Although the code provisions for addressing the long-term structural performance of wood products are based solely on tests on solid sawn lumber or on defect-free wood, these provisions are currently applied to composite or engineered wood products. There are concerns among code writers that some composite wood products may not necessarily exhibit the same long-term behaviour as lumber or defect-free wood. In order to address these concerns, a standard test needs to be developed for assessing the long-term performance of such products. Although test protocols are available from previous studies, the extensive testing originally conducted for lumber was judged impractical for composite wood products. This is because of the proprietary nature of composite wood products and the desire to allow manufacturers, whenever possible, the ability to alter a product to suit the available fibre resource and market demands. These conditions are particularly valid during initial product development where rapid and cost effective assessment procedures are needed. An American Society for Testing and Material (ASTM) subcommittee was therefore established to prepare an appropriate consensus standard. This project is designed to allow Forintek staff to participate in that process as well as develop the baseline performance data for lumber, which the composite product performance will be compared to, in the proposed ASTM standard. The members of the two Task Groups of the ASTM Section D07.01.04 prepared a draft of the "Standard Specification for Evaluation of Load Duration and Creep Effects for Wood Products". This draft included a simple verification method, and more extensive probabilistic-based method. The verification method requires the producer to demonstrate that his product has equal or better long-term performance than lumber, while the probabilistic-based approach requires producers to develop extensive test data and then perform analysis to quantify the DOL and creep factors. The verification test portion of the draft standard has been applied to a sample of lumber to obtain the baseline performance data at low load levels. Results showed that this group fulfilled the requirements stipulated in the verification method in the draft ASTM standard. The ASTM draft standard has been balloted at the section level. As a result of comments received, the probabilistic-based approach was dropped. Consequently the current draft, which is planned to be balloted in April 1998, references only the verification method. Representatives of the structural composite lumber industry have also proposed to incorporate the verification portion of the draft standard into the ASTM Standard for Structural Composite Lumber. They prepared a paper including this approach, and compared the DOL performance of some composite lumber products against the lumber results provided to them by Forintek and the USFPL. They found that the verification method can be used to check the equivalency of the long-term structural performance of two composite lumber products. The Canadian Standards Association Technical Committee on Engineering Design in Wood has accepted the methodology given in this paper. The ASTM Section on Structural Composite Lumber will review the work on Test Methods and Evaluation of Load Duration and Creep Effects to ensure that the effort is not being duplicated.