BS: Why are we still building with wood

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: GUEST,Minerva
Date: 08 May 07 - 10:13 AM

A basic point is missing here. Fundamentally, it's not because "that's the way we've always done it," or "the developers all decide what we build with," etc., etc.

In some parts of the world, you will see almost nothing built of concrete. This is because there is no limestone within a reasonable haul distance. Much of northern Europe, with its numerous stone buildings and stone pavements falls in this category. Iceland has one calcium carbonate deposit for the whole island - an offshore shell bank.

In some parts of the world, you will see almost nothing built of wood. This is because there are few if any trees for very long distances.

In some parts of the world, you will rarely, if ever, see a brick structure. This is because there are limited clay deposits with suitable characteristics nearby. Conversely, in some localities, brick is very common, becasue good clays are nearby. The same is true for stone. You can't just say, "Let's all build stone buildings, because it will be friendlier to the forests," because the cost of hauling rocks (in both currency and fuel and consequent CO2 production) is exhorbitant; Most of the cost of rock is the hauling cost. Thus, St. Louis is packed with brick buildings, and Kansas City with stone.

Unfortunatley, our society is trending toward the casual presumption that anything can be mindlessly hauled anywhere else. Thus, you now see metal-stud framed homes thousands of miles from the strip mines and coal pits; wood-framed or log houses thousands of miles from the newly clear-cut forest tracks in the decimated wilderness; bricks, hundreds of miles form any clay pit. Styrofoam thousands of miles from the petroleum refinery and spewing chemical plant. All to feed the mindless craving for "luxury", comfort (we're talking serous comfort here), and excess "decor" that dominates our society.

Same way people haul their own ass fifty miles to work in their luxury sedan because they got inadvertantly and unintentionally brainwashed by some jackass "country western" soap opera about how they wished they lived "in the country".

Bring on the $5 gasoline, as far as I'm concerned. It is well deserved.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 May 07 - 05:07 PM

I like your analysis of the situation, Minerva. Unlike many people you are looking at the entire situation rather than only at one isolated aspect of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: Bill D
Date: 08 May 07 - 05:25 PM

shades of Beige

We are still building with wood because it is...for now...cheaper. Also, it is easier for an average guy to correct, upgrade, tinker with...etc. than concrete, brick or metal.
In some areas, wood is plentiful, in some it is scarce...but when it is available, it is often the cheapest, fastest way to cover your head.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 08 May 07 - 06:32 PM

Well, I am not asking why individuals or developers build with it..I ask why it is allowed, at least in certain places...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 08 May 07 - 06:49 PM

just some thoughts ...
In my former home tome in the Czech Republic, (several hundred years ago houses, and smaller buildings used to be wood. But probably around 400 years ago, people mostly switched to stone and brick construction probably because wood was harder to find.

My 87 year old great aunt lives in a 500 year old stone house. They usually built two stone walls and filled the space with lime and rubble
(walls are 3-4ft thick) OVer the centuries they have become very strong
and the thickness of the walls, keeps them cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

The more modern houses would be built with cinder block construction
and stucco finish..
BUt when I mention to my Czech relatives that in Vancouver its pretty much all woodframe construction, they often like the idea..thinking that home renovation would be easier with wood frame construction.

I like the idea of cob houses and straw bale construction - although it seems that there are no real building codes for these materials.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: Rowan
Date: 08 May 07 - 07:26 PM

Well, I built my house using concrete, bricks, timber (my woodwork teacher always criticised us if we said we used wood in carpentry, called "Sloyd" in those days) and steel.

At 1000m ASL and 3 hours' drive from the nearest coast I think I'm safe from tsunami, but they didn't really cross my mind when planning. I'mm well out of the cyclone belt until global warming really kicks in and I did give that some thought, which is why it is a passive-solar house. At about 50m above the general terrain, which slopes to the north I don't have to worry about flooding and the local creek flows at about three teaspoons/month at the moment so I don't regard flooding as a problem.

