Accoya wood is a world leading, high technology, long life wood. It is 75 years’ worth of research and development which has resulted in an extensive wood modification technique using an acetylated solution with leading-edge patented technology. This new wood is now commercially available globally, and has properties which exceed the best hardwoods and treated woods. Furthermore its manufacturing lifecycle is completely sustainable, even for applications which are presently produced by non-sustainable materials.
Wood is endlessly practical and is our only sustainable construction resource material. It is naturally beautiful, versatile, strong, light-weight and insulating. However as many wood products, especially those outside, are susceptible to deterioration and need frequent maintenance, its compelling attributes are offset. Accoya has been designed to exceed these constraints.
Already the preferred material for a wide range of outdoor applications, Accoya is ideal for windows, doors, cladding, decking, large structures and much more. For window frames, not only does Accoya have exceptionally low thermal conductivity, but its durability, dimensional stability and environmental advantages match, or surpass, the best hardwoods.
Thanks to the acetylation technology, Accoya wood offers you an environmentally compatible, durable wood that can be used with confidence in outdoor applications and will last for many, many years.
The manufacturing process is non-toxic and adds nothing to the wood that does not already naturally occur in it, plus can be safely reused and recycled.
Accoya wood is easy to machine and process manually, creating no challenges for product manufacturers and end users.
Accoya wood offers unbeatable natural insulation in comparison with most commonly used woods, keeping you warm all year round.
Accoya wood is created only by using a richly available, fast growing tree species such as Radiata pine. This allows larger volumes of produce over a smaller time span on the same area of land. Accoya is manufactured using a proprietary acetylation process. This replaces the woods hydroxyl group (which makes it more prone to decay), with a naturally occurring acetyl group. This makes all of Accoya’s benefits possible, such as its availability, durability and stability. This also provides a compelling environmental advantage over other slow-growing hardwoods, woods treated with toxic chemicals and non-renewable materials such as metals and plastics.
Accoya’s exceptional quality also reduces swelling stress on coatings and has UV resistance. This resistance means that it requires less maintenance and therefore less adhesive coating is needed over its lifetime, which lowers costs as well. This increases the durability of Accoya and can make its planned service life up to 90 years (depending on exposure conditions), which is superior to aluminium and PVC windows.
At the end of its life phase, Accoya is a non-toxic product and is therefore fully bio-degradable and recyclable. Reuse is recommended, however, Accoya can also be safely incinerated for bio-energy.
A carbon footprint assessment shows the CO2 greenhouse gas emissions during Accoya wood’s entire lifestyle against other woods and also raw metals and plastics.
*Image provided from the official accoya.com website
