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Housing availability and affordability is a critical concern in communities across Canada. This issue, Atlantic Business Magazine examines how the housing crisis is impacting home sales in Newfoundland and Labrador; increasing capacity throughout the Maritimes for faster construction (particularly multi-unit housing); and, innovative alternatives to traditional construction materials.
This is not a definitive analysis of the issue. Nor is it a comprehensive summary of challenges and solutions. Rather, it is an introduction to how the local business community is responding to an urgent social situation.
Critical mass
Engineered wood products an increasingly popular building material
Canadian homes make good use of Canadian softwood lumber but for larger building construction, including multi-unit homes, concrete and steel are still the leading building materials. However, there’s a relatively new building material that’s getting increased attention, particularly in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia: mass timber.
Mass timber is not one product but a category of building materials. It’s engineered wood products, made from lumber layered and bonded together in different ways. Glue-laminated timber (glulam) has been around for decades, for instance, but attention has jumped more recently to cross-laminated timber (CLT). Natural Resources Canada calls it the “new generation” of engineered mass timber product.
The latter takes lumber board dried in a kiln and layers the board in alternating levels, running North-South on one layer, then East-West on the next. There is adhesive between the layers and intense pressure added. CLT is released as large panels that can be used for walls, floors and roofs, or shaped as needed.
In 2020, the National Building Code changed to allow mass-timber construction up to 12 storeys in Canada, when the mass timber is encapsulated (ie. covered by a fire-resistant material). Every year since, projects have hit milestones for mass timber and new “wood-first” policies have come from provincial governments. There has also been public investment to help local suppliers get up and running.
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