Cooking up a value-added solution: TBay company takes kiln-treated wood to another level.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: FORESTRY - Thunder Bay Telephone

If the state of the forestry industry resembles the charred landscape after a devastating fire, Superior Thermowood would be a tiny green shoot of regrowth poking through the ashes.

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Inside a locked shed in Murillo, about 20 minutes outside Thunder Bay, the innovative small value-added forestry company has spent seven years working out the bugs of a wood kiln technology that is ready to be rolled out commercially this summer.

The company took an internationally-licensed system from Finnish company VTT, which was used to treat raw wood and re-engineered it to cook lumber without weakening it in the process.

The plan is to sell both the kiln technology and the thermally-modified wood, the latter through a spinoff company, ThermoForest Products.

Company president Ed Rose admits the timing of their roll-out is economically the worst, but the potential to resurrect many suffering forestry communities has never been better.

"People are looking for new opportunities, new ways, new solutions."

They'll start out this summer by cooking dimensional lumber--"the low hanging fruit"--aimed at the decking and fencing market, and selling it through Petersen's Building Supplies in Thunder Bay.

It will be marketed as the alternative to pressure-treated lumber and cedar decking products. The company aims to source Northern Ontario wood that's traditionally been brushed off by industry as low value species such as tamarack, birch, black ash and poplar.

Unlike other thermal processes, this system doesn't structurally degrade wood at a molecular level, but actually strengthens its cellular walls.

It also makes it moisture and fungal resistant. No chemicals are used and the Superior Thermowood process brings out the grain.

How high and how long the wood cooks depends on species and moisture content, but a batch can take from 32 to 48 hours.

Rose said thermally-modified wood processes are not mainstream in North America, and have only been tried as a "boutique" level with limited success.

The Europeans are more advanced and have created a market niche that's competitive with composite products on pricing structure.

For more than a year, the company has been distributing samples of their kilndried four-by-four's to select customers. The potential for a healthy order book looks good.

Rose is being very shrewd and cautious about not getting too big, too fast.

Though reluctant to disclose his limited production numbers, he wants to build a...