Earthquakes haven't been recorded around here for a few megamillenia but it is a post and beam with compressed earth walls infilling, all on a suspended (concrete) slab and brick dwarf walls. The steel is the roof; steel frames play the devil with radio and other electromagnetic media. The various components were selected by using criteria such as, they best met the various requirements of such a house, they were available in terms of accessibility and affordability and, overall, minimised my footprint as much as I could within those constraints. Especially with me doing most of the work.

And I must confess, I have found working with timber to be more pleasing, to all the senses, than working at fabrications using metals, concrete, rock or bricks.

But bushfires do exercise my mind. Like Peace, I am well aware of what happens in fires both inside and outside buildings, having been an instructor and assessor in the Rural Fire Service. Fortunately, my ecological training allows me some ability to aesthetically manage the fuel hazards while still giving the impression (to most) that the bush is wild and not "managed".

But I too wonder about the South Carolinians who rejected legislation (on the grounds of their fifth amendment) that would have required houses that had been destroyed by Hurricane Hugo to be rebuilt using building codes (borrowed, I think, from the Cyclone Tracey aftermath) that would have improved their survivability, and about the urban-rural interface dwellers around Sydney and Melbourne who rebuilt their burned out homes in exactly the same places using exactly the same fire-prone rechniques that the burned out houses had.

A speaker at the 2003 Wildland Fire Conference described the Californian fires and all us Aussies wondered about the differences and similarities. It seemed the Californians lived in a local govt context where the house owners could build whatever they liked adjacent to public land and sue the public land managers if so much as a spark came over the fence. In our view, this took all the onus and responsibility off the private citizen and put it all onto the public authority and fitted with our, perhaps biassed, views on American society. But the Oz situation is really no better. Whereas local govt does have planning powers over developments, it usually chooses not to exercise them, a situation exacerbated when estate agents constitute the majority of councillors.

Enough rambling from me.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: GUEST
Date: 09 May 07 - 12:17 PM

"Well, I am not asking why individuals or developers build with it..I ask why it is allowed, at least in certain places"...mg

To respond to what you said in your original post regarding why they would still allow people to build with wood in light of the Kansas tornado (among other recent disasters), as someone from a small midwest town, I have a hunch that many of the homes in Greensburg, Kan., weren't new homes.

Many small towns in the midwest, especially ones located a great distance from hub cities (Garden City, Hutchinson, Wichita, Dodge City, Pratt in this case) generally aren't seeing a boom of new several hundred thousand dollar homes being built. They are older homes that have been there for years.

I don't know if Greensburg was necessarily like that, but that's my hunch.

Regardless of what they homes there were built with, when an F5 tornado with 205 mph winds blows through, even the sturdiest of structures will sustain some damage.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 May 07 - 12:29 PM

I'm tellin' ya, man, the spherical stainless steel ball house that rolls in a high wind and floats out the tsunami is the answer! Buy one now. If you don't like being inside a metal ball, get the rubber version instead. Looks and feels and bounces just like a great big rubber ball!

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: GUEST,TTJ
Date: 16 May 07 - 11:36 AM

For Donuel, remember that ducks also float!

I like the idea of an earth-sheltered straw bale house with some concrete re-inforcement. This obviously wouldn't work in a low-lying area prone to flooding, but it would be good for areas subject to tornados. Areas prone to earthquakes would require some sophisticated shock-absorbing technology.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 May 07 - 05:34 PM

"Bring on the $5 gasoline, as far as I'm concerned."

That's about equivalent to £3 for an English gallon, or 60p a litre. That is cheap!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 May 07 - 08:25 PM

Current price here is about AUD$1.35 a litre...

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: 3refs
Date: 17 May 07 - 08:02 AM

"You cannot make the sun rise. You cannot stop it from rising. It is therefore beyond your power...or any human power. It is therefore in the jurisdiction of what we can term as "a higher power"..."higher" meaning something beyond our reach or control."

I'd like to suggest your wrong on this one L.H.! If we can use, what I'll refer to as artificial power(which we have), one has the ability to never witness the sun rise or forever have it on your horizon.

The ball idea is right on though!

