Building a house? Give LVL a try.
So far, we’ve only been learning about various furniture plywood, with good looking veneers and durability to be applied in interior design purposes. This time, we’ll introduce to you a new type of plywood, LVL plywood. Though lacking all of the grace and elegance of furniture plywood, LVL is just as, if not more strong and durable, making it perfect for construction projects. In this article, we will explore the benefits of LVL plywood and why it is a great choice for someone who prioritizes strength over looks.
LVL or Laminated Veneer Lumber plywood is manufactured using normal sliced up wood veneers like any other plywood. What sets it apart is the way the veneers are arranged, instead of in a cross grained fashion, all LVL veneers are layered with their wood grain direction in parallel. While it’s true that this can potentially affect the strength of the plywood, LVL boards are usually manufactured this way to allow it to endure bending stress. To compensate, LVL plywood is usually made of thicker veneers to ensure its durability, due to this, LVL boards often have higher strength than that of their counterparts. Thanks to its ability to bend, LVL plywood is resistant to warping, twisting and splitting, making it a great choice for load-bearing builds and heavy construction. To this end, LVL manufacturing is usually flexible with most manufacturers catering to custom specifications, in terms of thickness, width and length.
LVL plywood can easily bend under weight.
Unlike most plywood that we’ve discussed, the materials used in LVL manufacturing are usually not uniformly of the same species. LVL cores are usually mixed with different wood species such as poplar, pine, acacia, eucalyptus, rubber and more. This can help with sustainability, since leftover wood can be sliced up into veneers which are then used in the manufacture of LVL plywood, regardless of their species. Though this rarely affects the quality of the board, it won’t look as good, as you can see all the core layers with different colors when looking through the exposed edges. This doesn’t make it suitable for furniture use, but if you’re dead set on making them work, the edges can be sealed up using paint or edge banding. The main uses of LVL still lies in their fantastic strength and durability, divided into two main types of LVL with different pricing. Packing LVL, used for building goods containers and packaging, is rather cheap. While construction LVL, mainly used for, well, construction, can sometimes cost as much as a piece of Birch plywood.
Overall, LVL plywood is a quality plywood that offers numerous benefits perfect for building purposes. With high strength and durability, LVL has a consistency that makes it perfect for a wide range of uses. If you’re in the market for a good, hardy building material, use LVL.
