Treecycling, Inc.

02/01/2019

I WOOD'S BUILDING GREENNOVATION

One expert referred to I Wood, also known as Profiled Lumber, as “the first major improvement in the framing of houses since the 1830s.” The current conventional building method, using square and rectangular beams such as 2x4's and 4x4's, hasn't seen any significant improvement in the last century. By profiling the beams in smarter, greener, more efficient shapes, the new I Wood lumber standard is proposing a giant leap towards better buildings and easier construction.

Given the importance of trees in our world facing climate challenges, the numerous environmental benefits of I Wood are welcome, as you will read in many blog posts on this site... Some might question the idea of using trees rather than other construction materials – rightly so, as many critical habitats on our planet are being deforested. The problem is not logging, the problem is mismanagement and outdated forestry practices... In retrospect, a sustainable management of our forests can have a positive impact on climate issues.

In the construction industry, wood is making a comeback as an appealing material after being the world's most popular for centuries. Right now, Cement-making alone produces 6% of the world’s carbon emissions. Steel, half of which goes into buildings, accounts for another 8%.

A recent article in The Economist (Jan 5th 2019) explains:
“Buildings can become greener. They can use more recycled steel and can be prefabricated in off-site factories, greatly reducing lorry journeys. But no other building material has environmental credentials as exciting and overlooked as wood.

The energy required to produce a laminated wooden beam is one-sixth of that required for a steel one of comparable strength. As trees take carbon out of the atmosphere when growing, wooden buildings contribute to negative emissions by storing the stuff. When a mature tree is cut down, a new one can be planted to replace it, capturing more carbon. After buildings are demolished, old beams and panels are easy to recycle into new structures. And for retrofitting older buildings to be more energy efficient, wood is a good insulator. A softwood window frame provides nearly 400 times as much insulation as a plain steel one of the same thickness and over a thousand times as much as an aluminium equivalent.”

01/30/2019

FOOLPROOF SIMPLICITY

By providing these components as ready-made kits, an I Wood home frame or furniture can be assembled very quickly by few unskilled individuals. It requires simple hand tools, so that anybody who can read the simple instructions can assemble an I Wood product rapidly, with minimal effort.

The founder of Treecycling and inventor of I Wood, Christopher Scott, launched the first IKEA store in North America and noticed how regular consumers are keen on building their own furniture. People adopted the IKEA model in which simple tools and instructions allows them to save on manufacturing costs.

Transposing the same mentality to his I Wood system, it became possible to offer an easily assembled frame packaged in a kit, to be put up in a single day. Components are pre-cut with total accuracy according to standardized interlocking shapes, so that the end product is accessible to customers of various skill levels.

Another purpose of simplified building kits is to encourage customization by experienced builders, who get an intuitive understanding of the interlocking notches. The instructions often become broad guidelines, within which builders easily modify and re-arrange elements of the building to better suit their needs. Adding a window or an extra door is naturally easy because these guidelines leave enough space for innovation and experimentation.

01/28/2019

ENERGY-EFFICIENT LUMBER

The lighter, more compact building materials offer a multitude of opportunities to lower the total cost of a construction project. The components themselves require less trees being cut, reducing their price tag. Pre-cut kits are shipped in more compact packaging: I Wood lumber ships cheaply and more easily, takes 30% less floor space and stacks more safely because of its interlocking nature. As a result of lower weight and volume, transportation savings of 30% are experienced right through the distribution chain.

Since the beginning of the new millenium, great efforts are geared toward energy conservation and the promotion of renewable energy sources. I-Wood supports this mentality on many fronts, offering new possibilities in regards to efficient energy requirements.

The manufacturing of I-Wood components can be done in a small wood workshop, requiring only some specialized equipment consuming a minimal amount of electric power, compared to large-scale lumber factories. At the other end of I-Wood's product journey, the building crew can put up an I-Wood structure in a brief time, using only a few hand tools, which dramatically reduces any electric consumption on the job site.

The workshop is often situated locally, so that very little fuel is needed to ship I-Wood kits to its destination. Because of its compact stacking and lower weight, an I-Wood product reduces the fuel costs even further, when accounting transportation fees for delivery. I-Wood kits can be transported in smaller trucks, for shorter distances, accumulating a substantial amount of fuel savings at the end of the day.

