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  1. 20th April 2007, 02:42 PM #1
    Carpenter's Avatar
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    Default Merbau durability surprise!

    I found some durability class tables & to my surprise Merbau has an in ground durability rating of 2 (1 is best, 4 is worse) & an above ground rating of 3. I thought it was a lot better than this & it makes me wonder why we're using it so heavily for external applications. It pays to do your homework. This rating comes from the "National Association of Forest Industries" timber manual datafile P1. Its one of the downloadable publications at www.timber.org.au.
    "the bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten"
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  3. 20th April 2007, 02:51 PM #2
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    One of the reasons I used it is because it is on the list of acceptable timbers to use in bushfire danger areas.
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  4. 20th April 2007, 03:13 PM #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by silentC View Post
    One of the reasons I used it is because it is on the list of acceptable timbers to use in bushfire danger areas.
    Likewise. Blue Mountains City Council insisted on it when I built my deck.
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  5. 20th April 2007, 05:35 PM #4
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    Maybe thats the compromise.
    "the bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten"
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  6. 20th April 2007, 05:39 PM #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Carpenter View Post
    Maybe thats the compromise.
    Blue Mountains City Council in a compromise? HA!

    (you don't work for council, do you? )
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  7. 20th April 2007, 06:21 PM #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Felder View Post
    Blue Mountains City Council in a compromise? HA!

    (you don't work for council, do you? )
    Nope. but I'm about to put in a DA.
    "the bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten"
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  8. 20th April 2007, 06:25 PM #7
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    How good are you at jumping through hoops?

    Seriously, I live near the Springwood Golf Course. Or to more accurate, my property backs on to the Springwood Golf Course. It is bushland behind my back fence, about 30m deep before you get to the large expanse of a fairway. Council made me install a 5000 ltr water tank for firefighting purposes. And I back on to one of the biggest fire breaks in the Mountains!
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  9. 22nd April 2007, 11:16 PM #8
    colleend
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    Default bushfire timber

    Quote Originally Posted by silentC View Post
    One of the reasons I used it is because it is on the list of acceptable timbers to use in bushfire danger areas.
    We used red iron bark which looks gorgeous but was definitely more expensive. The annoying thing is that no one has put grey ironbark through the calorimeter so it can't be used. It is almost identical density, and if you look at the bushfire safe timbers and the densities there is a pretty close match! Grey ironbark is a lot cheaper too, sigh!
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  10. 28th April 2007, 10:10 AM #9
    slabman
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    The durability properties quoted for Merbau seem a little strange. I thought that Merbau was globally regarded as a durable timber suitablke for above ground use (i,e, Class 2 or better). Usually the above ground durability is higher than the on ground rating which causes me to wonder whether the table quoted from has a transposition error in it?

    In additional to Iron Bark, Silver Top ash has a suitable durability rating (class 2 above ground) as well as a fire rating. It is usually lower priced than Iron Bark and quite a strong and hard timber. Blackbutt is another.
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