Last month’s Timber Expo was a resounding success, according to its organisers, with more than 6,000 visitors attending the two-day show.

"This represents a 30% increase on the 2013 numbers," said event director Loretta Sales. "There was a real buzz around the event, which is now a truly international affair. Exhibitors came from over 30 countries to showcase innovations from across the globe."

Ms Sales added that this was not just a numbers game, however, and that "the right sort of visitors" had attended.

"We’re delighted to report an increase in architects, engineers, specifiers and contractors, many with live projects," she said. TRADA’s Rupert Scott was equally upbeat. "We’ve spent the last four years during a recession working extremely hard to build a show that’s now coming of age – just as the market is about to take off."

He added that Timber Expo had established a reputation for delivering "an engaging show experience" and for seminar programmes with high-profile speakers from major companies.

"There are a lot of really interesting things happening in timber and it’s a privilege to hear leading designers speak with experience drawn from the coalface," said Mr Scott. "Not only is it incredibly interesting but it’s a fantastic endorsement of timber."

TRADA seminars and BM TRADA’s "live zone" featuring technical demonstrations proved to be a big draw at the show and the positive vibe this year was endorsed by all the companies TTJ visited.

The structural timber sector was well represented and in buoyant mood. The Structural Timber Association (STA), for example, had a busy show with both chief executive Andrew Carpenter and chairman Lawrence Young engaged in "key meetings" throughout and 20 new membership enquiries on the first morning alone.

The STA has become much more "outward facing" recently, said Mr Lawrence, and is now "at the top table" in terms of its influence over architects, specifiers and government policy. "We’re excited about the way the industry is picking up and the direction of travel in the sustainable agenda," said Mr Carpenter.

Government policy

"The government seems hell-bent on offsite construction," he said, adding that STA members represented 90% of current offsite housing.

"We now need to get off the hamster’s wheel, look at what we do and do it better. [The sector] must make changes now to make the most of the capacity available."

Structural timber specialist G-frame Structures didn’t have a stand but had a presence in the media centre and supported the view that the sector is on the up. The Bedfordshire business is a relative newcomer to the structural timber scene, having its roots in Irish construction company Murform. Family-run Murform, which typically builds concrete structures such as water towers, bridges and recycling plants, looked to diversify a few years ago and "saw the growth potential in timber and low carbon construction", said director Lee Murphy. That potential included the construction of hybrid timber and concrete buildings and the use of engineered timber, said Mr Lee, adding that G-frame sourced its cross-laminated timber from Stora Enso and its glulam from Hozwerke Bullinger.

The majority of the company’s work is in education, student accommodation and healthcare projects and Mr Lee reported that the market was quite tight but had picked up. "Materials are getting scarce and procurement times are stretching out – but this presents more opportunities for us," he said.

On the specialist panels front, Belgian manufacturer Unilin showcased three products suitable for open or closed panel construction: Durelis; low formaldehyde BioSpan and fire retardant and structural chipboard HydroFlam.

With the upturn in construction and the increasing need for fire retardant products, HydroFlam was attracting interest, said sales director Dieter Penninck.

HydroFlam is listed in the STA’s "Design guide for separating distances during construction" and, said Mr Penninck, was unique in that the fire retardant ran through the core of the product so the level of protection was consistent throughout and wasn’t compromised if the panel was cut during the construction process.

Coillte Panel Products also highlighted its fire retardant panel – FR/FR Build SmartPly OSB, which was specifically developed to meet the STA guide criteria.

"It’s the product’s first major airing and we’re getting a good amount of interest," said marketing manager Mike Harrison.

Medite Tricoya Extreme was also on show, as was the recently developed Medite Vent – a breathable external timber frame sheathing product.

"Vent has applications across the timber frame market due to its combination of high racking strength and prevention of interstitial condensation but we see it appealing particularly in the growing Passivhaus sector," said Mr Harrison.

Austrian company Tilly Holzindustrie is a regular Timber Expo exhibitor, preferring its specialised nature to shows such as Ecobuild. The company’s three-layer solid softwood and hardwood and edge-glued panels were being promoted and, said sales director Veit Ebner, were finding a good market in the UK, which is showing more growth than mainland Europe.

Applications include furniture, kitchens, ceilings, floors and walls and the company has some high-profile projects under way in the UK, said Peter Glover, purchasing manager for value-added products at Meyer, which is the exclusive distributor of Tilly products in the UK.

German neighbour Elka Hozerke exhibited at Timber Expo for the first time and said the experience had proved "very successful". The company was promoting its premium Elka strong board, or esb panel, and says it is targeting the OSB market in the UK.

The panel can be used in almost all areas of timber construction, said a spokesperson, who highlighted a recent showcase project – the roof of the elephant house at Zurich zoo. Software providers are also reporting an upturn in business and are developing products to meet new expectations.

Eleco, for example, demonstrated its new fully parametric object-based CAD timber frame flooring module, the development of which was driven by customer feedback on the requirements of the timber industry.

Eleco was currently harmonising all its products in a "BIM cloud", said Jason Ruddle, head of sales at Asta Development, which is part of Eleco. "We’re driving through the benefits of a cloud environment," he said. Business had picked up and the last 12 months had seen "a big step change leading to increasing demand for framing software," said Mr Ruddle.

Epicor had also seen exceptional growth, even in the last three to six months, said sales director Andrew Wilkinson.

"Now it’s just about sustaining the upward curve," he said, adding that customers were now more demanding than ever and that "everyone has arrived at the start line together".

Mr Wilkinson said that merchants were using "every inch" of the company’s bisTrack system as they strived to lead the field and that its manufacturing software was gaining new customers, citing John Brash and North Yorkshire Timber as just two examples.

