NEW Amazing technology with Protek ESP Panels

Some years ago, The Gloucester Timber Company were asked for their advice due to their well-earned reputation for timber knowledge.  Cladding was falling off student accommodation at a university endangering the lives of the alumni.  The cause?  Plywood was delaminating and making the fixings fail with potentially lethal consequences.

Plywood has been a nightmare for the industry for decades and a solution has at last been found.

In collaboration with Protek, for years a market leader in timber preservation, a partnership has been formed to help alleviate the demons and pitfalls of the plywood market.

ESP Panels is the result and the solution.

There has, up until now, not been a product that solves the problem of water penetration to the inner veneers of plywood which when wet cause the glue-line to fail, following successful testing by BM TRADA we now have that product.  Under the most rigorous of tests a standard sheet of plywood treated with ESP Panels performed as well, if not better, than the most expensive on the market.  Many specifiers and architects have so little faith in plywood coming into the country that they request Marine ply be used with horrendous price implications for the end user. 

Not anymore. 

Confidence can now be restored with ESP Panels properly applied.

 Its special formulation STOPS water from penetrating the inside of the sheets and thus the danger of the glue line failing.  Simply applied to the edges of the sheet with a brush it is touch dry in 2 hours, to help this it actually changes colour so it is obvious it is dry.  It stabilizes the wood and helps resist mildew, mould and wet rot, three added benefits to the main one of stopping the plywood from failing.  It also works as a waterproof seal between two abutting edges of sheets.

A 1litre tin will seal the edges of 28 sheets of standard 2.44 x 1.22 18mm plywood, it is also excellent for OSB and MDF, in fact any sheet material that runs the risk of water ingress will benefit and last longer.  It’s red colour is easy for building inspectors to spot and now effectively police the regulations which have for years asked for plywood to be sealed and for years there were only vague recommendations as to what to seal it with!

With timber being the only green building material with carbon negative impact on the environment, the longer that things made from timber and timber related products last, the more carbon is sequestered; 1 cubic metre of timber traps 1 tonne of carbon!!

Soon to be available nationwide and online, a number of manufacturers and merchants are factoring in the cost of ESP Panels with the plywood they are selling, if not used then any warranty would be void.

Weigh up the cost of a tin against the issues presented, and consequences, of the failure of plywood and it really does make sense.