All benches are treated with a wax coating on the end grain to stabilise the drying process

The Forest Research Association of New Zealand classes Macrocarpa timber as Moderately Durable. This means it has a life expectancy of up to 50 years in normal outdoor exposure.

Ground contact is minimised by using our own galvanised brackets to lock the benches to the concrete bases. The area in contact with the concrete is treated with a preservative and sealed with a wax emulsion or the bench is isolated from the concrete with treated pine. Where in ground contact cannot be avoided such as with bollards the timber is treated with a paint on preservative.

All necessary hold-down brackets are made for The Park Bench Co Ltd and are supplied with the bench.

The surface of the benches is treated with a water repellent and mould inhibitor. This dries to a clear finish and gives the timber a golden colour that fades to a weathered silver grey. The coating makes the timber dry quicker after rain.

The best way is to use a large grinder with 120 grit disks. Simply sand back the surface of the timber to a clean “as new” appearance.

We do not recommend using any coating other than that applied at the time of manufacture. Coatings peel off over time and are easily scratched thereby making ongoing maintenance more time consuming.

Slabs can be replaced or the whole bench can be removed from the hold-down brackets and sent to The Park Bench Co Ltd. for repair.

The Choice is Yours!

We often receive enquiries for our furniture to be manufactured out of treated pine

This is possible but there are some considerations

• Due to the bigger sizes of timber Park Benches uses, we get all of our timber milled specifically
• Generally, in bigger sizes, macrocarpa is more readily available than pine.
• New Zealand foresters generally harvest pine plantations at sizes smaller than what is required by Park Benches.
• Pressure treatment of pine does not fully penetrate the full depth of the timber sizes used by Park Benches.

To overcome these difficulties, Park Benches keeps in contact will foresters who may have oversized trees in their plantations.

Park Benches has a milling contractor who can work the bigger logs.

Park Benches pre-machines all of our pine furniture before any treatment so as not to compromise the integrity of the treatment by machining after.

Park Benches has all pine products treated to standard H4.1, greater than that is required for above ground use.

There are some pieces, like the 400 x 450 Beam Seats, where we just can’t access big enough pine logs and will continue to be made of Macrocarpa.