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: Riginslinger
Date: 17 May 07 - 06:38 PM

"Why are we still building with wood?"

          Marble has gotten too expensive.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 May 07 - 08:18 PM

Girlygirl 5:19 (man, I hate these cutesy names. lol): I mean, geez, the city of Seattle is built on a volcano.

Do you refer to Mt. Rainier?

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: GUEST
Date: 17 May 07 - 10:45 PM

The reason that building with wood is allowed is liberty. Liberty means you get to decide what kind of house you build or buy. If you want to buy a concrete house, you can; and you don't have to justify it to me or anyone else. If you want a wooden one, or a straw bale house, or a house trailer, or an underground bunker, you can decide that for yourself. You know what house is best for you. Or even if you don't, it's not my place, or anyone else's place to make that decision for you. This applies also to your religion, your philosophy, your choice in music, etc. Liberty is messy and inefficient, but central economic planning tends to be messier and less efficient.
Sincerely,
Kent Davis

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: mg
Date: 17 May 07 - 11:10 PM

yeah..I've been trying to figure out what volcano Seattle is built on..could be though...

And as for liberty..I am all for it..but people are not given options in housing..there are older homes and there are new development homes but it is the rare person, and I can't think of one, who has built his or her own home to specifications. And the builders, even the best, have to work with profit in mind and don't have to face long-term consequences in general. The public does, by being trapped in these houses of cards in tornados, by not being able to clean them properly after a flood, by burning alive in a fire. If there were true choices, and they could be implemented, it would be different, but for now it just isn't, at least the people I hobnob with.

I think the insurance people need to step up to the plate and make some noises in some areas aboutwhat is and isn't insurable in the future...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: mg
Date: 17 May 07 - 11:58 PM

Also fire departments..especially now where you have more townhouses..to me that is so scary...having a common wall with someone you don't know...do they leave the pots untended on the stove? Electric heaters near blankets etc. You just don't know and stuff can spread....and for apartment houses to be allowed to be built with something not really fireproof..nuts...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: Rowan
Date: 18 May 07 - 12:01 AM

"but it is the rare person, and I can't think of one, who has built his or her own home to specifications."

Depending on what you mean by "to specifications", I have. Which is why I consider myself to be both rare and lucky, "Liberty" can be a moveable feast but the local building inspector has been known to approve dirt floors. Properly constructed, compressed and finished, of course, and not in "wet areas".

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: Metchosin
Date: 18 May 07 - 12:44 AM

"but it is the rare person, and I can't think of one, who has built his or her own home to specifications."

I did as well, including drafting of the plans, I dug holes, I poured and screeded concrete, I worked on the framing, siding and roofing. I wired the place, did a fair bit of the drywall and most of the painting. A substantial amount of our building materials were produced within a 50 mile radius. The windows were made from recut salvage glass and a lot of the interior finishings were salvage as well.

We did not do it to be intentionally "green", the term was not coined then, we did it as a statement of independence. It was also the cheapest way, at the time, to provide ourselves with what we considered affordable housing and to provide us with the kind of house that we wanted, that had relatively little to do with suburbia.

At the time, we were not considered unique. A lot of our friends did exactly the same thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 07 - 12:49 AM

mg,
I respectfully disagree that "people are not given options" in housing. I have personally used the options of living in a 10-feet-wide house trailer, a concrete high-rise dormitory, a new brick house in a subdivision, a 1950s brick-and-stone-and timber mishmash, and a old farmhouse. My grandfathers each designed and built their own homes. My parents have had two houses built to their specifications (one a partly stone, mostly frame house and the other a log cabin, both in West Virginia, where tsunamis are unknown, tornadoes are rare, and stone and wood are plentiful). My wife and I are currently in the long, slow, expensive process of remodeling a partly-bricked wood frame house. If we were required to remodel with stone or brick, the process would be even slower. We know a good carpenter. We don't know a good mason. Just one more reason we like having liberty (and we'd like a little more, please).
Kent Davis

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: Barry Finn
Date: 18 May 07 - 01:30 AM

I think if the insurance people stepped on the plate any more than they have the game would be over & we'd be out.
My mother lives on Cape Cod, been ther in her wooden house, right on the water for nearly 50 yrs & weathered mnay hurricanes & floods, never once even after riding out a few 100yrs storms, has she had to rebuild, renovate or restore her house but she does now have to move out because this 77 yr old women can't meet the costs of manditory flood ins. So much for ins. companies. They cover their asses, assets & profits, they are not that interested in covering the properties nor are they interested in in the practice of building any more than a bank wants to become a realitor.

