Timber is a word used in different regions of the world as a synonym with the term” lumber.” It is a type of wood or firewood to either unfelled trees or trees harvested and retains their bark and other features after some time. Timber gets used for structural, building and furniture purposes.
Today, in this article, we will discuss timber as a material and the various uses of timber wood that can give you clarity on how to buy it according to your personal preferences.
Let’s dive in!
Timber As a Material: Explained
Timber is a versatile raw material with several advantages, enabling it to get used in various applications. Here are some of the benefits:
- Timber is durable, can last long for centuries, and is easier to maintain than other materials.
- It is a renewable resource whose broad availability decreases the transportation needed, allowing the material to be closer to where it is generating.
- Timber has a gaster growth rate due to its softwood varieties and replenishes quickly compared to hardwoods.
- Non-toxic, natural, safe to handle, and does not produce any hazardous elements when cut down or machined; timber is a material.
- It is easy to harvest, cut, and shape with readily available tools and sources and can be managed effectively for regrowth and replenishment.
- Softwood timber is not expensive, making it suitable for building and construction purposes.
- It has good thermal insulating properties and can decrease the energy use of homes outdoors.
- When it gets adequately dried as a part of harvested wood, timber is not prone to fungal or any bacterias, and the removal of excess moisture reduces the weight of the material, thus making it less expensive to transport and easy to handle.
- Timber construction is easier and faster than using stone or concrete.
- It can be coated, painted, or stained to produce a wide range of finishes and timber waste products get reused so that there is little to no unused material from a given cut of timber.
Uses of Timber Wood
Timber has mainly divided into two categories – hardwoods and softwoods, including :
- Bamboo
- Cedar
- Cherry
- Mahogany
- Oak
- Pine
- Plywood
- Walnut
- Wood Ash
- Fir
The following points highlight the top wood uses of timber:
As a Fuel
Timber is an essential fuel source because its combustion gets used to heat homes, provide energy for cooking, and warm water for domestic purposes.
Researchers estimated up to 40% of all the timber harvested from the forest is ultimately used as a fuel source.
The timber wood used as a fuel can vary from region to region, depending on the availability of other sources like oil, natural gas, electricity, wind and solar power.
Furthermore, timber can be used as a fuel source to give power to boilers to generate steam and drive generators to create electrical energy.
Construction Purposes
After fuel, the most important use of timber is for building and construction purposes. People still prefer wood to build houses or parts of their homes despite using steel and concrete.
Moreover, timber gets also used in shipbuilding in many parts of the world. And it is also the basis of various woodworking industries producing furniture, boxes and matches.
Timber is used for construction purposes in three main ways :
- Sawn wood
- Plywoods
- Fibreboards
Furniture
Many hardwoods get in use because of their high density and the beauty of their natural grain patterns, making them the first choice of material for cabinets and furniture.
Though these kinds of woods are heavier and durable, they also grow slowly, making them more expensive than softwoods like pine, redwood, cedar and spruce.
Waste materials from mills or factories, such as sawdust or wood shavings, combine with adhesives to form chipboard.
Light Density Fiberboard and Medium Fiberboard also got used to making cheap wooden furniture and shipped as ready-to-assemble furniture items.
Pulp and Paper
If we talk about timber in terms of its value, then it is highly used in making pulp and paper. The industry of pulp and paper is constantly increasing the demand for timber.
Wood has two substances, lignin and cellulose, and the main object of pulping is to extract the cellulose from which paper puts together.
Though hardwoods and softwoods can be used for pulping, handling the softwood is much more accessible than the hardwood. In short, paper for books, magazines, flyers, newspapers, brochures, everything is derived from timber.
Timber Beams
Timber is used in supporting loads like docks, jetties, railway or railroad tracks, telephone poles etc. there is also widely use of timber home construction, where the feature of its style is the use of timber.
Other uses of timber include landscape timbers for designing walls and decoration purposes and even boat timbers where boat construction still happens.
Conclusion
In the end, we can say that timber is a natural resource used directly for construction purposes, paper manufacturing, furniture or a fuel source.
Timber is an ideal construction material due to its durability, high strength to wide ratio, performance and good insulating properties against sound and heat. It always excels where strength to weight is essential than only absolute strength,
So, now that you have all the information related to the uses of timber and in case you are looking for timber merchants in Mohali, you can contact Guru Kripa for any help or assistance. Their highly talented experts will help you find suitable timber wood from various types of timber available for your project.