Thread: New Zealand premium pine. How good is it

Pine has been grown as a plantation timber in NZ for many more years than in Australia.

For many years NZ plantation pine was the timber of choice for beehives because it was far superior to anything grown here.

Whether that is still the case I know not but the product certainly had a good reputation in the past.

Originally Posted by artme

For many years NZ plantation pine was the timber of choice for beehives because it was far superior to anything grown here.

Hoop Pine was generally used previously, grown locally in plantations, but there seems to have been changes in the sizes they are prepared to cut recently. I also hear that the NZ pine works out cheaper.

Thanks for that guys it certainly looks good, I wonder if it is Radiata Pine or different pine.

Hi Sandman
Im a builder in New Zealand
and Pine is pretty much all we use these days actually for a 30 odd years now
in the past started with boron treatment and now with cca H3.2 and losp treatment H3.1
and no treatment which is what we use for interior finishings
its now been genetically modified to grow faster, getting milled in 10-15 years. Years ago this was about 30 years so turnover now is good. Problem being now as NZ has found out that its not as strong as 30 years ago because its grown so fast and grains not as tight making it weaker so our codes all changed around 2004 because problems of sagging over sizable spans
but all in all still a great timber for NZ housing and used everyday
Is the NZ pine you get there treated?
It is radiata pine

Before you go ahead and purchase the pine check the widths I bought some to make an indoor planer box their 4x1 dressed is 89mm x 19mm,3x1 is 64x19mm,just a heads up !

Thanks guys sorry I'm a bit slow getting back,

acmegridley what I bought was marked in metric and it checks out, looks good too compared to some of the light coloured soft meranti.

Rolla the pine I bought doesn't look to be treated and it has a lable that says Premium Pine and the sizes so it would say if it was treated. I don't know what boron treated pine looks like, our perma-pine is green I think they might use copper, When our house was built about 20 years ago the radiata pine used in the construction wasn't treated (when I built my deck and pergola I used treated radiata pine) I have noticed lately driving past some new houses being built and the pine looks coloured so maybe someone who is a builder here can say.