Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 10

34 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 10 Timmerman, which began with mostly residential builds, now primarily takes on commercial projects. They use their years of experience making custom residential creations and they apply that workmanship to their commercial enterprises. “With commercial builds you’re seeing bigger members, CLT or NLT (cross-laminated timber, nail-laminated timber) floor and roof slabs pushing building taller, but the design of the connections and our knowledge of wood capabilities is still the same,” Ferguson says. “We can utilize similar connection mechanics from mortise and tenon-style timber framing and pull it into a larger construction atmosphere; you’re going to see more development of wood-on-wood connections, as opposed to nuts and bolts and steel plates.” The company is constantly working to expand its knowledge of timber. As the only automated nail-laminated timber panel manufacturer in all North America, they have been working to produce a prototype that will double production capacity over the next 2 years. “There’s some huge innovation here with what the final product is going to be able to do,” Ferguson says. “It will compete with things like precast and core slabs, and also with other mass timber products such as CLT.” Nail-laminated timber is a more cost-effective alternative to CLT. It can be produced at a lower price point and be installed at the same rate. Ferguson admits, “I don’t like to self-advertise, but personally I love the look of it. It has a completely different appeal than CLT. When you walk into a building and you see a ceiling made of NLT panels, the lines of the long, crisp NLT laminations contrast beautifully with the warmth and rusticity of the wood. It’s a structural element that can make a strong architectural impression.” Timmerman as a business is reflective of the material itself. It runs with strong core values but they also like to have some fun. The company