TIMBER QUESTION TIME
As part of its ongoing drive to support merchants, the team at SR Timber compiled a list of the most frequently asked questions by merchants. Trading Director Shaun Revill tells BMJ the top five and suggests a few they should really be asking.
WHEN WE ASKED OUR team about all the questions they regularly get asked when visiting or calling merchants, the same five questions kept coming up over and over again.
Top 5 questions 1. Is the price still the same? The cost of materials will always be the first question that is asked because, understandably, merchants are always looking for the best prod- ucts at the very best prices for their customers. 2. What lengths have you got? This one is becoming more prevalent. For years roofing contractors would only ever ask merchants for 4.8m lengths, but interestingly, we’re getting asked about the other lengths we can offer – which range from 3m to 5.4m in increments of 30cms. Our conversations with merchants suggest that roofing contractors are coming round to the idea of buying different lengths to save money and cut down on wast- age. The issue of wastage is especially impor- tant because minimising waste whenever and wherever possible is beneficial in reducing the environmental impact. 3. What are your stock levels looking like? This is one that we look forward to being asked as it gives us an opportunity to explain that we have complete management of our timber from the forest to the roof. That’s because we have a robust supply chain, which means we have close ties with the forestry management organisations in the Baltic regions, a dedicated sawmill in Latvia and great relationships with shipping companies – all of which means we always have a constant supply of batten in, and coming into, the UK.
4. How quickly can you get it to us? Following on from the previous question, it’s then all about how quickly we can get deliveries
to merchants, and we always say between 48 and 72 hours. We’ve heard of instances where timber suppliers are offering very keen prices on batten but can’t deliver for 3–4 weeks. That’s crazy as merchants need a quick turnaround time from ordering to delivery.
For us, the most asked question is always the most interesting one. 5. How’s everyone else doing? Merchants are competitive and they’re always trying to get any bits of information out of us so that they can find out how other merchants are doing and how the market is generally. We’re not ones to gossip, but it’s always an interesting conversation to have to get a finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the mer- chant sector, particularly on a regional basis.
What merchants should ask 1. Why should I choose Gold over other co- loured timber roofing batten? This is more of a question that roofing con- tractors should be asking merchants – so it’s important that merchants have the answers. Gold is the industry standard for timber roofing batten because it’s correctly compliant with BS 5534:2014 + A2:2018. There are other colours of batten, such as blue, but this is more of a grey area because while there are some repu- table suppliers that produce blue to the British Standard, there are other suppliers who colour batten blue, therefore passing off substandard batten as something that looks compliant. Blue is a generic brand where nobody actually owns this colour. 2. What am I looking for with graded batten? There’s a requirement for graded batten to be properly marked on the side (edge) or the face, and there should be five pieces of information stamped on the side of every length of batten,
giving contractors key
information.In order from left to right, the markings are as follows: l Q – a certification such as the Q Mark, denot- ing independently assessed third-party quality assurance, shows that the grading, preservative treatment, product marking and management processes have all been independently audited and verified by a good third-party body, in our case UKAS accredited. l TX TTB-012 – TX is the sawmill identification mark. TTB-012 is the certificate number for the Q Mark issued by BM Trada. l GRADED BS5534 – the batten must have been pre-graded to the British Standard. l WPPA – the species code of the timber, WPPA, refers to pine and spruce – which is a mixed species code. l 25x50 – batten dimensions in millimetres. The other standard size is 25 mm x 38 mm. It’s important to note that batten should be
produced from well managed forests with certi- fication covering both legality and sustainability. All Premium Gold batten carries either FSC or PEFC certification proving it is sourced sustain- ably. Whenever purchasing batten this should be a main point for everyone, ensuring we all play our part in reducing the environmental impact. 3. Where does batten come from? We recently exhibited at a contractors’ trade show and we played a short video on a loop, showing how our sawmill takes logs and turns them into battens. Everyone who saw it was mesmerised, and it proved to be a huge talk- ing point that sparked lots of questions around where our timber comes from, what type of timber we use, the process of sawing it down (including which parts of the log we used), how we turn it Gold and how we inspect it for qual- ity before it’s shipped to the UK.
BMJ
18
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net June 2020
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32
