Service life and biological durability of wooden products, "Optikesto"

To minimize mold growth and decay on timber and wood products in a given situation, it is necessary to consider the type of the wood, the entire production chain and use conditions.Efforts should focus on the critical processes.The material parameter for service life prediction is in itself a highly complex conglomeration of various parameters, ranging from inherent chemical and physical properties of the particular wood used over production process operations to finishing treatments.There is a limited selection of fast tools to evaluate chemical composition of wood, which is a base for the biological durability of wood.Screening or accelerated tests are optional methods to measure the biological durability of wooden products.In this paper, results on the durability of pine heartwood connected with the optional measurement of the chemical composition of wood are given.There was vide variation of durability within one wood species, but coated pine heartwood and spruce performed very well against mold and decay fungi in an accelerated laboratory test.