Smooth Finish Beam
24th July 2015
Judy Maybury really happy with her new fireplace beam, Altham Oak now do a #smooth #finish #oak #fireplace #beam! great for a contemporary feel!
24th July 2015
Judy Maybury really happy with her new fireplace beam, Altham Oak now do a #smooth #finish #oak #fireplace #beam! great for a contemporary feel!
9th July 2015
Latests small commission by Altham Oak testimonial from customer….’I received excellent service from Altham Oak.. Very professional and friendly! Together with competitive prices and a fantastic result! Couldn’t recommend them highly enough.’ Stephen Collins – Scruples Menswear
26th June 2015
Testimonial from recent Clients Lynton Greenwood Master Builders….”We’re really pleased with the detail and amazing quality of our new feature trusses, they really are the show stopper on our new barn conversion. Altham Oak have worked with us every step of the way and helped to design and re-design to give us exactly what we want. They have produced a really special quality bespoke item at a very competitive price”
18th June 2015
Brian had this Bespoke Oak window specially Commissioned in May for his house renovation. At half a tone this is not your average window! Stuart thought we had the scale wrong on our drawing, but I think you will agree the end result is pretty spectacular.
18th June 2015
Produced a bespoke King Post Feature Truss For Bill Bell, This 5m Truss was lifted into position under an existing roof so the dimensions had to be exact! Bill was happy with the finished article….”Well chuffed with the outcome and the truss looks fantastic, thanks to Gareth and all at Altham Oak”
19th July 2012
Civil engineers have applied to Rutland County Council to create an imposing landmark celebrating the East Midlands region using locally sourced oak beams.
The local civil engineering firm Smithers Purslow, which is based in the Rutland village of Glaston, wants to place oak carpentry at the heart of the project which would take place on the A6003/A47 roundabout on the outskirts of Uppingham – the northern approach into the market town.
Rutland is famed for its wood conservation, and its consequent reputation as a good source of oak wood.
Currently a floral display, the planned renovation would see this replaced with a tripod of oak beams topped by a display of iron horseshoes. The whole structure would be an impressive sight, with the oak beams being 23 feet in height and the array of horseshoes coming in at three feet. Oak trees would also comprise the fencing around the display.
11th July 2012
The Forestry Commission warned walkers, ramblers and anyone involved in wood conservation in the south-east London area this week that there has been an infestation of toxic moths in Bromley.
The oak processionary moth, which is not native to the UK, can be dangerous to both human and animal health, and infestations have been discovered in woodland and individual oak trees in the West Wickham area of Bromley. These new disoveries are located some nine miles from an established outbreak of oak processionary moths in west London – leading Forestry Commission officials to believe that this is a totally separate case.
The moths’ caterpillars are believed to have come to the UK from continental Europe in imported oak beams used for oak carpentry, and have spiny hairs that are poisonous – capable of causing severe itching to the skin and eyes, plus sore throats in humans and pets. They are also dangerous for the oak trees themselves, eating the leaves and leaving the trees denuded, vulnerable to disease and other threats.
The Forestry Commission’s south-east England regional director Alison Field said: “We are working with Bromley Council and others involved to eradicate the outbreak as quickly as possible.”
She warned anyone with an infested oak tree not to try and remove the caterpillar nests themselves as these can be rife with toxic hairs.
4th July 2012
A government-appointed panel of independent advisors declared Britain’s publicly-owned forests to be a national asset and strongly urged against any sell-off.
The Independent Forestry Panel – chaired by the Bishop of Liverpool – said that it had received over 42,000 responses to a consultation from people and organisations interested in wood conservation and other forestry matters and noted that recent research has made a correlation between the existence of accessible woodlands and a nation’s physical and psychological well-being.
In its final report to the government, it said that “we need a new culture of thinking and action around wood and woodlands; a new way of valuing and managing the natural and social capital of our woodland resource, alongside the timber they contain.”
The report argued that proper wood conservation and other forestry management measures could play a part in “a sustainable economic revival” and recommended that England’s woodland area should be increased from 10 per cent to 15 per cent by 2060. It also said that education should include “an element of woodland-based learning” for every child.
The government has accepted the key recommendation of the report and said that “we will not sell the public forest estate.”
19th June 2012
A rollercoaster tale of wood conservation finally reached a happy conclusion this week when the residents of Galveston County in Texas successfully rescued a 100-year-old oak tree that was lying in the path of a road-widening project.
The tree – a Ghirardi Oak, to be precise – weighs up to 540,000 pounds, including its roots complex, needed to be shifted some 1,500 feet from the site where it has stood for more than a century.
Problems abounded during the procedure, as contractors received a crash course in the, er, weightier aspects of wood conservation – with work grinding to a halt when steel beams placed under the oak buckled under the load and needed replacing, along with the addition of spreader bars to distribute the weight. Cranes also needed to be placed nearer the tree to take the weight.
Fortunately, the oak tree was finally lifted out of the ground last Wednesday without incident and will now hold pride of place in the city’s new “Water Smart Park”, an educational park dedicated to spreading the message of biodiversity and water conservation.
14th May 2012
The Forestry Commission has revealed the pressing need to step up wood conservation in the UK, after official figures published this week again exposed Britain’s over-reliance on imported timber.
The most recent figures showed that in 2010 some £6.8 million worth of wood products were imported into Britain, comprising some 10 million cubic metres of wood – a 19 per cent increase compared to the previous year. The amount of wood imported was equivalent to around 80 per cent of the timber requirements of the UK building, crafts and engineering industries.
Areas where wood production is still a priority, such as Scotland are contributing as much as they can, with Scotland home to over 50 per cent of the domestic supplies of oak beams and other forms of timber – however, high demand is also having a negative effect on wood conservation, with foresters cutting more wood than is being replanted.
A 2009 report on the world’s forests by the Food and Agriculture Organisation said that the world population is growing by 3 per cent each year, and timber use is increasing in its turn, especially in fast-developing countries such as India and China and India. As a result, the UK needs to pay more attention to wood conservation – particularly since it is one of the world’s greatest net importers of timber.