"Companies are coming out of the downturn and want to do things right and better. They don’t just want to blow the dust off the old machinery but are looking at how they can use software to do things differently."

Epicor is releasing a software update this month and says it has plans for a major software development early next year. Exhibiting mouldings manufacturers also reported improving sales, particularly for the more value-added, premium products. Jared Poole from W Howard said traffic to the stand was good and that the company had been flagging up its real wood veneer mouldings as environmentally-friendly alternatives to solid versions.

Fully Finished Mouldings

Meanwhile Ireland’s SAM Mouldings said that its external use SAM Trimax is finding favour as fascias, soffits, cladding and general joinery products, and its fully finished SAM Zero is performing well in the DIY sector but also for contractors and housebuilders.

"The market is busy and there is a skills shortage so a fully-finished product is a major benefit to the end user," said Gerard Wilson, sales director.

He added that the company had experienced substantial growth over the past 12 months and that it had invested in production capacity – a UV line, a fully integrated packing line and new racking – and more factory floor and office staff to meet the increased demand. Timber treatments providers were fully engaged with Timber Expo visitors.

The Koppers stand, for example, was a full-on representation of all the company’s products, including MicroPro and Celcure (Koppers’ FirePro and FireEx fire retardant products were promoted on PTG Treatment’s stand), and the various ‘enemies’ of timber such as insects and fungi. This was demonstrated by a Perspex floor section showing exposed joists along with information on termites, deathwatch beetle, dry rot and so on.

The stand also featured a scale Perspex model of a treatment vessel, demonstrating how pressure treatment is carried out.

"We’ve worked extremely hard on the stand, not just to target treaters but also to educate architects and contractors," said business development director Matt Hempson.

Timber Expo was the first public outing of the new name since Koppers acquired Osmose in August, so it was important to make a splash, he added.

Lonza Wood Protection engaged with its customers at the show by running clinics on the forthcoming Industrial Emissions Directive (IED).

"The sector is facing tough times ahead with the new IED regulation," said marketing director Andy Hodge. "Its design is ideological and it’s being interpreted in different ways in different parts of the EU.

"We don’t want the market to shrink because of problems caused by the IED," he added, "so we’re taking a very pragmatic, in-depth approach."

The clinics attracted around 100 of Lonza’s customers and those who didn’t attend will receive the same information as a follow-up. Primary processors were also in evidence at the show. Sawmillers GP Wood, Glennon Brothers and Murray Timber Group put on a united Irish front in a stand sponsored by Enterprise Ireland and Coillte.

GP Wood’s Susan Grainger said she was delighted with the show and that the company had seen many of its customers within the first couple of hours of it opening. Murray’s Patrick Murray agreed that the stand had attracted "good quality visitors and no tyre-kickers". BSW Timber used Timber Expo to launch its newly extended Timeless Timber range of products.

In addition to the successful decking, landscaping and cladding products the range now includes outdoor timber structures including sheds, home offices, gazebos, garages, car ports and camping "pods". "This extension of the Timeless Timber brand utilises home-grown species to create high-quality, design-led products for outdoor living," said sales and marketing director David Chapman.

"We were delighted by the customer response at the show and have already signed up several distributors across the UK." Home-grown timber specialist English Woodlands Timber was demonstrating that it had fulfilled a promise it made two years ago at Timber Expo, to identify every piece of timber in the yard and deliver it to the customer as an online search.

"The stand represents the ability of the customer now to search our stock from their desks," said managing director Tom Compton. The company created its own software to carry out this task, he said, adding that the next step was to include a photo of each board as part of the identification process. Suppliers and distributors were also out in number. Hoppings Softwood Products was promoting its new range of "engineered" decking – Q-Deck Evolution – a heavea (rubberwood) product manufactured by Samko in Indonesia.

"It’s a very sustainable FSC-certified tropical hardwood that is a by-product of rubber production," said marketing and development director Adam Pulfer. "When the trees are harvested [at the end of their rubber producing lives] the logs are peeled and the veneers are impregnated with a fungicide and then hot pressed together in an LVL-type construction," he said.

He added that because the layers were so tight – and two of the veneers were laid crossgrain – the resulting boards were extremely stable. And because of this stability they could be manufactured into wide boards. Hoppings also promoted its Stable Bed pine wood shavings for the equestrian sector.

Until this year the company’s wood shavings had gone to third parties but it has now invested £750,000 in baling and robot stacking equipment. The brand was launched on October 1 and trademark approval is pending.

Drawing The Crowds

CP Timber ensured it attracted a good number of visitors to its stand by cladding its staff in tartan trousers. Among the products it was promoting were Accoya and a new beech glulam product – BauBuche – from Germany’s Pollmeier. Belgian distributor Vandecasteele

Houtimport had a bigger stand at this year’s show and reported a constant flow of visitors. "It’s been a really good experience for us and is becoming a great networking opportunity," said export manager Geneviève Standaert.

She added that the show enabled the company to highlight that it covered a much wider portfolio than the tropical hardwoods for which it was well known.

"Our American hardwood range has attracted a lot of interest, as has larch," she said. The company was also able to flag up the lengths to which it has gone to satisfy the requirements of the EU Timber Regulation. The French stand, hosted by marketing organisation French Timber, showcased the country’s hardwood sector and also its large and developing softwood sector.

"It’s our first Timber Expo and it’s been a good experience," said French Timber’s Thiebaud Le Moign. "It’s a focused event and we’ve had some serious enquiries about the full range of products the French industry has to offer."

Companies represented on the stand included Moulinvest, Piveteau Bois and Eurochêne.