LP opens laminated strand lumber facility

Nashville, Tenn.-based Louisiana-Pacific has opened a new laminates strand lumber (LSL) facility in Houlton, Maine.

Executive vp and CFO Curt Stevens called the new facility an “important investment project” for LP. The mill was converted from an oriented strand board (OSB) mill to produce the more eco-friendly LSL product.

LP will manufacture its SolidStart LSL products at the facility, an engineered lumber product that used 100 percent of each log -- an “environmentally friendly alternative to traditional lumber that our customers have been asking for,” Stevens said.

The Houlton facility opened in 1982 as an OSB mill, and the expansion and conversion to an LSL mill represents an investment of more than $140 million, the company said. LP broke ground on the expansion in the fall of 2006, making its first board in March of this year.

Designed for an annual production capacity of seven million cubic feet, Houlton is LP’s first LSL manufacturing facility. The LSL wood is used in a variety of residential construction products, including headers and beams, wall studs, roof beams and rafters, truss chords, rim boards and stair stringers.

The expansion has added about 40 jobs to the Houlton mill, which now employs 158 workers.