If you have used finger jointed wood, you see the effects of new vs. old wood. Starting in the 1970’s lumber manufacturers began using finger-jointed wood to compensate for poor wood quality; the warping, twisting, and knots in their new growth wood. They took a board of wood, cut out the defects and then rejoined the pieces with finger joints. Finger joining wood in doors windows, moldings, and framing lumber is necessary because the new growth wood quality isn’t as good. Old growth timber is generally free of knots while plantation grown wood is riddled with them.
For normal construction tasks, I don't care one bit about this one bit. And you shouldn't either.
We've found more sustainable ways to quickly grow trees and use machines to turn them into usable construction lumber. This is amazing! Basic construction doesn't need to have the finest, densest, knot-free lumber. It just needs to work and hold up for a useful lifetime. We don't use this lumber for windows or weather-exposed areas. It's placed neatly inside of your dry home and protected from the elements.
Combining multiple boards into a single, more stable board isn't unique to cheap new growth lumber. It's a technique that is even used with more expensive woods to produce a hybrid board that has better properties than could be easily achieved with a single board. Modern adhesives can be stronger than the wood itself, so the existence of a joint shouldn't scare people.
If you're doing a high end woodworking project, you're generally not using this type of wood anyway. You're picking a hardwood or one of the fancier softwoods.
I love old growth lumber and its properties, but modern construction lumber and the processes that produce it are a great accomplishment. Regardless, it doesn't matter because old growth lumber is a very finite resource and it's not repeatable to reproduce forever anyway.
As a European, I was confused to read that wood was considered structural enough that they needed this…
Of course, there are new mass timber builds, but those use wood that is heavily processed. I guess the lighter wood would need to be pressed more, to match the same resistance, but I suspect the costs are cheaper with wood grown faster.
Old growth is on par with LVL/Glulam in terms of structural strength.
But to be honest the rot resistance is more important. Most wood buildings fail because of rot issues, not because the wood wasn't strong enough.
Water management is more important than rot resistance. Wood will easily last for 100 years if let it dry. (you'll never be able to keep any part of your house 100% dry).
There are some old ideas about water management that are A LOT different than the modern techniques. I live in a 120 year old house framed with old growth redwood. As wood goes, it's rock solid, but also everything in it breathes. It's painted with linseed oil paints, the lathe and plaster walls breathe moisture, and frankly it's not sealed well anywhere, including my original double hung windows.
If this was a modern house, it would be covered in 5 different layers of plastic with the intent on keeping any moisture out, then sheathed in OSB that basically sees water and just melts away. Like you said, there is no way to keep it all the way dry, but energy efficiency (and cheap materials and quick building techniques) have also driven a housing design that is so tight that if there is moisture intrusion, it's got no good way to vent out.
Modern techniques include rainscreens behind cladding, so air can flow behind siding and/or roofing as well as dimple mats to allow drainage for your foundation.
Yeah, and those rain screens have a million staple holes in them right? Unless you seal every fastener hole with some sealant that will last 100 years, which I'm pretty sure would be a magical product, I sincerely doubt a modern house will be standing as long as mine is.
Modern plastic paint, modern plastic building wrap, all these ideas of basically living inside a plastic hamster cage, they suffocate the living material (wood) that needs to breathe, and that allows rot and mold. The water eventually finds its way in because rain screen tape can't hold up for 50 years, the water gets in and has no good way to get out.
Rain screens are mostly holes (empty space). That's how they allow drying of the exterior wall assembly.
Standing for 100 years isn't the sole metric of success of a house's envelope. There are many others: how much did it leak? how much energy did it consume to stay comfortable? how good was the air quality? what was the cost to maintain it? All of these have to be balanced and building science provides frameworks to achieve that.
Using modern materials while adhering to building science results in very long lasting buildings, far longer than most homes built in the last 50 years.
You can use traditional materials with a modern understanding and make a much better house, it just takes longer to build so this cheap, throwaway culture we’re in looks down on it.
Solid wood, not using latex paints or wrap, allowing the house to breathe where it needs to, and you can still have an R60 wall.
Agreed that you can, but as you imply, at a very high cost, especially when you don't use modern sheet goods like plywood that not only impede air movement, but provide sheer/racking resistance unmatched by traditional nailed solid board walls.
