Marketing Treated Timber

The Timber Trade Federation (TTF) and Wood Protection Association (WPA) are combining forces for an awareness campaign this spring, to promote the sale of correctly-treated timber.

Merchants are always looking for ways to gain business advantage. Making sure you have the right level of timber treatment on wood for different purposes can mark out your knowledge as being superior to that of your competitors. And as most builders will tell, a knowledgeable merchant is one they’re more likely to re-visit regularly for supplies.

In an age where it is all to easy for complaints about product quality to make their way onto social media and ruin an otherwise good reputation, it pays to ensure that all your merchant branch staff dealing with timber products are well informed about timber preservative treatments. “We’re talking here about the types of pre-use timber treatment which are factory-applied under quality-controlled conditions, leading to the best outcomes when customers use the timber in their projects,” says Gordon Ewbank, CEO of the Wood Protection Association (WPA). “These are the only types of treatment which can live up to the desired service life for the timber product. Timber treated by a firm accredited under the WPA’s Benchmark scheme, for example, indicates that it has been assessed through a third-party independent auditing process.” This spring, the WPA and TTF are running a joint campaign to increase awareness amongst merchants and amongst the fencing and landscaping sector of the three key levels of timber treatment, where they can be used, and why they matter, then rolling this information out further along the supply chain. The campaign is also being supported by the Timber Decking & Cladding Association. “Merchants who want to be at the forefront of the added value opportunity that preservative treated timber represents need to make sure their staff are up to speed,” says Nick Boulton, TTF’s Head of Technical & Trade. “The campaign will be rolling out further along the supply chain through spring and summer and beyond.”

Elements of the campaign include an online training module, free to merchants, builders, landscapers, and even specifiers and consumers to use, prepared by the WPA. There is a free A5 sized leaflet which opens out to a poster that merchants can use in-branch to show customers which type of treated timber is suitable for which purpose. It is available from both organisations. The TTF will be making information available further along the supply chain during the spring and summer through builders and contractors. On the supply side, the TTF’s Code of Conduct has been adapted to ensure that, from the beginning of April 2021, suppliers of treated timber will ‘clearly and unambiguously’ identify the treated timber being sold as fit for its intended purpose. At a minimum, TTF members are to identify, at all stages of the supply process to merchants (on stock movement records, sales records and orders), whether the timber is treated to Use Class 2 for internal dry environment use only: for Use Class 3 applications – timber used above ground externally but not in contact with the ground, or Use Class 4, for any outdoor timber element e.g. decking joists and posts, which is either in temporary or permanent contact with the ground or provides external structural support. UC4 applies even if, for example, a decking membrane is installed beneath it. TTF members are also to ensure that customers ordering treated timber have sufficient information and, where necessary, training, in order to be able to sell, use or install treated timbers correctly. These new actions were agreed at the TTF’s AGM in November 2020. “Merchants who join with TTF and WPA in promoting correctly-treated timber this spring and summer will be able to catch the wave, business-wise,” adds TTF’s Nick Boulton. “Take the opportunity to demonstrate your timber treatment knowledge and reap the reputational business benefits of doing so.”

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