We, at PermaSeal, like facts. To confirm scientifically what we already knew about how effective our wood sealant is, we reached out to Dr. Mathew Leitch, Professor of Wood Science. He and his associate presented PermaSeal with a plan to prove PermaSeal Wood Sealant’s ability to prevent wood rot.
This, below, is the text from email received from Dr. Leitch:
“I have talked it over with the other Prof who will work on this and we have come up with a plan. The process of testing this according to standards is to place the blocks as I mentioned into a media that has white and brown rot fungi (separate for each type of fungi). The standards recommend testing of several boards. So, we see testing 10 to 20 cubes in each fungus type and a similar number for controls in order to compare the mass loss.”
In other words, PermaSeal would provide Professor Leitch with pine wood cubes, some treated with PermaSeal Wood Sealant, and some not. We took pine lumber, fresh from the lumber yard, and cut 150 cubes ¾” x ¾” x ¾”. 100 of these cubes were treated with PermaSeal Wood Sealant, labeled “Treated with PermaSeal Wood Sealant”, and 50 left untreated, labeled “Not Treated”. Once the containers were labeled and placed in sealed containers, they were out for delivery to Lakehead University, where Dr. Leitch would then be able to begin his study.
Once delivered, the blocks of wood will be placed in controlled environment containers with one of the four types of fungus placed in these containers with the wood.
According to prior research, we concluded that the selected four fungi are responsible for wood rot.
The lab received the wood cubes mid December 2016. At the end of about 7 months, with wood cubes and fungus in containers that had been temperature and humidity controlled for optimum growth conditions of the fungus, the containers were opened. PermaSeal received test results in late July 2017 with this quote from Dr. Leitch:
“Please find the results for the durability tests we did for you. It appears the solution you have is pretty effective.”
Each cube would be weighed with the expectation that rot would have removed material from the wood. Less weight means more rot activity.
“Control” designates wood cubes placed in humidity and temperature-controlled containers with “no” rot fungus added. Some of the cubes had been “untreated” (UT) with PermaSeal Wood Sealant, and some cubes had been “treated” (T) with PermaSeal Wood Sealant.
Further on in the results table we see that there are both treated and untreated wood cubes exposed to each of four types of rot fungus. Three of the four fungus show from 8+% to 29.5% weight loss for wood cubes untreated with PermaSeal Wood Sealant. And for wood cubes sealed with PermaSeal Wood Sealant, from just under 2% loss of weight to just over 1% increase in weight.
So why did these cubes gain weight? Dr. Leitch addresses this and explains:
“The increase in weight is probably due to the addition of nutrients for the fungus, and the fungus itself.”
The results of testing are in the table below.
Decomposition results (UT = Untreated, T = Treated) (Average Based on 5 Blocks)
| TREATMENT | INITIAL WEIGHT | FINAL WEIGHT | % WEIGHT DIFFERENCE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Control (UT) | 2.3166 | 2.3736 | 2.46% increase |
| Control (T) | 2.4556 | 2.4642 | 0.35% increase |
| Fomitopsis Pinicola (UT) | 2.3216 | 1.8782 | 19.09% decrease |
| Fomitopsis Pinicola (T) | 2.6168 | 2.5662 | 1.93% decrease |
| Fomitopsis Cajanderi (UT) | 2.3058 | 1.6254 | 29.50% decrease |
| Fomitopsis Cajanderi (T) | 2.4694 | 2.4952 | 1.04% increase |
| Gloeophyllum Sepiarium (UT) | 2.3978 | 2.1848 | 8.88% decrease |
| Gloeophyllum Sepiarium (T) | 2.4414 | 2.4126 | 1.17% decrease |
| Trichaptum Abietinum (UT) | 2.2906 | 2.3356 | 1.96% increase |
| Trichaptum Abietinum (T) | 2.4848 | 2.5164 | 1.27% increase |
So, to quote Professor Leitch’s:
“All in all there appears to be a significant difference in the treated over the untreated samples in this study.”