The agriculture, equine and home DIY sectors should opt for pine over spruce fencing posts, according to a Suffolk supplier of timber products.

Woodbank Timber of Ipswich has launched the SurePine brand as an alternative to spruce, which currently accounts for the vast majority of fence posts used across the UK.

Woodbank’s Adrian Howden says pine offers a number of advantages, including absorbing preservatives better, making it easier to treat and achieve the required 100% sapwood penetration.

He says: ‘Both spruce and pine have to be treated as their sapwood is non-durable, but spruce is a refractory species which makes it difficult to attain the required level of preservative penetration.’

He says SurePine posts are dried properly before being treated with Koppers Performance Chemicals’ Celcure C65 preservative, then rigorously tested and quality checked in Koppers’ laboratories.

‘We believe it’s time that pine started making its mark in fence posts. The advantages are clear and we are already seeing a high level of industry curiosity and demand for SurePine,’ he adds.