Driving into the southeast Winnipeg community of Sage Creek, Maric Homes' show home at 70 Silver Sage glows like a beacon.
Yes, Pinkwood has come to Winnipeg.
The distinctive pink coating applied to the two-storey home's wooden superstructure -- a low-VOC, water-based coating produced by Alberta-based Pinkwood Ltd. -- resists the growth of mould and rot fungus while providing the key benefit of fire and moisture protection.
According to Blair Nutting, Pinkwood's vice-president of business development, the coating could, in time, prompt a major change in the industry and has been well-received by homebuilders.
"Acceptance of the product has been great," he said. "We now have dealers right from Winnipeg to Victoria. Demand for the coated I-joists is growing quite rapidly -- so much so that we've gone to two shifts of production. We're also looking at buying some high-speed equipment to speed up the manufacturing process."
Although today's engineered wood I-joists outperform traditional wood I-joists, they fall short in one critical area: fire resistance. PKI-joists are a major improvement, Nutting said.
"In a fire, uncoated I joists can lose their strength in less than five minutes -- four to six minutes is typical," he explained. "Our coated PKI-joists basically double the burn time to eight to 12 minutes. That provides people with more time to escape their home."
Pinkwood-coated floor joists, roof trusses and framing materials are also a boon to firefighters, he added.
"Pre-engineered joists (made from wood chips and glue) burn away twice as fast as traditional wooden joists. That leaves floors unsupported beneath. When the fire fighters step on them, they then collapse.
"Knowing whether a home's wooden structure has been treated with PInkwood or not can give firefighters an idea of whether a home is safe to enter or not. In many cases, they choose to try and rescue people through windows because the structure is so unstable. It's just too dangerous to risk entry."
Don Henzel, sales/operations manager at Springhill Lumber, a Pinkwood distributor, said Pinkwood-treated products aren't as expensive as one might think.
"If you go top to bottom on a home that costs $700,000, the added cost of going with the coating would be about $5,000. I think that would be a very worthwhile investment," he said.
As for the reaction of builders themselves, Maric Homes' Dan Rolfe said he was intrigued by last week's demonstration at 70 Silver Sage.
"It's a very interesting product -- I liked what I saw," Rolfe said. "We were happy to be able to help introduce it to the Winnipeg market. It brings an interesting awareness to how homes can be made safer by treating the wood they're built out of. I think the demonstration showed that Pinkwood is an option that people can look at when they're building a new home."