Few can afford a custom built home, much less one with artisanal walls. If anything we have a culture that looks up to such artisanal buildings precisely because they are not accessible. Scalability is essential to any impactful building technology. The fact that plywood and OSB can be made at scale from low quality laminates and scraps was game changing.
An R60 wall perhaps, but one that leaks like a sieve. The leaking air will bring a lot of moisture and unconditioned air with it, which will in turn require a lot of energy to condition.
Sure, solid wood will be more resilient to that moisture than plywood/OSB, but the swelling and contraction will create more leaks.
There is a reason that for centuries people filled cracks in walls with any goopy substance they can find (mud, sap, tar, stucco). It's to stop those leaks. Modern vapor permeable but airtight house wraps (not latex) are just a continuation of that.
You know there are buildings built with OSB and wrapped in Tyvek that are older than 50 years and are still standing right?
Do you think these houses will last hundreds of years? I don’t.
Lots of houses were built using poor techniques you reference. Nowadays, we're back to emphasizing breathable homes. Vapor barriers are out, vapor retarders are in. You use an air barrier because air movement is far more effective at moving moisture into a wall than vapor drive. We actually engineer the amount of drying to be optimal in your climate and reduce the amount of energy the home uses.
Do you have any good sources of info for your any my type of home; old and wood? I’m worried that some of the upgrades and paint done to this house is preventing as much “breathing” as it was designed for, and I don’t want my house to rot away. It’s really wet here!
Misconception - you don't want your house to breath (ie outdoor <-> indoor air mixing). You want it to be as airtight as possible, while allowing the exterior surfaces to dry if they get wet.
However, leaky houses probably contribute to their longevity as those areas are able to dry from the outdoor air flowing indoors instead of rotting.
There ain’t no way my house is getting airtight, I open the windows every day, and in the summer most of the night. I am very careful about leaks and such so the wet tends to stay outside except for some condensation occasionally which I can’t avoid.
Then you shouldn't have an issue since you are basically living outdoors most of the time.
As long as there is enough air movement, it should dry things out.
The problem is condensation inside the walls. To deal with that, your wall has to be vapor-open to either the inside or outside, so it can dry. Standard interior paint is usually breathable.
Also, if you are leaving your windows open that much in winter you probably consume a lot of heating fuel and therefore generate a lot of heat, which also dries things out. That's how it worked with old wood houses - you generated a ton of heat to dry them out.
https://linseedpaint.com - This is where I get my paint, lots of information about why latex paint (and generally wrapping in plastic) ruins the wood of a house.
Past there, I really like a timber framer who does YouTube called Mr. Chickadee, guy was a Marine who decided to live a simple life. He hand makes everything, but don't let the old timey hat and pants fool you, he's spent a ton of time thinking about how the old methods work and why, and picking through multiple cultures that have had old wooden structures that last hundreds or even thousands of years for the techniques he's using.
I love watching Mr chickadee. Thanks for the paint link!
Check out stuff by Joe Lstiburek (build science expert) and Brent Hull (linked in OP, historic restoration expert, has YouTube channel)
Well the fundamental difference is that homes today are expected to be climate controlled year round. That negates pretty much any issues with normal moisture control. That being the case efficiency is a much larger concern.
It matters where the cold condensing surface is in your wall, and what you do with that moisture.
If you took a cross section of wall, and you have interior temp (20c) on the inside face of the wall and exterior temp on the outside face section of wall, somewhere inside that section you’re hitting the dew point and condensation will form.
I hope longer because my house is 70 years old and all wood. It’s single wall construction, also. I’m really enjoying not having to worry about plaster wallboard or anything since the wall boards are all actually wood, too. I do see boards that need to be replaced soon in the eaves but I live where it rains a lot so that’s expected.
Would treating the wood (presumably with chemicals you might not want inside your house) be enough to avoid the rot?
Traditional wood houses in Scandinavia have tar and seem well preserved: is that usually enough, or did they survive because it’s so cold to six months a year that bugs don’t even try?
Yep its called a [Permanent Wood Foundation](https://www.nachi.org/permanent-wood-foundations.htm) I had a house with it, had no problems with it.
Some species of wood are naturally resistant to rot: black locust, chestnut, cedar, cypres, Douglas fir.
Other methods of preventing rot exist such as charring the end of a post before sticking it in the ground, protecting end grain from contact with water, etc.
