Building Products

Mass Timber / CLT

Tall buildings in North America have typically been made from concrete and steel, while wood is the predominant structural material for residential construction. The former may be changing! Cross laminated timber (CLT) panels — one of the class of products referred to as “mass timber” — first came into widespread commercial use in Europe in the 1990s. In the past few years, architects, builders, and manufacturers first in Canada and now the United States have been pushing this class of products past the typical 5 or 6 stories and into the mainstream. The tall wood building option is becoming a preferred choice of municipalities and building designers looking for a sustainable alternative when building vertically.

CLT panels take the cross-laminated concept of plywood and take it to another level, using dimension lumber as the lamination material instead of thin veneer. Other innovators are developing products that use engineered structural panels as an alternative to dimension lumber in mass timber panels to accomplish the same goal. But it’s the mass and cross-laminated structure that allow these mass timber, engineered wood products to serve as the main structural elements in buildings that are already approaching 20 stories tall in cities across North America.

PFS TECO staff have experience and expertise in all aspects of the certification, testing, quality, and code compliance requirements of engineered wood products. We have built our business on partnering with manufacturers to develop new and innovative products—that now include CLT panels and other mass timber products.

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