
Heat treatment is one of the wood modification methods for improving wood properties such as dimensional stability, water resistance, and biological durability without using harmful chemicals.
Where can you buy heat treated wood?
The use of heat treatments to modify the properties of the wood is not new. Even in 1920, Tiemann showed that the drying at high temperatures decreased the equilibrium moisture and the consequent swelling of wood. Kollmann (1936) used high temperatures and densification by hot-press and called this process “Lignostone”.
What is certified heat treated wood?
Why do you heat treat wood? “Heat treated” refers to lumber that has been specially treated to kill pests and pathogens that may reside in wood. A common use for heat-treated wood is for making packaging and shipping products (pallets, crates, skids …
How is wood heat treated?
· Heat treat pallets are required for all wood packaging material used in international shipments. One of the necessary steps for ensuring the safety of not only the product being shipped, but also the environment of the product’s destination, is heat treatment. Wood pallets are made from organic material – trees.
What is heat treating wood?
Wood is the most accessible and affordable renewable energy resource for home heating in much of North America. Its use can help us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because its net carbon dioxide emissions are far below those of all other fuels. It provides heating security during electrical power failures.

Why do you heat treat wood?
“Heat treated” refers to lumber that has been specially treated to kill pests and pathogens that may reside in wood. The process involves heating the wood to a core temperature of 56° C (133° F) for at least 30 minutes.
What happens when wood is heat treated?
Reduction in strength and hardness reduction of heat-treated wood is probably the most important adverse results of such process. Treated wood becomes more brittle, and the mechanical properties, including tension and bending strength of the member, could be reduced by 10 to 30 percent.
For what purpose is heat treatment applied?
What is the Purpose of Heat Treatment? Heat treatment is commonly used to alter or strengthen materials' structure through a heating and cooling process. It can be applied to both ferrous and non-ferrous metals, and there are a number of different methods of heat treatment.
What are four reasons for heat treatment?
Increase the toughness; That is, to produce a steel having both high tensile strength and good ductility, enabling it to withstand high impact. Improve the machine-ability. Improve the cutting properties of tool steels. Change or modify the magnetic properties of steel.
Is heat treated wood weather resistant?
Thermally modified lumber is also more dimensionally stable because it is less susceptible to cupping and warping. The wood has increased heat resistance and weather resistance as well. When properly maintained, it will not chip, rot, or warp over the years.
Does heat treated wood need to be stained?
Kiln-dried wood will be dry at purchase and can be stained immediately. This lumber will have a stamp or tag that says ADAT (air-dried after treatment) or KDAT (kiln-dried after treatment). Pressure treated wood that contains a water repellant will not absorb a water-based stain as well as an oil-based exterior stain.
What is the advantage and disadvantage of heat treatment?
Heat treatment helps to get desired mechanical and chemical properties, to reduce stresses, prevent stress relief and distortion when put to service. Whilst the disadvantages include distortion, surface oxidation or other contamination, added cost, etc.
What is the importance and effect of heat treatment process?
Like we mentioned, the right heat treatment will alter both physical and mechanical properties of your material, and it aids in other important manufacturing steps as well. The result of a properly applied heat treat processes can relieve stresses, making the steel easier to machine or weld.
What is the purpose of hardening?
Hardening is a metallurgical metalworking process used to increase the hardness of a metal. The hardness of a metal is directly proportional to the uniaxial yield stress at the location of the imposed strain. A harder metal will have a higher resistance to plastic deformation than a less hard metal.
What are the principles of heat treatment?
Heat treating changes metal properties by heating the metal to a specific temperature, holding it at that temperature for a certain length of time, and then using one of several methods to control the cooling of the metal. A metal's properties are determined by the shape and alignment of its atoms.
What are the five basic heat treatment process?
There are five basic heat treating processes: hardening, case hardening, annealing, normalizing, and tempering. Although each of these processes bring about different results in metal, all of them involve three basic steps: heating, soaking, and cooling. Heating is the first step in a heat-treating process.
What is hardening in heat treatment?
Hardening heat treatments invariably involve heating to a sufficiently high temperature to dissolve solute-rich precipitates. The metal is then rapidly cooled to avoid reprecipitation; often this is done by quenching in water or oil.
