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Building with �rediscovered� wood Mail Tribune / Drew Fleming Murphy resident Dennis Weaver checks out a wooden beam that once was part of the Spalding sawmill in Grants Pass. All the ceiling beams in Weaver�s home are recycled from the mill. Weaver advocates using discarded and slated-for-the-burn-pile lumber in new construction. Some of these materials are of the highest quality and strength. Wood products entrepreneur says don�t burn it, recycle it By PAUL FATTIG MERLIN � Dennis Weaver carefully lifted a corner of a tarp to reveal what he figures is pure gold. Never mind it may look like a pile of old wooden beams to most folks. "Just look how tight those grains are," he said. "That comes from an old-growth tree. You just don�t find them anymore." Unless you harvest wood from old buildings, producing what Weaver calls "rediscovered" wood. He is owner of Maverick Industries, a small firm which uses recycled lumber to make flooring. Wood workshop Friday at SOU ASHLAND � A workshop focusing on environmentally certified wood products will be held Friday at Southern Oregon University. Dubbed "Builder�s Workshop," the conference is scheduled from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Rogue River Room in the Stevenson Union. The event will include presentations by the Forest Stewardship Council, an international certification group that sets the standard for wood products harvested in an environmentally friendly manner. Other presenters will include the Ashland Lumber Co. Inc., the Portland-based Collins Co., Hayward Lumber and Green Mountain Woodworks. The goal of the conference is to help participants learn how to take advantage of the growing consumer interest in certified wood products, said Mark Stella, owner of Green Mountain Woodworks, which serves as a broker for certified wood products. "The market for these certified wood products is growing," said Stella, one of the conference organizers. "Europe is really hot about it. Southern California and the East Coast is catching on. We�re hearing more and more customers asking for it." That trend is good news for the timber industry, he said. "It�s very good for the forest businesses who are having such a tough time competing," he said. "This gives them a niche, a commodity." Both the Collins company and Roseburg Forest Products have forestlands in northern California set aside for producing certified products, Stella said. "They recognize the market is growing," he said. Although certified wood products can include recycled materials, they generally come from trees harvested in an environmentally friendly manner. Certification "takes into account the ecological requirements of that site, the social requirements and the business requirements," he said. "It�s got to be sustainable to the land, the community and to business. It has to be in balance with all three." Most of the certified wood being sold locally comes from elsewhere, he said. "But that�s changing," he said. "People are looking for environmentally responsible products." For further information on environmentally certified wood products or the conference, contact Stella at 535-5880. His firm is one of several in Southern Oregon that uses recycled materials in the building trade. "When you use rediscovered materials, it gives you a good feeling," said Weaver, 59, a former home builder. "The timber frame industry has found this to be a great resource," he added. The bottom line is that recycled wood products, along with those produced from environmentally certified extraction methods, don�t degrade the environment, he said. Weaver began making flooring out of recycled wood three years ago. His small mill is located on property where he recently built a new home largely of recycled wood. "A lot of people make flooring," he said. "But I�ve tried to focus on a segment of the population that would appreciate rediscovered material." Much of his firm�s product, such as the beams that came from the old Spalding mill in Grants Pass that was torn down in the late 1990s, is harvested from defunct timber industry mills. Consider a nearby pile of lumber outside the mill where his two employees are working. "Those are floor joists that came from a mill in Weed, California," he observed. "That particular building was put up in the late �40s. It�s good sound wood." He plans to make siding out of the planks. "This old tight grain stuff, you won�t find that in the lumber yard now," he said. "It�s all got growth rings a quarter of an inch wide now." Tighter tree rings are generally indicative of slower-growing, stronger trees, he noted. In addition to using recycled material, Weaver also has been making flooring, cabinet tops and siding out of madrone and chinquapin. Those species are traditionally used for firewood. He held up a 3-foot-long piece of madrone flooring as straight as an arrow. "We stop it from checking in the drying process," he said. "If you dry it too fast, it will check (crack). Sometimes you can�t get away from it, but you can prevent most of it." The house he built near his mill is made largely of recycled material and wood ordinarily used for fuel. He and his wife, Sharon, moved into the house late in February. The front door and kitchen cabinets are made from chinquapin. Bug-killed pine, which had been heading to the wood chipper, is used under the eaves. The interior siding is made from dead cedar trees. In both bathrooms, madrone lines the showers. "I coated each piece with a spar varnish," he said. "People said it would leak. Well, it sheds water like a duck. And it has real character to it." But most of the 1,500-square-foot home is made of recycled material, from the kitchen countertop of fir lumber to the great room buttressed by 10-by-12 fir beams from the Spalding mill. "That support beam right there came out of the original planer mill building at the mill built in 1937," he said of a support column holding up the ridge pole. In addition to reusing wood, he figures he is capturing a little local history. "This pine floor came out of the Louisiana Pacific sawmill in Fort Bragg, California," he said. "They were support columns that I resawed, put a tongue and grove on them and put them down for flooring. "More people are really starting to identify with this material," he added. "Why push a building over and burn it? And look at the character, the history. If that column there could tell stories . . . wow!" With heavy-duty steel angle braces anchoring the beams and columns, it�s a house that will last, he said. "I don�t expect it to go anywhere," he said. "It�ll be around for a while." Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.