DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION GUIDE TABLE OF CONTENTS Who we are 3 What is Mass Plywood Panel 4 Mission statement 5 Sustainable practices, LEED info 6 Storage and handling 10 Appearance 12 Structural optimization 14 Specification guide 15 Certifications + approvals 15 MPP design tips 16 MPP layup 17 Connection details 18 Panel properties 19 Glossary 24 Contact 26 ■2 WHO WE ARE Freres Lumber Co., Inc. is an Oregon-based premier wood products manufacturing company dedicated to bringing innovative, high-quality and environmentally- sound wood products to market. Freres Lumber traces its roots to the hills above the Little North Fork of the N. Santiam River in 1922, nurtured by the patriarch of the Freres family, T.G. Freres. The company is almost one hundred years old, and remains a presence in Oregon’s Santiam Canyon today, providing local family-wage jobs and producing high-quality wood products. Freres follows sustainable management practices throughout its three operations: Freres Lumber Co., Freres Timber and Evergreen BioPower, LCC, using 100 percent of its materials in beneficial, value-added products. Freres is committed to providing family wage jobs and operates six plants: Plant 1: Small Log Veneer + Lumber Studmill Plant 2: Large Log Veneer Plant 3: Plywood, Sheathing Mill Plant 4: Veneer Drying Plant 5: Evergreen BioPower Cogeneration Plant 6: MPP Facility Freres is a closely-held family business and its executive team has over 100 years of combined experience in the timber and wood products industries. More than 450 employees support, and are supported by, these operations. The company’s team members are what make Freres one of the premier veneer and panel manufacturers in the world. 3 ■ The company’s core values include a deep respect for wood, the forests our fiber comes from, and the benefits to society that wood products provide. We also have a long-running love of innovation, which motivates us to do more with less of one of the world’s most valuable resources. That innovative streak inspired us to evolve from lumber to veneer manufacturing in 1958, it lead the company into plywood manufacturing in 1998, and it encouraged us in 2007 to build a cogeneration facility that supplies renewable power to 5,000 homes. Our evolution has lead into what could possibly be the most significant new mass timber product in the world, the Mass Plywood Panel, or MPP. WHAT IS A MASS PLYWOOD PANEL? Freres’s MPP is a patented, veneer-based engineered wood product certified by APA – The Engineered Wood Association. MPP is a Mass Timber Panel assembled with Freres 1.6E LVL panels called lamellas. The lamellas are constructed with density-graded Douglas Fir veneers, which are glued and pressed together, creating a large-format wood platform that can be manufactured in thickness at 1″ increments. Freres has engineered MPP to enhance the natural strength of the wood, while adding dimensional stability. It can then be cut precisely to customers’ specifications with advanced Computer Numeric Control (CNC) technologies. Floor, roof and wall panels can be manufactured as large as 11'-10" x 48' and up to 12" thick; beams and columns up to 24" thick. All this leads to decreased assembly times and a more economical building solution. MPP is strong and fire-resistant making it an acceptable building material up to 18 stories. It is also lighter, more economical, and more environmentally sustainable than traditional building materials such as concrete and steel. ■4 MISSION STATEMENT We intend MPP to be the structural building product of choice worldwide. MPP checks the boxes for what architects, engineers, contractors and developers are looking for in a product. WHY MASS TIMBER MPP offers the same benefits as other mass timber products available such as: ■ Fire resiliency ■ Fast construction ■ Small labor force ■ Ease of installation for subcontractors ■ Economical transport ■ Low cost foundations ■ Small seismic forces ■ Environmentally sustainable ■ Aesthetically appealing WHY MPP There are many benefits to veneer-based products, such as: ■ More economical ■ Long spans with less wood ■ Greater flexibility with design ■ Dimensional stability on the jobsite ■ Large production volumes ■ Smaller tree utilization ■ Less waste from harvest to construction MPP APPLICATIONS ■ Floors ■ Elevator shafts ■ Roofs ■ Beams & columns ■ Walls & shearwalls 5 ■ SUSTAINABILITY IN PRACTICE One of the largest privately-owned, independent wood Wasting Nothing products manufacturers on the West Coast, Freres Freres uses 100 percent of the fiber delivered to its has a history of being mindful about its environmental plants from timber harvesting. That means the company impact and observing sustainable management uses a zero waste business model. Freres’s