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At UK Timber it is regarded as essential to carry out almost all processes in house with our own capabilities. Grading structural beams to various standards is carried out by visual inspection of each piece and applying the grading rules laid down by Trada, the industry body who both train and regulate timber grading in our industry.
UK Timber always has at least 4 timber graders on site who are both fully trained and very experienced in the process. We train our sawmill operators as timber graders so that each individual involved in the production process has a clear vision of the eventual aim and how to achieve the final desired quality. The final grading process is carried out by a second person to get a truly independent and complete overview of the structural worthiness of the beam after which the beam is certificated accordingly.
Oak and other hardwoods are covered by one certificate and Softwoods by another.
Grades that are achievable are THA, THB, TH1 and TH2 in hardwoods and C16, C24 and TR6 in softwoods.
Hardwood visual grade THA equates to Machine stress graded D40 and THB equates to Machine stress graded D30.
TH1 equates to D30 and TH2 equates to D24 and these grades are for smaller dimensions (less than 20000mm2).
As our structural beam customer base has grown it has become necessary to offer the same grading facility for our Douglas Fir and Larch softwoods. These two materials are very flexible but still require selection and grading to ensure the correct level of stability and longevity. Ordering graded timber guarantees this.
All beam products can be found as a graded option in each individual category by use of the drop down box in the product calculator page.