Orange County Register

The wildfires of November 2008 that forced  Gary Chopic to evacuate his Yorba Linda home were the catalyst for starting a new business: TimberSIL Wood California in Placentia.

It is the only distributor west of Texas for wood infused with sodium silicate (glass) that is resistant to fire, rot and insects.

Watch this video comparison of TimberSIL Wood and regular pine:

You see, Chopic’s cousin Karen Stimak lost the garage to her Virginia home to fire years ago. Her son worked on a project for his junior high science project trying to develop a wood that wouldn’t burn. He got a C- but Stimak continued working on the idea until she had a patented product and a company TimberSIL Products in Springfield, Va.

“My dad knew there was a need for it and we had an empty building to put (inventory) in,” says daughter Debra Chopic who is the office manager at TimberSIL Wood California.

TimberSIL is getting a lot of attention in the Santa Barbara area following the May wildfires. But it seems Orange County homeowners have short memories about O.C.’s own wildfires.

“A lot of our business is in the beach area because TimberSIL is guaranteed 40 years against rot.

No one in Orange County has built an entire house out of the wood yet, Debra says. Customers are buying the wood for decks, patio covers and eave overlays. But builders in Yorba Linda are doing bids for whole houses to replace dwellings burned in last year’s fires.

TimberSIL is more expensive than regular, treated wood similar to the cost of redwood, she says “but it’s worth it.”

TimberSIL won the Popular Science Grat Award as the “Best of What’s New in the Home” category in 2005.

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