What is heat treated timber?
Heat Treated [They] undergo a pest control treatment called heat treating (HT) which involves heating the pallet to a minimum core temperature of 56°C for softwoods and 60°C for hardwoods for a minimum of 30 minutes in a kiln. HT pallets are not harmful to your health.
How do you paint heat treated wood?
How to Paint Pressure-Treated WoodSTEP 1: Clean the wood. First, before painting pressure-treated wood, it's important to clean it. ... STEP 2: Let the wood dry. ... STEP 3: Apply primer. ... STEP 4: Apply two coats of paint.
How to kill wood boring insects?
Heat treatment is the approved preferred method to eliminate the risks of wood boring insects spreading. As per the ISPM 15 standards, heat treating WPM at 56C to the core of the wood for a period of 30 minutes will ensure that any insect larva will be killed off. As well this process will make the material less desirable for insects to bore and lay eggs due to the lack of natural moisture originally present in the wood.
How to contact Woodbridge Pallet?
If you require a certified products from an approved supplier or more information for a better understanding, call Woodbridge Pallet Ltd @ (800) 361-7798.
What is heat treated wood?
Heat treatment is a method of wood modification with increasing market acceptance in Europe. The major patented European commercial heat treatment processes have trade names ThermoWood, Platowood, Retiwood, Le Bois Perdure, and Oil-Heat-Treated Wood (OHT). To what extent modification of wood affects the resistance of wood to weathering is also an important aspect for wood applications, especially where appearance is important. Unfortunately, heat-treated wood has poor resistance to weathering, and surface treatment with coatings is required for both protection and aesthetic reasons. As a substrate for coating, heat-treated wood has altered characteristics such as lower hygroscopicity and liquid water uptake and changed acidity, wettability, surface free energy, and anatomical microstructure. Various wood species, heat treatment method, treatment intensity, and treatment conditions exhibited a different extent of changes in wood properties. These altered properties could affect coating performance on heat-treated wood. The reported changes in acidity and in surface energy due to heat treatments are inconsistent with one another depending on wood species and temperature of the treatments. This paper gives an overview of the research results with regards to properties of heat-treated wood that can affect coating performance and weathering of uncoated and coated heat-treated wood.
What is heat treatment?
Heat treatment is one of the wood modification methods for improving wood properties such as dimensional stability, water resistance, and biological durability without using harmful chemicals.
What temperature is heat treatment?
Heat treatment or thermal modification is controlled pyrolysis of wood being treated at high temperatures between 180°C and 240°C under an oxygen-free atmosphere to avoid burning, involving either steam, nitrogen, or oil [ 1.
Is heat treated wood good for coating?
Heat-treated wood is a good substrate for coatings as it is dry after production and free of resin which runs out during heating. It has been established that, at the temperatures above 180°C, fats and waxes disappeared from the sapwood surface and caused no problem with adhesion [ 17.
Who published the article "Weathering Resistance of Modified Wood-A Review"?
The authors thank the Academy of Technical Sciences for permission to use some parts of the article “Weathering Resistance of Modified Wood-A Review” by Jirouš-Rajković and Miklečić, published in Jubilee Annual 2017-2018 of the Croatian Academy of Engineering.
Is heat treated wood weather resistant?
Although moisture content of heat-treated wood and swelling and shrinkage due to moisture are greatly reduced, it has been established that heat-treated wood is not resistant to weathering. To keep attractive appearance of heat-treated wood products, it is essential to protect wood surface with appropriate coatings. Compared to unmodified wood, heat-treated wood as a substrate for coating has altered properties due to chemical changes and structural modifications in the cell wall during heating. In addition to reduced hygroscopicity and water absorption, heat-treated wood has also changed acidity, wetting properties, and surface free energy. There is discrepancy between results in the literature on the changes in these properties during the heat treatment which can be influenced by the method of heat treatment, heat treatment temperature, and wood species. The changed properties of heat-treated wood can affect coating performance and its adhesion to the heat-treated wood, especially for waterborne coatings. The performance of coatings in outdoor applications depends on many factors and is very difficult to compare results obtained using different wood species as substrate, different heat treatment process parameters, different coating systems, and different exposure conditions. However, it has been established that the protection effect of coating strongly depends on the degree of the pigmentation. To protect heat-treated wood from discolouration induced by visible part of sunlight, the now approach for light stabilisation has been developed combining selected visible light screeners with organic UV light absorbers. As with untreated wood, the selection of wood coating for heat-treated wood depends on the type of wood product, exposure conditions, and end use categories.
