Because of its beauty, strength and ease of construction, wood has long been in demand as a building material. Today, structural glued laminated timbers (known as glulam) offer additional reasons to select wood as a structural material.
Glulam is fabricated using individual pieces of highstrength, kiln-dried lumber, laminated together under
pressure to form large timbers that retain the traditional beauty of wood along with engineered strength, extraordinary fire resistance, thermal efficiency, and dimensional stability. Glulam is typically manufactured using Douglas fir, Hem-Fir, Southern pine, Spruce-Pine-Fir, Alaskan Yellow cedar and Ponderosa pine.
These large, laminated timbers can be fabricated in almost any straight or arched configuration for long-span
conditions. This allows for the design of large, open spaces with minimal columns. Long-length glulam are
appropriate for complete structural systems in many types of buildings including churches, gymnasiums, auditoriums and recreational spaces. Everyday uses in smaller buildings include ridge beams, garage door headers, door and window headers, long-span girders, stair treads and stringers, and heavy timber trusses.