Permapost – The Latest Generation

PERMAPOST has long been a recognised and trusted name for high performance TANALITH preservative treated fence posts. Manufactured and supplied by BALCAS for over 50 years, PERMAPOST provides a premium and assured product for both agricultural and landscaping fencing projects.
2016 has seen the introduction of the latest generation PERMAPOST products. These new PERMAPOSTS are now kilned, incised and pressure treated with Lonza’s TANALITH preservative and under pinned by a performance warranty.
Martin Batts, timber sales director of BALCAS explains the developments. ‘In recognition of premium performance ground contact fencing timbers, the PERMAPOST name is important to our customers and to BALCAS. ‘Round and sound in the ground’ is a promotional phrase we created almost 50 years ago for our round posts and strainers and it is still relevant today and it now also includes our range of sawn fence posts.’
‘BALCAS wants to make the most of our home grown species. It is vital that we utilise and promote our most renewable resources and reassure our markets that our fence posts can perform in the most extreme of ground contact environments.’
‘To do this and to provide an even better assurance to our customers we are using only selected home grown and FSC certified softwood species and investing in new treatment technologies and a new promotional campaign which incorporates a 15 year performance warranty.’
Andrew Kidney, production director at BALCAS commented, ‘Surface incising of timbers prior to the application of preservative treatment is increasingly being recognised as an extremely effective process in achieving the very best long term protection of fencing timbers against the threat of decay. At BALCAS, after the timbers have been sawn to size, we now incorporate the very latest EXCALIBUR incising technologies for both our round and square sawn PERMAPOST products. The surface incisions allow easier penetration of the preservative deep into the timber structure and with a neat surface pattern the incising does not detract from the appearance of the posts.’
‘It has long been accepted in the sawmilling industry, that to penetrate the cell structure of timber with preservative solution, you must first make room for it by removing the naturally occurring free water from the cells from when the timber was still a tree. After incising we then carefully kiln dry the timbers ready for the high pressure preservative treatment using our own treatment vessels. By using the next generation TANALITH wood preservative we ensure some incredibly impressive treatment results.’
The latest TANALITH preservative also now incorporates Lonza’s award winning BARamine application technologies that not only help ensure deeper and more consistent treatment but also help protect against certain copper tolerant organisms that can attack ground contact timbers.
Andrew continued, ‘The final result is our latest range of PERMAPOST INCISED posts which have created a real interest from our merchant customers. We have also introduced an educational promotional programme that explains the features and benefits of these premium timbers, including a video that explains the full production process. The performance warranty offered by Balcas is there to bring additional assurance to both fencing stockists and contractors.’
‘Every single PERMAPOST INCISED Round and Sawn post meets the Use Class 4 ground contact requirements of both IS436 and BS8417. Backed by our performance warranty our posts are perfectly suited to meet the new Northern Ireland grants for fencing as well as the requirements of any other farmer or landowner who wishes to install a quality product.’
‘We firmly believe that our Permapost product is a quality performance product which offers a safer and more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional creosote based treated products which are currently under scrutiny for use in agricultural and domestic end use.’