When this year’s Members’ Day was finished, British Woodworking Federation (BWF) president Roy Wakeman proudly declared it had been the "best ever" in the BWF’s history.

A line-up of high-calibre speakers, including architect Andrew Waugh and Construction Products Association (CPA) chief executive Diana Montgomery, inspired and informed more than 140 delegates at the Loughborough University event.

A product exhibition, networking opportunities and workshops dealing with everything from CE marking to the potential of heat-treated laminated American hardwoods provided evidence that this was a not to be missed event.

Mr Wakeman spoke of "great strides forward", including the BWF hitting budget plans for subscription (40 new members so far in 2013), a 90% annual member retention rate and enquiry levels for federation services at an all-time high.

He also cited recent Palmer market research, commissioned by the Wood Window Alliance, which shows timber windows and doors are regaining market share, now back up to 20% of the windows market.

Other highlights in the past 12 months include website traffic to the BWF Certifire Fire Door scheme website increasing by 1,000%, and the launch of Europe’s first Fire Door Inspection Scheme.

The Wood Window Alliance is also spending a hefty £300,000 on annual promotional work.

Discussions on the economy were lively during the event’s first Question Time-style debate, with Mr Wakeman saying the government needed to "wake up" to the opportunities of reducing VAT on repair, maintenance and improvement work.

He said reducing VAT from the current 20% to 5% was a sound way to boost the construction sector, including joinery firms, and was backed up by good maths. About 70% of the joinery sector’s work, he added, was in the refurbishment/improvement market.

"We need a low VAT rate to convert the black economy," Mr Wakeman said. BWF chief executive Iain McIlwee agreed During questions, some joinery manufacturers expressed their disillusionment with the NVQ apprenticeship scheme. "It does not really serve a purpose as far as I’m concerned," said one.

Another delegate said the apprenticeship course involved a section on pitched roofs, which had nothing to do with his business, so he had to take the apprentice to a building site in order to pass the section. "Some of the colleges are doing it for cash, not because of the end result," complained another.

"The majority of people here are manufacturers of doors, windows and staircases," he said. "Apprentices should not be called a bench joiner but an architectural joiner."

But another delegate said apprentices were working well for him and made up a quarter of his 16 workers.

"Gradually people are moving away from going to university and we are getting some really good skilled people coming to us," he said.

Mr McIlwee urged members to get involved in the BWF’s Woodworking Industry Training Forum. "This is where all the work [on training] is happening. It should be better supported."

Mr Wakeman will be handing over the reigns of BWF president to David Pattenden, managing director of Westgate Joinery, at the BWF AGM on July 18.

Support for Grown in Britain encouraged

Dr Ed Suttie, head of timber at the BRE, invited joinery companies to become supporters of the Grown in Britain campaign, the wood industry action plan which was part of the government’s response to the Independent Panel on Forestry.

"The joinery sector is not the biggest user of home-grown wood but you never know," he said.

Dr Suttie said buying home-grown sweet chestnut and oak was a way of supporting the aims of the campaign.

Joiners urged to comply with CE marking

Getting to grips with CE marking proved to be one of the hottest topics debated in the 2013 BWF Members’ Day workshop programme.

July 1 is the looming deadline for windows and doorsets to have mandatory CE marking under the European Construction Products Regulation 2011.

Speaker Kevin Frewin, of BSI, warned delegates at the event that if they had not yet embarked on the CE process they would struggle to meet the deadline.

He urged people to obtain a copy of the EN 14351 roadmap document, with Annex ZA being what people actually needed to CE mark against.

The only three scenarios where door and window products don’t need CE marking – unlikely to be many companies – is where they are individually manufactured or custommade, manufactured on the construction site or made in a traditional manner (such as a heritage window made using a non-industrial process for a listed building refurbishment). A Declaration of Performance (DOP) must be drawn up for CE marking.

Three areas that manufacturers need their product DOP to cover are U-values, dangerous substances and the load-bearing capacity of any safety devices (basically all safety restrictors which stop windows from opening too wide).

Mr Frewin warned manufacturers not to claim a different product performance in sales literature from that on a DOP.

He also urged members to check kit they were buying from suppliers.

A jail term and hefty fine could be levied if wrong DOP claims were made.

"A lot of people in construction products are going to come unstuck," he said.

Requirements to CE mark include a factory production control (FPC) system, testing in line with a prescribed test plan, initial type testing, inspection of manufacturing plant and FPC, continuous surveillance, assessment and evaluation and audit testing before placing on the market.

The CE mark can be applied to a rebate, frame, on packaging or with documents, but a peel-off label is sufficient as there is no requirement for a CE mark on the product after sale.

Mr Frewin pointed out that the British Fenestration Ratings Council was not a notified body so it could not approve DOPs.

US hardwoods turns on the heat

The American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) showed how US temperate hardwoods, when heat-treated and laminated, offer significant potential for the manufacture of high-quality timber windows.

AHEC’s workshop during Members’ Day demonstrated that US ash, tulipwood, soft maple, red oak (quarter sawn), yellow birch and hickory/pecan were all suitable for heat treatment .

AHEC also showed an example of a heat-treated, laminated US hardwood window in the Members’ Day exhibition.

AHEC consultant Neil Summers, of Timber Dimension, said the key product benefits included improved durability, no need to use chemicals or stainless steel fixings, consistent colour and 20-25% better thermal values than an unmodified equivalent. Heat treatment disadvantages are limitations on section size and a reduction in bending strength.

Heat-treated US red oak, soft maple, ash, yellow birch and tulipwood were all used in AHEC’s Infinity Bench, designed by Martino Gamper and displayed at the V&A Museum during last year’s London Design Festival.

Joinery trade’s easy route to EUTR compliance

Joinery companies working to comply with the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) should have nothing to fear. That was the advice from Michael Kearney who heads the team responsible for enforcing the EUTR at the National Measurement Office (NMO).

The EUTR, implemented in March, makes it a criminal offence to import illegally-harvested timber into the EU, while also requiring companies in the supply chain to keep records of their suppliers and customers.

Mr Kearney warned that persistent deliberate offenders would feel the weight of enforcement action – up to two years’ imprisonment and large fines.

"For most joinery manufacturers, you just need to make a record of who you buy from and who you sell to," Mr Kearney advised. He said companies dealing with tropical timber or wood from eastern Europe would get more attention from the NMO. "More so than domestic timber or wood from North America. "We will be grading companies based on risk and we won’t be visiting every company. Companies that are not dealing in high-risk supply chains will probably not hear from us at all.

"We want companies to feel comfortable to come to us for advice but we will also be robust to those companies who are circumventing the legislation."

The NMO will use various methods including fibre microscopy, isotopic analysis and DNA analysis to identify timber sources. "Looking at a pile of timber in a yard is very difficult to establish whether it’s legitimate. We’re taking a medium to long-term view to compliance rather than an immediate compliance tomorrow. The legislation is too ambiguous at the moment."

While timber importers will get more enforcement attention than the joinery trade, manufacturers that import fire door blanks direct from China or a bespoke joiner who fells his own tree could receive extra interest from the NMO.