What Are Engineered Wood Products?
Engineered wood products (EWPs) include plywood, oriented strand board (OSB), laminated veneer lumber (LVL), glue-laminated timber (glulam), cross-laminated timber (CLT), and I-joists. These products are manufactured by bonding wood fibers, veneers, or dimension lumber with adhesives to create materials with specific performance characteristics.
EWPs were developed primarily to make efficient use of smaller, faster-growing trees that cannot produce the large-dimension solid timber that construction demands. They offer consistency, predictable engineering properties, and availability in dimensions that solid lumber cannot match.
Where Reclaimed Wins
Aesthetics: Nothing matches the visual warmth and character of real reclaimed solid wood. Engineered products look manufactured because they are.
Sustainability: Reclaimed lumber has near-zero embodied carbon. EWPs require significant energy for manufacturing, and their adhesives are typically petroleum-derived.
Old-growth properties: Reclaimed solid timber provides the density and strength of old-growth wood that no engineered product replicates.
Repairability: Solid wood can be sanded, refinished, and repaired indefinitely. Engineered products with thin veneers can be refinished once or twice at most.
Where Engineered Wins
Dimensional consistency: EWPs are manufactured to precise dimensions with minimal variation.
Long spans: Glulam and LVL beams can span distances that solid timber cannot without intermediate supports.
Availability: EWPs are manufactured on demand in any quantity. Reclaimed lumber depends on what comes through the salvage pipeline.
Cost for large structures: For industrial-scale construction, EWPs are typically more cost-effective than sourcing equivalent volumes of reclaimed solid timber.