Protection Association

Founded in 1904, the American Wood Protection Association (AWPA), formerly American Wood-Preservers’ Association, is a non-profit organization which is responsible for promulgating voluntary wood preservation standards. AWPA Standards are developed by its technical committees in an open, consensus-based process that involves individuals from all facets of wood preservation: producers of preservatives and preservative components; producers of treated and untreated wood products; end users of treated wood; engineers, architects and building code officials; government entities, academia, and other groups with a general interest in wood preservation. AWPA’s Standards are universally specified for wood preservation in the USA, and are recognized worldwide.

AWPA standards help ensure that treated wood products perform satisfactorily for their intended use. They are recognized and used by most, if not all, specifiers of treated wood including electrical utility, marine, road and building construction as well as by local, state and federal governments. “AWPA”, “American Wood Protection Association”, identifiers of AWPA Standards (e.g., U1, T1, M4, etc.), and Use Category designations (e.g., UC1, UC3B, UC4A, etc.) are AWPA trademarks and the intellectual property of AWPA and its Technical Committees.

Wood preservative systems produced under the AWPA standards system for the residential market are required to be inspected under the stringent American Lumber Standards Committee (ALSC) third party inspection system in order to assure compliance with AWPA standards.

While many wood preservative systems are produced under the AWPA standards system, there are wood preservative products in the market that have not earned AWPA standard status and are not subject to the ALSC inspection system. Compliance with AWPA and ASLC will be noted by the AWPA logo on the product end tags.