What is heat treat pallet?
Heat treat pallets are required for all wood packaging material used in international shipments. One of the necessary steps for ensuring the safety of not only the product being shipped, but also the environment of the product’s destination, is heat treatment. Wood pallets are made from organic material – trees.
How long does it take to heat treat pallets?
During this process, the pallets, boxes, or crates being treated are heated to a core temperature of 140 degrees for a minimum of 30 minutes. This ensures that all insects and larva will be killed off, after which the pallet can be used and reused to ship goods internationally. Once a pallet has been heat treated, it is stamped with a globally recognized image which allows for more efficient transportation of goods.
Why is wood used for heating?
Its use can help us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because its net carbon dioxide emissions are far below those of all other fuels. It provides heating security during electrical power failures.
What is the role of the Wood Heat Organization?
At the Wood Heat Organization, our role is not to promote wood heating, but to speak up for the families that choose to heat with wood responsibly. We also make an effort to define and encourage responsible wood heating.
What is responsible wood heating?
Responsible wood heating starts with a safe, code-compliant installation of an advanced combustion wood stove, fireplace, furnace or boiler. Responsible users burn only seasoned firewood and use burn practices that result in little or no visible smoke.
Why is wood used locally?
Wood that is cut and used locally means money does not leave the community to pay for oil and gas.
Where is wood used?
Wood is best used as a fuel outside cities, in small towns and rural areas, where the cost of firewood and population density are lower. Wood heating is practiced on a small scale, the fuel is usually harvested from a local resource, and the users gain a more complete understanding of their impacts on the environment than users ...
Is wood a good fuel?
Although wood is a good fuel with advantages for individual families, it is not a good fuel for all families in all regions. For example, wood is not a good fuel for serious heating in multi-family dwellings or in the downtown core of our large cities. Wood is best used as a fuel outside cities, in small towns and rural areas, ...
Is wood heating good for everyone?
Wood heating is as much a lifestyle choice as it is a heating fuel option, so wood heating is not for everyone. Wood is not a perfect fuel, but there really is no such thing. All fuel burning, indeed all energy use, causes environmental impacts.
What temperature does wood need to be to be thermally modified?
It’s available in 4/4 to 8/4 thickness. Thicker blanks for turners are also available. The heat-treating process warms the wood from 185°C to 212°C (depending on the species), which changes the color and improves its decay resistance.
What color is hickory wood?
Maple takes on a walnut hue. Oak takes on a fumed look, while birch, alder, and aspen take on a reddish color closer to cherry. Although heat-treating makes the wood decay-resistant (equal to red cedar), it does little to protect it from the sun, so you’ll want to treat outdoor projects with a UV-resistant finish or the material will gray.
What is the purpose of heat treating metals?
grain size and composition) is one of the most effective factors that can determine the overall mechanical behavior of the metal. Heat treatment provides an efficient way to manipulate the properties of the metal by controlling the rate of diffusion and the rate of cooling within the microstructure. Heat treating is often used to alter the mechanical properties of a metallic alloy, manipulating properties such as the hardness, strength, toughness, ductility, and elasticity .
How does heat treatment work?
These tend to consist of either cooling different areas of an alloy at different rates, by quickly heating in a localized area and then quenching, by thermochemical diffusion, or by tempering different areas of an object at different temperatures, such as in differential tempering.
What color is tempered steel?
Very hard tools are often tempered in the light to the dark straw range, whereas springs are often tempered to the blue. However, the final hardness of the tempered steel will vary, depending on the composition of the steel. Higher-carbon tool steel will remain much harder after tempering than spring steel (of slightly less carbon) when tempered at the same temperature. The oxide film will also increase in thickness over time. Therefore, steel that has been held at 400˚F for a very long time may turn brown or purple, even though the temperature never exceeded that needed to produce a light straw color. Other factors affecting the final outcome are oil films on the surface and the type of heat source used.
How does salt heat up?
