specifications without the need to look through the manual in detail. This will make specification quick and accurate while maintaining confidence that specifications incorporate the full requirements of both WPA and British Standard specifications”.
The manual is available to industry professionals and WPA members as a free download from our website at www.wood-protection.org or can be ordered on CD. The latter also contains the old 1999 edition for reference. We are certain that the manual will prove invaluable to users and specifiers of preservative treatment as well as providing treaters with all the information they need to produce treated timber in accordance with specifications based on the manual”.

Email: crc@wood-protection.org