Sure temperature is big factor but water is always the enemy of wood, regardless of the treatment. You can slow it down with chemicals but bugs and microorganisms find a way if water is present. Humidity is water. Primers and paint do wonders against it. But the wood has to be dry first. Tar is pretty darn good at keeping out water but also good at trapping it in.
Old growth and just 'old' wood is naturally termite resistant because wood gets harder as it ages and the bugs just don't like to chew on it, they will look elsewhere. You don't see many 60+ year old houses getting new termite infestations unless it was in areas of recent repair (fascia boards, brick moldings). But if it's wet, it's softer to chew. It's always comes down to water.
Unless you have major water issues, like roof leaks or something where water is accumulating consistently up against wood. For example a deck that slopes toward the house or something, rot isn't really an issue. Termites can be an issue, but it's not super common.
Houses survive because they tend to be dry enough that the wood doesn't rot. Let the roof fail and soon the rest of the house will rot away. Similar for let the siding on the outside fail and the house will soon rot away (not as fast as when the roof fails). Keep those in good shape though and the inside is dry enough that wood won't rot.
Yes, treating wood does work, but what use to treat depends on the application.
For instance railroad ties were treated with creosote or tar. Similar for the underground part of telephone poles. There was a Copper-Chromium-Arsenic mix also that would kill bugs and mold but is extremely toxic, so isn't EPA approved anymore.
I would not want creosote or tar-treated wood in a house I live in, though. It's all toxic.
In the exterior-treated SPF (think what we use in America for a deck or exterior staircase) there's a durability limit to the rot resistance. And the wood is tough to restore.
Better woods (not necessarily old growth, just white pine or high quality cedar) are easier to restore. They also look nice, so people are more inclined to take care of them.
In the end, nothing lasts forever without maintenance.
As a European in US owning homes on both sides of the Atlantic - we are too fast to judge wood frame construction. After all the wood frame construction techniques came to the US from Europe.
I can safely say that there's little difference between a good wood frame and masonry house, today. Modern concrete isn't as long lasting as Roman concrete from 2000 years ago. Modern concrete doesn't play well with water.
Modern concrete is what you need it to be. We know much more about concrete production today than the Romans did. We make compromises, it's not all about quality. If you're building a garage you're fine with it lasting 100+ years, you don't give a shit about 1000+ years. So you don't pay for the stuff that will last for ever. If you're a civil engineer designing a huge dam you go for the good concrete. You also test the concrete before pouring to make sure it's up to spec. Because your budget and priorities make that make sense.
And yet, Frank Lloyd Wright made the wrong concrete choices at Falling Water. If he couldn't get it right then the average Joe won't get it right either.
I never claimed Frank Lloyd Wright knew more than the Romans..
Classic architect|designer fubar .. this is why they're great at conceptual design and mostly much weaker than they'd admit at pragmatic functional structural engineering.
Not all architects, to be clear, some really know their foundations but...
His buildings are known for being high-maintenance. I've had houses with 70-year-old concrete foundations that are perfectly functional.
Don’t blame Wright. The builder changed the design and didn’t pick the right concrete.
I'm puzzled why would anyone make windows out of wood when PVC exists.
It’s required by law in San Francisco
Good to know. Wow. Just wow.
Because PVC windows last ~15 years, are massive, and are not structural, unless there are steel supports.
Wood lasts a shit tonne longer, assuming you maintain it.
The only thing really thats better is the thermal performance, and price.
It's completely untrue. I have PVC windows that after 30 years are as good as new. Before that there were two glaze wooden windows that after 10 years were horrible. Not sure how bad they were from the start.
I see you might make smaller window out of wood (or pvc) but you'd have to sacrifice thermal isolation quality to do it. They are large because they have air pockets in them for isolation.
Load bearing window? That's insane idea as well.
Yeah, so not really, because people don't maintain things on average.
Which are the two most important qualities for a window, plus the ease of use which is better for pvc and stays better.
As did the musket.
The wood frame will do better in an earthquake. The masonry will do better in a flood or high winds. Consider the natural disaster risks of your local area when picking a home.
Steel-reinforced concrete does not perform well in salt water.
You can use modern concrete without steel and build things about as good as Roman concrete. You'll pay a whole lot more than reinforced because you'll use at least 3x more concrete and limit the shape -- only arches. Compare Prague's Charles bridge[0] to Seattle's West Seattle bridge. Or compare the windows of the Roman Pantheon (uh, none) to those in any skyscraper.
