Heat treated birch

For us, it is important to use natural materials, especially wood. At the same time, it is very important and a priority for us to create a product that lasts over time and can stand outside even in cold Swedish winters.

We therefore work with the method of heat-treating our birch to make the material as resistant as possible, at the same time that birch also darkens and acquires a richer shade, which in our opinion is very beautiful.

Why do you heat treat wood?
Heat-treated wood provides unique combinations of properties that cannot be achieved in other ways. Shape stability can be combined with resilience, absence of coda can be combined with low thermal conductivity. While you get these benefits, the heat treatment in our case also gives the wood a richer and more beautiful color right through.

How does the heat treatment work?
Our wood is heat treated just a few kilometers from our carpentry shop. The heat treatment involves heating the wood to between 165-215 degrees celsius in an oven with superheated steam. The wood is heated without burning. The water vapor prevents the oxygen supply. The process takes 2-3 days. It begins with slow heating and drying for a day, then high temperature for 1-3 hours and finally cooling and stabilization of moisture content. No additives or chemicals are used, only energy is used to heat the wood.

Heat-treated wood is thus a renewable and non-toxic material that is part of a natural cycle without harmful effects.

What happens during the heat treatment?
The wood simply gains new features such as e.g.

- Darker and richer color
- Colored right through
- Stable in shape at different humidity conditions
- Lower weight
- Higher resistance to rot
- Resins and resins disappear
- Better insulating ability, lower ability to conduct heat

Especially for outdoor use, it is the combination of consistent color, shape stability, freedom from resin, high resistance to rot that is important