Over the past decade, cross-laminated timber (CLT) has become a popular choice in construction. More and more projects are specifying CLT, as an attractive, sustainable, high quality and competitive construction material. CLT is now used for the structural frame in all kinds of buildings, including apartment blocks, schools, administrative buildings, commercial buildings, halls and car parks.

This growing use of CLT is also increasingly prompting questions about what surface quality the client can expect, not least in buildings designed to have visible CLT surfaces. The end user might contact the CLT manufacturer once the building has been in use for a while, to ask questions about changes in appearance that they have noticed. Even inspectors sometimes wonder how they should be assessing CLT surfaces during the final inspection.

This Guide to assessing CLT surface quality is intended to provide support for developers, project managers, architects, purchasers and others at the start of a project and for inspectors and contractors at the end.

Surface qualities other than these industry standards may be offered by CLT manufacturers, but they must be given different designations than those presented in this publication.

The publication has been produced jointly by industry body Swedish Wood and Sweden’s CLT manufacturers.

I'm interested in:

• CLT
• mass timber
• Swedish Wood