Parts are loaded into a pot of molten salt where they are heated by conduction, giving a very readily available source of heat. The core temperature of a part rises in temperature at approximately the same rate as its surface in a salt bath.
What is a heat treating schedule?
Complex heat treating schedules, or " cycles," are often devised by metallurgists to optimize an alloy's mechanical properties. In the aerospace industry, a superalloy may undergo five or more different heat treating operations to develop the desired properties. This can lead to quality problems depending on the accuracy of the furnace's temperature controls and timer. These operations can usually be divided into several basic techniques.
What is the process of heating something to alter it?
Process of heating something to alter it. Heat treating furnace at 1,800 °F (980 °C) Heat treating (or heat treatment) is a group of industrial, thermal and metalworking processes used to alter the physical, and sometimes chemical, properties of a material. The most common application is metallurgical. Heat treatments are also used in the ...
Why is heat treatment called an arrest?
This temperature is referred to as an "arrest" because at the A temperature the metal experiences a period of hysteresis.

No Worry About delays.
Heat Treating Processes
- There are varying methods for heat treating lumber. Some more effective than others and is dependent upon the end user applications required. Some processes use heat and moisture over a matter of hours and other processes are simply low, dry heat applied over days (Kiln Dry). Predominantly, softwood lumber production in Canada, is processed and dri...
So What Are The Benefits?
- The only approved method in Canada to comply with ISPM #15 standards. No chemicals. Once treated to ISPM #15 compliancy, the packaging materials are certified permanently, unless a component of a specific wood package such as pallets, has been altered. Other rules apply to meet certification again. Kiln Dried lumber provides strength, durability, less shrinkage, less war…
Abstract
Introduction
- Heat treatment is one of the wood modification methods for improving wood properties such as dimensional stability, water resistance, and biological durability without using harmful chemicals. In recent years, wood products with increased performance and without toxic preservatives are increasingly demanded by customers, thus contributing to the po...
Heat-Treated Wood as A Substrate For Coatings
- Heat-treated wood is a good substrate for coatings as it is dry after production and free of resin which runs out during heating. It has been established that, at the temperatures above 180°C, fats and waxes disappeared from the sapwood surface and caused no problem with adhesion [17 1. M. Nuopponen, H. Wikberg, T. Vuorinen, S. L. Maunu, S. Jämsä, and P Viitaniemi, “Heat-treated s…
Coating Systems For Heat-Treated Wood
- Due to horizontal surface, accumulation of water, and full exposure to sun and rain, finishing of heat-treated wood decking is more demanding than other wood finishing (e.g., exterior claddings). Penetrating finishes are recommended for such surfaces because they do not form a film and give better overall performance and have the easiest maintenance and refinishing [46 1. R. S. Wil…
Weathering of Uncoated Heat-Treated Wood
- Weathering of wood is a combination of degradation by solar radiation, moisture changes, and oxidation and temperature effects [52 1. M. Nejad and P. Cooper, “Exterior wood coatings,” in Wood in Civil Engineering, IntechOpen, London, UK, 2017. View at: Google Scholar See in References ]. Due to weathering, exterior woods discolour, erode, develop cracking, checking, an…
Performance of Coatings on Heat-Treated Wood
- Feist and Sell [54 1. W. C. Feist and J. Sell, “Weathering behavior of dimensionally stabilized wood treated by heating under pressure of nitrogen gas,” Wood and Fiber Science, vol. 19, pp. 183–195, 1987. View at: Google Scholar See in References ] established that, after 14 months of outdoor exposure, both semitransparent penetrating and film-forming stains performed worse on therma…
Conclusions
- Although moisture content of heat-treated wood and swelling and shrinkage due to moisture are greatly reduced, it has been established that heat-treated wood is not resistant to weathering. To keep attractive appearance of heat-treated wood products, it is essential to protect wood surface with appropriate coatings. Compared to unmodified wood, heat-treated wood as a substrate for …
Conflicts of Interest
- The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
Acknowledgments
- The authors thank the Academy of Technical Sciences for permission to use some parts of the article “Weathering Resistance of Modified Wood-A Review” by Jirouš-Rajković and Miklečić, published in Jubilee Annual 2017-2018 of the Croatian Academy of Engineering.