We wanted to use timber for the decorative roof-line trim on our gable-ends. A few other houses in the street have replaced their rotted timber with uPVC, which looks terrible and doesn’t score highly in sustainability terms. We wanted to build it to last, especially as it’s high up and hard to access for maintenance. Painted softwood was out – too much repainting. Tropical hardwoods a hard to source ethically, you can find certified tropical hardwood but it’s generally believed that a significant amount of this might be illegally logged. European hardwoods could be a good choice but we selected Accoya.
Accoya is a softwood (European, FSC) which has been heat-treated (a process called ‘acetylation’) to change it’s chemical properties, making it very stable and resistant to rot. It’s not particularly cheap (buy still cheaper than hardwoods I think), it cost me around £7 per meter (150mm wide, 25mm thick, rough-sawn). I collected ours from Lathams in Yate, the only local stockist I could find. It looks and feels just like a good quality dense softwood, and it’s just as easy to saw/drill/sand/plane.
I’ll be using it with no paint, varnish or other preservative or treatment. It will be very exposed and I’m expecting it to last “50+ years” like it says on the web site. I’ve buried some off-cuts in our compost heap (with some treated and untreated softwood for comparison) so if it is going to0 rot I’ll find out from there first.