You won't have as much self-healing in salt water as some Roman concretes. But modern concretes also have far more compressive strength.
You can still buy lime mortars and build brick masonry houses, if you want to pay for the labor; the materials themselves have never been cheaper.
[0] Yes I know it isn't Roman nor especially made of concrete but there's a lot of good information on its construction and it's basically the perfection of Roman-style bridge building, and without reinforcement you need to build just like that.
Another variable is how much the building moves. Being in an earthquake zone here in New Zealand makes me look at elaborate brick and stone buildings with a degree of nervousness.
Provided it’s kept free of moisture wood is an amazing construction material and super strong relative to weight. Provided it’s harvested in a sustainable way it’s also quite “green” relative to other products considering it’s made primarily from CO2 sequestered from the atmosphere.
Modern building construction is cheaper and doesn't demand old growth timber, but it's also much less resilient during a house fire. We use smaller dimensional lumber, it has less densely packed tree rings causing it to burn faster, and we use I beams made out of 2x3s and OSB instead of solid lumber. A house made in the 30s could survive a long time before collapse in a fire; what we have now collapses much faster.
There are definite benefits to modern techniques that are less resource intensive and protecting our remaining old growth forests is important, but we're sacrificing a lot of valuable properties as well.
Do new building codes account for this? Even given the worse materials, I would expect a house built today to be much safer (from fire, hurricane, tornado, etc.) than one built 100 years ago.
Yes. We now use engineering standards to design houses. Looking at 100 year old houses as an engineering is enlightening (you don't even have to be a good engineer, just look and think). Old houses are often way over built in places where there is no stress and so paper would work - but those places are visible. Meanwhile places that do matter are often under built and it is amazing they are still standing at all - but those places tend to be not easily seen. Which is while people say modern houses are built from cardboard - in many ways they are - but those are all places where strength isn't needed so why waste money.
What you won't see in the above is things that are hidden. Modern code requires you to have a firestop in all walls every 10 feet - old houses were often balloon framed which means the inside of the walls becomes a chimney in a fire and will help feed the fire. New houses the inside of walls do not become a chimney because of that fire stop.
Modern houses also are insulated to much better standards. Something else that often isn't seen but makes a big difference. Even when it is seen nobody thinks about it - those old windows the article is singing the praises of are universally single pane windows that should have been scrapped 40 years ago. Sure there frame is still like new, but the standards for new back then are not acceptable.
The bigger lesson to take from the above: don't build to last too long. What people want out of a house changes over time, and you never correctly anticipate what people will want in the next decade. Eventually that old house will have enough things "wrong" that cannot be retrofitted and the best thing to do is tear down and rebuild from scratch to modern standards.
Disagree.
Build to last long, but accomodate modification.
Old houses are built to last a very long time, because they weren't commodities being bought and sold on a 10 year timeframe. But old houses are also very difficult to modify. As you noted, no structural engineering, also lathe & plaster walls are a nightmare to take down, etc. etc.
I don't know which houses you're referring to... or maybe you're conflating survivorship bias with quality... but old houses most definitely weren't built for "a very long time". Even fancy mansions from 100-200 years are all but falling apart in most countries across the world.
I live in a house built before structural codes were made mandatory(1964) - and just yesterday we had to replace a third of the true 2x4s because they were rotten and a corner of the house was liable to just come crumbling down.
If you want more proof - look at the remains of civilizations that built primarily from wood... but there isn't much to look at at all!
Water intrusion is a maintenance problem, not a quality problem. The old growth framing in my 1950's house feels like it will last forever.
If you have to replace your siding wholesale every 20 years to prevent water intrusion - you're not building for "a very long time".
You commented further down mentioning "siding", but if I'm following this conversation correctly many of y'all are talking about different periods of construction as if they're all the same, or even linear in quality over time.
For instance, timber framing is a very old practice and the beams used are so thick they do indeed last hundreds of years. However, timber framing refers to the structural beams themselves, not fascia like siding. You could still use OSB and new growth finger boards to do the non-structural framing, and many modern houses do.
Then there's houses like mine from the 1950s. They use solid maple beams, but oak and elm are also common to that time period. They're structurally more load bearing that way. Unlike timber framing they take advantage of both proper joints and things like hangers.
More modern construction doesn't really do much jointing from what I've seen, but I may be wrong or have a limitation of exposure here. They rely mainly on structural forms like hangers.
