Article from Green Building Product Dealer Magazine… This is a very informative web resource with many relevant articles and links to products and ideas.
Green Building Product Dealer is a national magazine dedicated to informing the construction and remodeling supply channel about a new generation of high performance green products which are destined to become the standards in the building community.
Re-Inventing Bingham Lumber
In Brookline, New Hampshire, a new generation guides this 62-year-old family business in a sustainable yet tradition-rich direction.
Bingham Lumber was founded as a white pine sawmill in 1946, but this family-owned business is now turning heads for how well it shapes and finishes wood that was first milled many decades, or even centuries, before.
Credit Tom and Rebekka Bingham for the transition. Despite his relative youth, Tom Bingham appreciates wood as only a veteran lumberman can. The family business, Bingham Lumber, started out catering to the post World War II building boom, and at one point churned out over 10 million board feet a year. “We never were a really big production mill,” said Tom. “Our specialty was wide plank paneling, flooring, wainscot, and the historical or traditional pattern work.”
That focus became the company’s primary niche after Tom and his wife Rebekka bought the business 7 years ago. “We moved away from the production end of the white pine industry – which has become ultra-competitive,” said Tom. And Bingham Lumber also began establishing itself as a go-to source for finished reclaimed lumber as well.
Homeowners and architects here would like their homes and offices to reflect traditional New England design, but worry about the carbon footprint of the fresh sawn wood that might require. “Over the last 7 or 8 years we’ve seen a heightened awareness of where these materials are coming from – even responsibly harvested material,” said Bingham. “People are interested in an alternative to wood that has to be harvested today.”
complete “Re-inventing Bingham Lumber” article
Link to Bingham Lumber web site
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