Journal of Indoor Environmental Quality

Centennial Edition of Wood Handbook - Now Available

The Forest Products Laboratory is proud to present this edition of the Wood Handbook—Wood as an Engineering Material, prepared and updated to include fascinating new developments in the field of wood utilization and released as part of the celebration of the Forest Products Laboratory’s first 100 years of service to the public.

Efficient use of our nation’s timber is of critical importance. This handbook is intended to serve as a primary reference on the use of wood in a variety of applications from general construction to use of wood for decorative purposes. It provides engineers, architects, and others who use wood with a source of information on the various properties of wood, its relationship with moisture, and characteristics of various wood-based materials. Continuing research holds promise for wider and more efficient utilization of wood in an increasing number of applications.

This handbook was prepared by the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL), a research unit within the USDA Forest Service. The FPL, first established in 1910 in Madison, Wisconsin, was the first institution in the world to conduct general research on wood and its utilization. The information that resulted from many of its scientific investigations of wood and wood prodcts over the past century is the primary basis for this handbook.

The Wood Handbook was first issued in 1935, and slightly revised in 1939, as an unnumbered publication. Further revisions in 1955, 1974, and 1987 were published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as Agriculture Handbook No. 72. The 1999 revision was published by the FPL as General Technical Report FPL–GTR–113 and reprinted for broader distribution by the Forest Products Society. Citation: Forest Products Laboratory. 2010. Wood handbook—Wood as an engineering material. General Technical Report FPL-GTR-190. Madison, WI: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory. 508 p.

RBc: The Wood Handbook can be downloaded for free from the  Forest Products Laboratory (FPL)

Learn more about wood, moisture and radiant heated hardwood floors.

The effects of heating systems on (wood) floor performance in cool temperate climates

Excerpt: "Timber floors with under floor heating (UFH) systems represent a new and growing trend for the hardwood flooring market in Australia’s southern states. These systems are common in North America and Europe, but experience in Australia is limited with much debate concerning the suitability and performance of Australian flooring material in this application. Installing a wooden floor over a heated surface will lower the expected in-service Equilibrium Moisture Content (EMC), thus floors with UFH should be installed at a lower Moisture Content (MC) than floors with no such heating system."

RBc: There are few better documents adressing the use of radiant floors with hardwood than R. Farrell and S. Gadient's research report for the Centre for Sustainable Architecture with Wood.

If you don't want to read the entire 88 page report, the last words in the conclusion reads, "Wooden floors over UFH can perform well, and could even be argued that a wooden floor installed and operated correctly will out-perform those with conventional heating systems that cause hot-spots in the floor with extreme localised dimensional change. A wooden floor with UFH operated with moderate and gradual temperature changes will apply constant and even heat to the floor avoiding problems associated with localised heating."

Source and credit:hardwood with radiant heated wood floors.

Suggested study: Heat Loss to Head Loss - The Radiant Design Guide