The picture worth a thousand words.....

         A lonely Mt. Bachelor snowstake less than a week before Thanksgiving, when the ski area is usually open for eager snowriders from throughout the Northwest. 

        As of Sunday afternoon, November 18, Bend was under a stagnant air advisory from smoke creeping up from California made worse from regional prescribed burns, with a chance for the season's first rain and snow in town this year possible later in the week.. 
         Mt. Bachelor will need about 2 feet of a reliable snowpack before opening, a marker that seemed far off on the eve of this year's holiday season. 

Water woes: Central Oregon drought continues

            It’s not only Mt. Bachelor, Hoodoo and their eager skiers nervously hoping for a good snow year. The region’s agricultural industry could be looking at another tense growing season in 2019 if the white stuff doesn’t materialize in sufficient depth this winter.

            On the morning of Nov. 6 Mt. Bachelor posted an election day “red, white and blue” go vote message with a photo of the a painted lift chair, a few inches of new snow and clear blue skies. Thus far, though, the light dustings of the past week are fading away with sunny days, no precipitation in sight and temperatures in the 40s and 50s.

            And the long term forecast for Bend calls for more sun and 50s during the day, although nightime temperatures wlll be mostly freezing and perhaps dipping briefly into the high teens.

            A look at the drought map for Oregon as reported by the Natural Resources Conservation Service is not encouraging for farmers and ranchers whose livelihoods depend on irrigating their crops.

            As of Oct. 30, the NRCS map released Nov. 1 showed 33.65% of Oregon in extreme drought, including all of Deschutes County and up to half or more of Jefferson County to the north and Crook to the east. The remaining area of those counties were in severe drought.

            Last year on Oct 31, the NRCS reported that no counties of Oregon suffered from extreme or severe drought and only 40.44% of the state was even abnormally dry—against all the state this year.

            On Sept. 24 at the start of the “water year,” 31.62% of the state was in extreme drought. That benchmark is important as a general forecast of the formidable challenge ahead if the region is to have enough snowpack to feed the Deschutes and its tributaries, and in turn the reservoirs that store irrigation water.

            Wickiup Reservoir, the largest impoundment in the Deschutes basin serving the North Unit Irrigation District, reached its lowest level in a half century as the season ended this Fall. As of Nov. 5 the reservoir, which stores water for the most agricultural acreage in all of Central Oregon, was only 15% full.

            Crane Prairie, above Wickiup on the Upper Deschutes River, which holds water for the Central Oregon Irrigation District, was at 64% and Prineville Reservoir on the Crooked River, 35% full.

            Wickup held 30,859 acre feet of water in early November this year, more than 71% below the 108,052 acre feet in November 2017 and 66% below the historic average of 91,876 acre feet. Each acre foot covers an acre of land to a depth of one foot.

Battle brewing over building code changes for CLT and tall wood buildings

                  Product problems at OSU project highlight CLT growing pains

           As “mass timber” methods for building taller wood structures gain momentum the concrete industry is mounting opposition to proposed new international building codes on the eve of an important upcoming vote by a construction industry standards organization.

            The primary issues against code changes, as argued by concrete industry groups, are fire safety and structural strength related to buildings constructed with cross laminated timber, or CLT.

            Recent setbacks involving construction of the new Oregon State University’s Peavy Hall at the forestry school, and cancelled plans for a 12 story Portland building, have raised questions about whether the rapid ascent of CLT adoption should get a closer look.        

            The concrete lobby also maintains that the environmental advantages often cited for  mass timber over conventional concrete buildings are reduced over the life of a building when considering energy costs for heating, ventilation and air conditioning.

            CLT is the method of gluing solid wood boards in perpendicular layers which are then compressed by high compression hydraulic equipment to form strong construction panels. CLT panels are typically two to 10 feet wide with typical configurations up to 60 feet and 20-inches thick.

            The method is different from conventional glulam, also considered in the mass timber category, but without the wood layers cross-positioned 90-degrees. Glulam is more often used for interior exposed posts and beams.  

            While the IBC and individual states, including Oregon, are moving ahead to allow much taller buildings using CLT, besides the concrete industry there’s been pushback from various fire safety groups including firefighter unions and the International Association of Fire Chiefs.  

