Irish Green Building Council reposted this
🔥 Does reclaimed timber char faster? 🔥 Is there a fire safety concern in circular timber construction? 🔥 How can the #DrasticProject help? ♻️ Emerging circular timber practices in Europe are driving efforts to standardise reclaimed timber for industrial-scale use. Despite the increasing adoption of reclaimed timber, fire performance—along with other key performance criteria—must not be overlooked as a vital part of the design process. 🪵 Charring is a fundamental factor in evaluating the fire performance of timber structures, as it leads to a reduction in both the material’s strength and load-bearing capacity. Currently, limited data on how aged wood chars makes it challenging to use reclaimed timber in new buildings, therefore missing a crucial opportunity to introduce more material reuse and circularity into European construction practises. Existing fire design principles in Eurocode 5-1-2 (part of a series of 10 European Standards that provide a common approach for the design of buildings and construction products) are based on modern, standardised timber, leaving a knowledge gap for reused materials. As part of Drastic’s Norwegian Demonstrator pilot project, researchers from TalTech – Tallinn University of Technology, including Prof. Alar Just, Johanna Liblik, and Maria Pernits, are conducting small-scale fire tests to determine and compare the charring rates of aged timber versus new timber, to address the current data gap. This research is an important step towards understanding how aged timber performs in fire, aiming to support fire safety decisions for reclaimed timber in structural applications, a key challenge that Drastic’s Nordic Demonstrator plans to address, supported by project partners Omtre and Produktif. 🌟 The initial findings from these tests will be presented at the World Conference on Timber Engineering (WCTE 2025), in a session dedicated to research on spearheading circularity in timber construction in Europe and chaired by Kristine Nore of Omtre (the Nordic Demonstrator leader). 🌟 Drastic is a pioneering initiative that aims to demonstrate affordability, sustainability and circularity within the built environment via a collection of innovative European pilot projects known as 'Demonstrators’. ♻️ ➡️ Learn more about Drastic: https://bit.ly/44LufAY Eero Nigumann #TimberReuse #FireSafety #SustainableBuilding #Eurocode5 #ConstructionResearch #CircularEconomy #BuildingTheTransition #BoldOnBuildings World Green Building Council, European Commission, Sorigué, Adec Global SL, Alliance HQE - GBC, CELSA GROUP, Saint-Gobain, TECNALIA Research & Innovation, ICADE, LEZAMA DEMOLICIONES, Madaster, Omtre, Produktif, TalTech – Tallinn University of Technology, Timbeco, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Maastricht Sustainability Institute, VITO, CALAA, Saint-Gobain Ecophon AB, Clipper Coramine (Saint-Gobain), Saint-Gobain Research Paris, Saint-Gobain Weber Deutschland
Is there any reason to assume aged reclaimed wood chars differently?
Mark, I would agree, though I recall that the hygroscopicity of the outer portions of historic timbers does change due to changes in wood chemistry, though whether this will impact charring rate is another thing. Dan/Marlene I recall you circulating a review on historic/reclaimed timbers not so long ago?
In the dim and distant at TRADA I did some VERY limited project specific work showing that charring of historic timber (it was far denser than ‘modern timber’ - note project specific) was slower than its modern equivalent. Based on that small item of work I would expect recovered timber to perform equally to ‘new’ timber if not slightly better. But that is a guess. Guess this reaction to fire is a box that really does need to be ticked. Interesting stuff.
Luke Bisby
We have just burnt a mahogany door in a fire door test against BS476:22 and we are measuring the residual timber once the char has been removed, we believe that flat expanses of timber (as in doors) chars much slower that the Standards tell you. We don’t however believe old timber, our doors where 110 years old, burn any different from fresh timber.
👏 Good job Drastic partners Omtre and TalTech – Tallinn University of Technology - Highly valuable to already present findings at the World Conference on Timber Engineering (WCTE 2025).
Research Coordinator for the FCBA, Senior Researcher at Ecole Supérieure du Bois & Former President of InnovaWood
2moIf you cut wood from a 100 year old tree and from a neighbouring 75 year old tree, would you expect a different charring rate? I do not, assuming the species, density and moisture contents are the same. Still, I am interested to see the results.