New Options Emerging among Mass Timber Panels

Cross Laminated Timber (CLT)—prefabricated panels of wood whose strength, dimensional stability, rigidity, and large spans make it a replacement for structural steel or concrete—is currently far from a go-to building material in the U.S. However, in what is likely an indicator of explosive growth, new product offerings for North America are arising almost as quickly as new projects are constructed with the material.

Two of these new products, recently featured at the Mass Timber Conference in Portland, Oregon, lie at opposite ends of a spectrum: StructureCraft’s Dowel Laminated Timber panel, which cuts out nearly all glues and resins, and Freres Lumber’s Mass Plywood Panel, which utilizes wood veneers instead of whole lumber and relies on much more resin than typical CLT.