           Their primary objections focus on the difficulty of suppressing blazes in buldings that could reach 18 stories in some building types under the new IBC changes. The Oregon Building Codes Division in August essentially reflected the proposed IBC changes when it revised the state building code to allow tall wood construction up to 18 stories and 270 feet, depending on whether a structure is sprinklered and the type of occupancy.

            In March of 2018 a 1,000 pound section of a CLT floor at OSU’s Peavy Hall collapsed and subsequent tests indicated that as many as 80 panels had gluing defects, the Oregonian reported. The panels were manufactured by Riddle, OR based DR Johnson, a legacy timber mill that had begun production of CLT a few years ago with substantial support of state sponsored grants and various public officials intent on boosting the state’s depressed timber industry.
            The Peavy Hall Forestry School project is viewed as an important showcase of Oregon's effort to be a leader in CLT construction and call attention to new products for the timber industry. Bid criteria stipulated that the project's CLT producer had to within 300 miles of OSU, effectively eliminating the possibility of a producer from outside the state.

            In September Engineering News Record-Northwest reported an investigation team including independent engineers concluded problems had resulted when panels were preheated in a cold temperature mill before application of glue, which subsequently impeded bonding as the glue dried prematurely in the compression process.

            Construction resumed after several months delay for the investigation, and for DR Johnson to restart the production process in a temperature controlled environment. By some estimates the 80,000 square foot bulding, intitially budgeted at $60 million, is on track to cost $79 million.

A CLT press like the one at DR Johnson

            Whether due to concern over the Peavy Hall problems or financial considerations, developers of the proposed Framework 12-story building in Portland that would have used CLT announced they would not proceed.

            Ironically, DR Johnson was the first producer in the United States to receive certification from the American National Standards Institute to provide CLT for structural uses in buildings. However, SmartLam of Columbia Falls, MT, less than 20 miles from the southernmost entrance to Glacier National Park, was the first US producer of CLT and has a much longer record of supplying products for industrial uses such as job site matting and bridges.         
            SmartLam received Amercan Plywood Association  certification to provide structural CLT in January of 2016. As demand has increased, the company is expanding Montana operations with a new Montana facility expected to be in operation early Spring of 2019 and has also announced plans for a new plant in Maine. 

            SmartLam, which estabished its reputation with softwood CLT, also recently gained recognition as a supplier of hardwood CLT, an emerging technology, for a conversation plinth designed by Bostons IDK design for the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library in Columbus, IN, that complements a sculpture by Henry Moore. With support from Cummins Engine for public buildings, the town south of Indianapolis has become a showcase for internationally renowned architects, including the library’s designer, IM Pei, and Eliel Saarinen who designed a nearby church.

Photo- IKD Architects, Boston

            The new hardwood CLT product uses multiple species of low-grade Indiana hardwood that accounts for nearly 60% of the states hardwood harvests.

            Introduced in Europe in the early 1990s, but invented some 20 years ealier, and later adopted in Canada, CLT in the past several years has shown substantial growth as a building material and method in the United States. 

            Brock Commons student housing in Vancouver, BC at 174 feet and 18 stories, is currently considered  the tallest mass timber building in the world, combining CLT floors, reinforced concrete shear walls and glulam columns.

            Carbon 12 in Portland is an eight story residential-office building that combines CLT floor and roofs produced by Structuirlam of BC with glulam post and beams and steel fame bracing. Although more than the five to six stories in the IBC code, the building does not exceed the current IBC 85-foot height limit for wood construction. 

            At the federal Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, LendLease Corporation of Australia, with decades of major construction around the world, has completed a Candlewood Suites branded hotel to stringent government standards, which the company says involved laboratory testing for potential bomb blasts.

            Thus far most mass timber projects in the country have employed smaller scale use of CLT combined with glulam and other materials in six floors or less. But the recent emergence of a venture capital  financed startup in Silicon Valley has further raised the CLT profile and perhaps elevated the concrete industry’s conerns with the code changes.

            The code change debate has come to a head as the ad hoc committee of the IBC  spars with the concrete industry advocates, in what might be termed a “they say, we say” dialogue over such CLT issues as fire safety, seismic and wind performance, and relative environmental advantages of the competing products.

