The company, which recently restarted construction work on its €70m Creuzburg LVL factory following the end of severe cold weather, is also planning a UK campaign targeting architects and specifiers with the product.
Pollmeier has developed beech LVL to challenge softwood glulam beams and softwood LVL and give architects an option to use a higher strength timber beam where they might otherwise opt for steel or concrete.
"The UK will be one of the first targets," said Jan Hassan, Pollmeier marketing manager. The UK’s increasing use of glulam was one of the primary reasons for being highlighted, he added.
The Creuzburg factory will have a 150,000m3 finished product capacity when it is completed by the end of 2013 and products will be available by the start of 2014.
Pollmeier says its beech LVL has a bending strength almost three times that of softwood glulam and one-and-a-half times that of softwood LVL.
"We are quite sure there is no product anywhere on the market that will come close to our product’s strength," added Mr Hassan. "It will be competitive pricewise with softwood glulam."
He said producing beech glulam was too expensive because of the cost of drying hardwood, but Pollmeier’s highly automated industrial-scale production and drying of 3mm veneer sections for LVL was more cost-effective.
"In some cases a softwood glulam beam would not be strong enough or would be too large and the architect would have to use steel or concrete."
The LVL move is part of Pollmeier’s diversificaion from tradtional beech timber products.
Mr Hassan said while the company’s traditional beech markets were OK at the moment, no big growth was envisaged in the forseeable future.
