Torrefied Wood Decks - Coming to North America

Pool Decking

I personally love decks. A beer, some barbecuing, good conversation, a good book, sunshine...  Nothing says summer like a nice deck, a pool and a barbecue.

Natural wood decks are beautiful: cedar, redwood, pine, eucalyptus, janka, jarrah, marupá, you name it. The softwood lumbers are local to our forests here in North America, and the hardwood lumbers are typically South American or Australian in origin.

Porch/Deck for Spa 

Oddly, torrefied wood decks have not been marketed extensively in North America, and therefore aren't in everyone's back yard, with the exception of many eastern Canadian back yards.
Europeans on the other hand have been using torrefied ash and pine for years for patios and decks, and I'm sure this will change in North America in the coming years as torrefied lumber is becoming much more accessible.  It's stable, pre-stained, rot-proof, and provides many different looks depending on the species of wood you choose: pine, yellow poplar, maple, ash, birch etc.

The wood grain of choice these days is the yellow poplar because of it's affordability and general knot "freeness". Unlike pine or cedar, which provides a more rustic look, the yellow poplar provides a much more modern look... with flare.

City rooftop deck

Using custom stains, your wood grain can be any colour you like. The TorrEco torrefication process is set up so that the wood gets slightly roasted, and this amplifies the natural wood grain's nuances while keeping it rather pale in comparison to a darker torrefication roast. This helps when you want a very particular look: red, grey, walnut, dark brown, light caramel, etc. And makes it easy to create the deck of your dreams.

In addition to the torrefied lumber, TorrEco offers the entire gamut of decking accessories, from an invisible fastening mechanism (Lumber-Lok) to standard and custom skirts, fences, ramps, rails, stairs, posts and lumber to build pergolas, or other outdoor furniture.

Yellow poplar - logs to siding

Torrefied Yellow Poplar: Caramel Stain

The lion's share of Torrefaction BTM's torrefied wood for outdoor siding and terraces is yellow poplar or liriodendron tulipfera (tulip tree); a soft hardwood. In fact, it's not from the poplar family at all, it's part of the magnolia family and was simply misnamed at it's origin when European settlers came to America.

Yellow poplar is a great species to use; it grows fast, it's a strong wood, it's quite straight and there are not many branches (therefore not many knots). Deborah A. Boerner-Ein wrote a nice article on yellow poplar, praising it's virtues as a sort of forgotten or disregarded species.  For torrefied wood, the reason is simple - aesthetic beauty. Once torrefied, the wood grain patterns are actually quite stunning - as you can see in the funeral home photo. There are so many colour variations and shades within every plank that the "look" yellow poplar gives us is unique.

Yellow Poplar: At the sawmill

Why is there such variation in the yellow poplar planks?

One factor has to do with the wood - colour variations between the sapwood (what you see as a beige ring) and the heartwood (what you see as a darker centre) are great and non-uniform. This is obvious from the photos of yellow poplar logs on the left.

A second factor has to do with the torrefaction process. The torrefaction (or roasting) process amplifies the wood grain variations in all woods. Hence enhancing their appearance.

The third and final factor is in the use of stains that further enhance the colour variations. Just as some stains help us subdue the variations to provide a more uniform look, others enhance them.

Real Wood Siding for Homes

Real wood siding, with real wood grain finishes are really awesome.  The market in Quebec has been taken by storm over the last 5 years with this amazing process.  Torrefied wood!

It's basically oven roasted wood that has been 100% dried and re-humidified. It's durable, it's stable, it's ecological and it looks fantastic.

Tens of thousands of homes in Quebec have used the product as siding and as a decking building material. I think it's time the rest of the continent know about it.