veneer practices throughout its three operations—Freres products are made with a lathe that peels thin layers Lumber Co., Freres Timber and Evergreen BioPower from logs as small as 6 inches in diameter. LCC. Freres has earned its place as a wood product This process reduces waste since more of the wood industry leader in sustainable practices through goes into the final product than cutting square lumber commitment to forest stewardship and continued from round trees. Freres produces and sells residuals investment in innovative products and processes. such as bark dust, chips and sawdust which are used in a variety of industries such as farms and nurseries. Sustaining Timberland Freres’s commitment to sustainability starts in the forest. Renewable Energy - Cogeneration Plant All of their wood comes from a 150-mile radius from the Recycled urban wood and residuals from manufacturing mill and is harvested from sustainably managed forests operations provides renewable bio-mass energy to as a renewable resource. Freres Timber’s 17,000 acres Freres’s Evergreen BioPower cogeneration plant. of timberland are harvested on a sustained yield basis. Biomass energy, a renewable energy, is obtained from This allows Freres Timber to provide high-quality timber combusting wood debris to generate steam, which is today, while managing a healthy forest and providing then either utilized as heat in manufacturing processes timber production for future generations. or used to generate electricity. Steam-generated electricity from Freres’s cogeneration plant supplies As a veneer-based product, MPP allows the use of small the local utility with enough energy to power more than diameter trees. The preferred tree type can be found in 5,000 households, while also delivering heat for plant forests that have a suppressed understory; these trees production processes. grow slower, are smaller in diameter and are not the best candidate for dimensional lumber. However, they produce MPP: Building the Future with Wood denser wood due to the slower growth and therefore Multi-story, mass timber buildings are rapidly yield higher strength values. The veneer process can increasing in popularity for a variety of reasons. From recover this fiber effectively and efficiently; and therefore, a an environmental standpoint, wood is a natural and stronger and stiffer Mass Plywood Panel can be made. renewable resource. New engineered Structural Thinning operations are a perfect means of harvest for Composite Lumber (SCL) products use less wood, these types of trees. Thinning is considered a low impact are strong and lightweight, and get excellent marks in method of harvest and helps to promote a healthy forest. seismic integrity and fire resistance. This is particularly helpful given the excessive wildland fires that are a serious threat to the health and safety of our communities. Thinning would reduce the fuel load and thus reduce the intensity and the spread of wildland fires. ■6 Harvesting and manufacturing wood products requires much less energy than the production of concrete and steel. According to the EPA’s Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks (1990-2013), carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted from iron, steel, and cement production are the first and second largest sources of industrial CO2 emissions in the U.S. Not only that, but forests absorb CO2 and store carbon. The timber is harvested for the wood product. The carbon is stored in the product for the lifetime of the structure. Meanwhile, more trees are replanted that pull more CO2 out of the atmosphere. This is why mass timber is said to be carbon negative. ■ MPP uses 20-30% less wood than CLT and in the manufacturing process and typically exceeds structural properties with less overall material. ■ Mass timber has greater thermal performance than its more conductive counterparts concrete and steel. Additionally, prefabrication creates a tighter envelope further increasing its thermal performance. To top it off, there is a thermal mass benefit that helps lower the peak temperature swings. ■ Producing one ton of concrete emits 8 times more carbon dioxide (CO2) than lumber used in building. Steel produces 21 times the CO2. (According to the EPA’s Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2013). ■ According to Tallwood Design Institute, mass timber manufacturing produces less carbon emissions stores carbon from the harvested trees, and then replanted trees continue to sequester more carbon out of the atmosphere. ■ Carbon is further reduced by less transportation and smaller construction equipment required. ■ Freres’s MASS MPP being a veneer based product means it can cogeneration plant can TIMBER utilize smaller logs, have a higher fiber recovery, supply renewable energy requires