01/27/2019

HOUSING POWER TO THE PEOPLE

Manufacturing I Wood components is giving the power back to the people! To produce the more common shapes, only two router blades are necessary, which enables small-scale woodworkers to become licensed I Wood manufacturers. They can empower their communities with the economic benefits of locally-made housing, furniture, products and employment.

By sourcing wood sustainably in their immediate environment, local woodworkers become capable of helping their communities develop housing, building and production independently by hiring local people. For communities located in areas that are remote, disaster-prone or part of an economically depressed region, complete self-reliance is an incalculable benefit.

The economic advantages can be increased if a skilled workforce may be hired to manufacture I Wood kits for resale, and there are many more intangible economical benefits when groups of villagers collaborate together in providing labor and materials to various “barn-raising” types of project, dramatically reducing the costs.

01/25/2019

ZERO-WASTE BUILDING

The decentralized, locally-sourced manufacturing process promotes a “zero-waste” production chain – when making I Wood components, licensed woodworkers keep all waste material to be transformed into useful by-products. For example, sawdust is turned into wood pellets, who are then turned into energy or heat. Moreover, cutting or milling the grooves actually creates enough fiber to produce a ten-year supply of daily newspapers for that home being built... If you imagine the pile of newspapers obtained by the end of ten years, you can see the magnitude of the savings.

The building process also promotes a “zero-waste” mentality, as nothing is left on the job site, except a little recyclable packaging. Because the job site requires very few hand tools, even the waste of electricity is kept to a minimum.

Considering the significant amount of waste material generated by conventional building methods, particularly on large-scale construction sites, the “zero-waste” thinking can evolve to become “negative-waste” thinking. Given access to the wasted materials of a construction site, an I Wood developer can re-use wood and other components that would otherwise be thrown away, and integrate them into I Wood's innovative “zero-waste” production and building methods.

01/24/2019

FLEXIBLE HOME DESIGN

The flexibility of home design is a major improvement on current building practices. I Wood can allow low-income families to own a small starter home, which can be expanded as needs and finances dictate. I Wood structures can be added to create extra rooms, a longer house or a guest cottage. Promoting a sustainable material supply, their home can be upgraded with local materials, readily available in their natural environment or hardware store. I Wood shapes also makes recycling lumber from old houses much more practical, while allowing to easily recycle leftover wood from nearby construction sites.

It is well worth noting how simplified is the process of installing electric wiring, plumbing and other services as well.

Decisions regarding insulation can be customized to the local climate, and adjusted to seasonal changes.

The I Wood profiled lumber offers houses that are more energy-efficient, with better insulation. The I Wood shape results in walls which are approximately 7% more energy-efficient than conventional walls, because heat loss is reduced through the wood frame.

For the nomadic types or for families who don't own land property, an interesting benefit of I Wood structures is their ease of disassembly. As rapidly as a home can be built, it can rapidly be deconstructed, re-packaged in a kit to be transported to greener pastures... and re-built again!

I Wood shapes and building systems can be standardized around the globe to suit local building codes and design preferences.

01/22/2019

OH, WHAT I WOOD DO!

For the creative carpenters or hobby builders, the extraordinary versatility of I Wood's shapes can stretch their imagination to unlimited I Wood product ideas. There are endless possibilities to improve an existing home kit with ingenuity and good taste. A creative use of I Wood building materials can develop interior ornaments, intelligent furniture, yard and garden facilities, towards a sustainable off-grid lifestyle... or a more elegant urban setting.

Any licensed woodworker adopting the I Wood interlocking shapes as basic material opens up an infinite corridor of possilities, ranging from home building to toy making, from heavy furniture to miniature models. As the I Wood shapes can be milled in various thicknesses, the only limit to the development of new I Wood products is the woodworker's imagination.

Interlocking components confers optimal stability and solidity to square, rectangular, hexagonal or octogonal objects, and takes on the IKEA concept of easily disassembled inventions that can be moved around the room, or transported away in a flat pack.

05/21/2018

05/08/2018

04/20/2018

03/21/2018