            The opposition effort is led by the Skokie, IL based Portland Cement Association which lobbies for the concrete industry and has financed studies that raise concerns about CLT.

            One thrust of the anti-CLT effort is pegged to the “Stop Tall Wood,” campaign, with the same address as the PCA.      

The campaign logo of the Portland Cement Association

             On another front the PCA announced in mid-August that a study the organization commissioned showed that 74% of Americans have concerns over “building stucture and fire safety.” in wood construction.            

            In a news release, PCA president and CEO Michael Ireland said, “It’s time American’s (sic) were made aware of this threat, and that they can have a say in whether the wood industry gets a fast-tracked path to being able to build high-rise buildings across the country.”

            A bylined article distributed through Canada Newswire, a news release distribution service, noted tha the OSU Peavy Hall problems “...raised questions (again) about the risks of CLT.” At the bottom of the article was a link to the Stop Tall Wood campaign. (www.stoptallwood.com) with the same Illinois address as the Portland Cement Association.

            The International Code Council tallwood committee was  scheduled to meet October 9-19  in Chicago, then hold public hearings on the first phase of changes in Richmond, VA the week of October 24-31.

           The IBC committee addressed the issues in a report dated August 1, partially titled a response to “...concerns raised on code proposals addressing tall wood buildings.” Among participants, the committee said, were engineers, architects, fire code and service officials and representatives of materials and testing laboratories.

            Half of the 16 “concerns” addressed by the committee involved potential fire issues, ranging from burn characteristics of mass timber to protection of sprinkler connectons and fire suppression response times.

            In its opening response of a 12-page report, the committee addressed “Concern 1” that, “The changes are overreaching and lack true technical support for many concepts proposed.”

            The committee responded that the proposed code changes resulted from “careful analyis” of current codes, fire tests including those of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms laboratory and a “performance based approach to ensure that tall wood buildings provide similar performance compared to current construction types allowed by the code.”

            In particular the committee wrote that the code revisions took into consideration performance of mass timber when tested similarly to existing construction methods.

            Only in the past decade or less has CLT construction established a foothold in the United States. Much of the early CLT materials came from Canada, where Structurlam of Penticton, BC supplied a number of US projects.

           In addition to Montana's SmartLam, the oldest CLT producer in the states, new entrants could include a mill in northwestern Washington, Vaagens, that announced it will begin CLT production in the near future.  

            As might be predicted CLT also attracted attention from Silicon Valley, as relative newcomer Katerra entered the market with a reported $1.2 billion in financing  only three years ago and ramped up panel production at its original Phoenix facility while announcing a major new one planned in Spokane Valley, WA. Permits were issued in late 2017 for a $35 million, 250,000 square foot  that could employ 150. The company website said in October that the Spokane plant and another with more than 500,000 square feet in Tracy, CA would come online in early 2019.

            Although boasting a governing board of blue chip venture capitalists, recent published reports from Silicon Valley media in August said Katerra, which had drawn top talent from Tesla and other manufacturers, had experienced substantial executive turnover. The reports noted that some managers had little construction experience and the company faced production delays as well as delivery of panels that didn’t fit design specifications.

            Among the most active Northwest supporters of CLT is Forterra, Seattle-based environmental and conservation nonporfit which has sponsored numerous conferences and reports on benefits of the production method.

            The state of Washington has also encouraged construction of new schools with CLT, easing the way with a state law to expedite permitting. In its 2016 capital budget the legislature provided $5.5 million for four classroom pilot projects using CLT. DR Johnson of Oregon provided the CLT for those structures.

            Although CLT will likely continue to win support in the United States, some observers believe smaller “short wood” buildings, such as the Washington schools and buildings no more than five to six stories will lead the way in the near term.

            With the problems experienced in the OSU Peavy Hall project, there will also be increased scrutiny by industry professionals and enhanced attention to quality control as new producers work to establish track records.
           But as mass timber producers and technology mature in the country, albeit with occasional glitches, few in the construction industry would expect that  CLT will fade away.

 PREVIOUS  CLT POSTS

CLT: A new building method makes gains in the Northwest

Montana conference focuses on building green with CLT: Oregon in spotlight as leader in mass timber building