(St. Thomas | Toronto | Ripon – April 6, 2021) Element5, Ontario’s first and only Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) manufacturer, is proud to announce that their new factory in St. Thomas, Ontario, has received certification from PFS TECO of Cottage Grove, WI (USA) for the production of CLT under the ANSI/APA PRG 320-2019 Standard for Performance-Rated Cross-Laminated Timber.
Chris Latour, VP of Manufacturing Engineering, made the welcome announcement, congratulating his team on the achievement. “It is an amazing milestone that was achieved through extraordinary collaboration and dedication by the entire team. A special appreciation for our excellent Quality team and PFS TECO for the strong partnership.”
The ANSI/APA PRG 320 standard covers the manufacturing, qualification, and quality assurance requirements for CLT in Canada and the United States. Now that the testing and certification process has been successfully completed for V2 Grade 5-layer CLT made from Spruce-pine-fir (SPF), certification of the company’s other panel layups will be quickly completed in the coming months.
Element5 began construction on their new 137,000 ft2 manufacturing facility in the second half of 2019, prior to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite the unforeseen challenges arising from the pandemic, the factory was constructed on schedule and the highly automated, state-of-the-art manufacturing line was installed, commissioned, and certified on the company’s originally projected timeline. Element5 credits the achievement to the hard work and dedication of not only their team, but also the many partners involved throughout the process.
“Chris and his team, jointly with our valuable partners PFS TECO and Ledinek, have worked incredibly hard together to achieve this goal in a very short period of time and they all deserve credit and appreciation for this major accomplishment on Element5’s journey” says Element5’s President and CEO, Patrick Poulin. “We know many people are celebrating this milestone along with us. Developers and designers have been anticipating the availability of Ontario-made CLT and we are excited to move forward on projects in our pipeline.”