Hydrowood

About

Overview  Flooded to create water storage for energy production, these dead forests of 200 – 1000 year old trees have been submerged for more than 30 years.  Thanks to innovative new harvesting and processing methods, this valuable timber is now being reclaimed – it is called Hydrowood.    Forest management and harvesting company SFM Environmental Solutions Director David Wise first learned about reclaiming timber in British Columbia four years ago. He said to his business partner and fellow Director Andrew Morgan – “why can’t we do this here?”  There is high demand for Tasmanian special species timbers, but very low supply. So this dead timber was potentially a valuable resource. But we didn’t know how recover it or how it would perform, said Mr Morgan. They initiated a feasibility study with the University of Tasmania and the Department of State Growth and assessed five lakes. Divers recovered timber that was then assessed by the University’s Centre for Sustainable Architecture and Wood (CSAW).  “We needed to know if the timber was sound, whether it could be used for building, joinery, flooring, and how we could dry it with the right regime of air-drying and kiln time,” said Senior Technical Officer, Michael Lee. “We also looked at strength properties, the way it machined, and whether it would it take coatings. We couldn’t look at conventional thinking for sawing patterns.” CSAW found that if it was dried properly, Hydrowood became a very stable and commercially viable product.  It’s not just a great story of innovation, it is a great thing to reclaim these logs, Mr Lee said. SFM now has around 15 years’ worth of timber resource in Hydro dams around Tasmania that they can supply to the marketplace.