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Engineered Timber in home building

Engineered timber is a part of most modern homes. Engineered timber is timber beams that are made up of many smaller pieces of timber that have been glued together.

Plywood

Plywood is also an engineered timber where thin sheets of timber have been glued together to make a flat strong sheet of timber. Engineered timber comes in a few different types that are used for different purposes.

LVL

Stands for laminated veneer lumber: Timber is finger jointed and laminated together with a powerful adhesive. The timber is engineered for specific loads and spans. For example engineered timber can be used to span two rooms and still hold the weight of the roof.

This type of timber is now used extensively in new homes for larger spans. For example: In the following photo you can see a laminated beam spanning the double garage. These beams are available in 45mm and 63mm thick and on very large spans these beams are available with steel reinforcing. The sizes start from 95mm to 360mm deep. The photo below shows a house extension that used a large engineer beam that holds the roof over the span of two rooms.

I beams and Flooring

Engineered timber is also used for I beams that form flooring beams. The beams are made up of two solid pieces of timber top and bottom with thicker plywood in between forming the I. These beams can span large areas and because it is engineered the floor will flat and true. They are lightweight and strong and easy to install. Also because of their construction they are more rigid and do not bounce also they are fully protected against termites

The following photo shows an extension that has uses I beams to form the floor giving a flat rigid floor that is true and has no bounce like normal timber beams.