TREATED TIMBER DONE RIGHT: THE PURCHASE NOBODY REGRETS

After more than 42 years in the wood preservation industry, Andy Hodge has heard the same story repeated countless times.

A fence fails prematurely, posts begin to decay sooner than expected, or a timber structure does not deliver the service life the customer believed they had purchased. Almost invariably, the conclusion is the same: “The preservative treatment didn’t work.”

That has always concerned him.

“The preservative is often the first thing that gets blamed,” says Andy Hodge, Director of Marketing at Arxada. “But the reality is that a wood preservative is not a magic ingredient. It cannot protect timber if it isn’t done right.”

And people don’t just blame the treatment process, continues Hodge. “They blame timber. That’s why Treated Timber Done Right™ isn’t just about wood preservation. It’s about confidence in timber itself.”

This belief forms the foundation of Treated Timber Done Right™, an industry-wide campaign designed to help specifiers, merchants, contractors and end users better understand what really determines timber durability and long-term performance. The campaign challenges one of the industry’s most persistent misconceptions: that all treated timber is the same.

At the heart of the campaign is what Hodge describes as the “trinity” of good wood preservation: the right preservative, the right timber, and the right process.

“A high-quality preservative cannot compensate for poorly prepared timber, and equally, even the best timber species will not achieve its potential if the treatment process is poorly controlled,” says Hodge. “Successful wood preservation is the combination of chemistry, timber and process discipline.”

The campaign also highlights that not all preservatives are the same, and neither is timber. Modern technologies, timber species and treatment processes all have a part to play in delivering the required service life.

This is why Treated Timber Done Right™ encourages buyers to look beyond appearance, colour and price.

“We’ve all seen timber that’s suspiciously green, or strangely brown, but this isn’t about what timber looks like on the outside. It’s about what will still be there in ten, twenty or thirty years’ time.”

Customers don’t need to become experts in wood preservation. They need confidence that the timber they buy will do the job they bought it for. Treated Timber Done Right™ gives them that confidence.

The industry already has the technical know-how. The conversation just needs to start with two questions: What’s it for? And how long does it need to last?

“The cheapest timber on the day of purchase can easily become the most expensive timber a few years later if it needs replacing,” says Hodge. “Nobody regrets buying timber that lasts. They regret buying timber twice.”

Ultimately, Treated Timber Done Right™ is about restoring confidence in timber as one of the world’s most sustainable and versatile construction materials.

When the right preservative, the right timber and the right process come together, treated wood can deliver decades of reliable performance. When timber is treated right, everybody wins.

Treated Timber Done Right™ – Keeps wood in the game for everyone.