The ones who are interested in how building are erected are the town & city building departments. When an owner whats a building it they that deciede what they want. They have the say above all others what they want, they say this is what & this is what I'll spend. If they can only go this far in the process then they hire an engineer, architect, designer, builder or contractor. For there the owner the rest figure out wat suits the owners needs & the means & methods it'll take to give the owner a product that suits the wants, needs & disires of the owner. From there the plans, ideas & drawings are overlooked by the building department to check if all is doable by codes & building standards & practices, before a construction permit
is issued along with plumbing, electrical, sewer & others permits. All is checked & ok'd before the start of the project. As the project continues the inspector have to visit the site before signing off during certain phases of construction. Depending on where the project is being built & the enviorment the building departments may have other local standards that need to be met. An example, San Francisco won't allow any wood shakes for roofing unless they been fire treaated or fire retardant, Mexico City is very careful about basements & cellars that need to be stable ontop of high water tables, Florida wants hurricane practices followed. So the building departments & inspectors are responsible for what goes up & how it gose up & sometime what is used. They see to it that all general standards & practices are adhered to & met up until signing & issuing an occupancy permit. This goes for commercial as well as residential through out the US. In the cases where someone wants a structure that's far from the usuall it's up to the owner/builder/architect/etc to convince the building departments of it usefullness & worthyness, they may or may not sign of on it. Some won't go for anything, some are more openminded than others as well as some may just be idiots & then there are that would love to see the results.
Some short cuts are taken sometimes but as someone who's been in the construction trades better than 35 yrs, it doesn't happen often without the knowledge of someone who signs off on it. There are some inspectors & departments that are lacking too as well as builders, designers etc. but not that many. In my lifetime I've seen far more that practice good building techniques than shoddy. And generally you only see shoddy workmanship & practice when the owner is trying to short change the builder into taking short cuts, that's where the building inspectors, town clerks & others come in to make sure all is "above board".
So, what it comes down to is personal judgment. I want this & have this much to spend, my concerns are such & such. Here's when "green building" & "environmentally friendly", structurally longevity, aesthetics & style come into play. The government & the building codes only regulate up to so much, and a good portion of that concerns safety, they do not enforce the ways & means or the hows' & whys', that is up to the owner & builder or who ever else is involved in the project unless it's a goverment project & government funds are involved. Yes, some one can use cheap concrete or do some otherwise shaddy practice or use some substandard material but they better hope that fails after they're dead because there is generally a trail to follow.
Mg this seems to be flowing a bit like the poverty thread where you'd love to regulate practices, for the better of those that don't know better & all the while doing it for their own good.
Anyway, I hope this has added a bit of light to the discussion.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: Barry Finn
Date: 18 May 07 - 01:35 AM

The above also includes fire codes & permits

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 18 May 07 - 10:18 PM

So where is your mother going to move to? Seems to me she has made a lifestyle choice and should be left the hell alone.......

I had a mortgage closing recently where the appraiser indicated the property was in a flood zone. My husband- the attorney -who does our research indicated it was NOT in the flood zone -- none the less, my buyer, a first time buyer - young and broke - has to pay $100 a month in flood insurance premium to live on a street that has not had any flooding problems since the great flood of whenever it was.

The older I get, the angrier I get

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 May 07 - 10:10 PM

"The older I get, the angrier I get..."


             I've had just the opposite experience. The older I get, the harder it is to get mad.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are we still building with wood
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 20 May 07 - 01:49 AM

I've had just the opposite experience. The older I get, the less hard it is.


Oh.


Bye now...