I'm not sure that any one is better than the other. They do have different considerations though. A timber frame is going to be tough to modify once it's stood up. A house like mine will probably also be tough to modify, but they could by introducing forms. The newer homes are probably the easiest to modify, but probably are somewhat weaker than the frames of my house. Strength like that doesn't really matter until it does, though, imo.
Selection effect here. Plenty of old houses weren't built to last. You just don't see them anymore because they're gone.
Modern wood houses have very poor noise insulation. I grew up in a brick house. When I came to Canada, and I found I had to keep my voice down at night, while speaking in a closed room was news to me. Not only can other people in the house hear, but so can the neighbors! I don't know how people live like this.
Noise isolation is mainly about adding mass. Thermal insulation is mainly about creating a continuous skin and filling the void with something as close to a vacuum as you can get.
Home insulation doesn’t work by making walls close to vacuum. You insulate walls by stuffing more (but not too much) of stuff into them, not by pumping out air or anything silly like that.
Vacuum is a great insulator, because it blocks two fastest ways of heat transfer, conduction and convection, leaving only radiation. House insulation tries to do the same thing: filling up the wall with fluff blocks air from moving around, which impedes convection. Fluff itself is made from materials of low thermal conductivity, like cotton or mineral wool. At the end of the day, though, filling walls with fluff makes them less like vacuum, not more.
That is mostly wall mass and engineering, not anything to do with the use of wood. I have lived in very quiet wood buildings.
I agree, but this doesn't have anything to do with the woodenness of the construction. Virtually all interior walls in your typical North American single-family home, built with wood or not, are lacking insulation. Code doesn't require it, people don't want to pay extra for it, and builders don't want to convince people to spend the money for it.
Probably even more applicable to software projects!
Maybe, but most software projects isn't designed for as long as things will last (I'm not sure we even know how to do this!). It is best to think of software as under continuous remodels. Very few houses survive for 40 years without a major remodel - adding rooms, moving walls. (much less "minor remodels" like replacing the kitchen cupboards - and the paint will not last for 40 years no matter how hard you try).
If you continuously remodel your house like software is, then by the time it is 50 years old there should be zero original walls left. But software is a lot cheaper to make changes to.
Hard disagree. At it's essence, a house is a shelter from the environment. The need for walls and a roof doesn't change.
Engineering a house for longevity isn't hard, all that really matters is water/moisture management.
Any "wrong" things with a house can be fixed. There are very few houses that are unsafe to inhabit and require a rebuild.
A house is so much more than a shelter from the environment. If it were, people would live in garages made of metal plate.
Fixing anything can be done / is possible. That doesn't mean it is the brightest idea to always do so.
Even something as simple as granite countertops are a good example of that. A stone countertop is hundred of thousands or millions of years old. They would likely last until the planet itself was swallowed up by the sun as it swells with age.
But, granite countertops installed in the 90's and 2000's are considered "old" and "dated" and are being torn out for a different stone often at great expense.
It was a waste that they were ever installed to begin with. Could have installed a laminate countertop that would last 5ish years and look good for 1/10th the cost and then swapped it out 5 times in the same time period for a fraction of the cost and essentially no permanent waste.
Granite countertops sit on top of wooden frames. They're as long lasting as the wooden frames underneath.
"The bigger lesson to take from the above: don't build to last too long"
In the world of the Rich Third World, houses are almost always torn down after they're bought. It's actually pretty bad, because those houses are always built to last...but they only really last for about 8-15 years on average. Then it's almost always easier to rip and replace again instead of renovate, because they're built with concrete.
Comparing homes today with that of 100 years ago ignores the fact that in many ways housing quality has been on a decline since the 1970’s due to cost cutting and lazy workmanship from large scale contractors.
In my city, we have entire communities of the city that people avoid buying homes in because of shoddy workmanship.
Greed corrupts and it has hit like a plague in many large neighbourhood projects over the decades.
You can have all the codes in the world, it doesn’t matter if no one follows them.
The 1970s were about the worst of that. While cost cutting has continued, engineering is more involved in standards and so the cost cutting is not possible unless engineering determines that the cost cutting doesn't effect something important.
Note that what you think is important to lay people and what engineering thinks is important are very different things. Engineering cares about fire safety, insulation, and your house standing up to wind. Engineering doesn't care if you kick a hole in your walls - that is your own stupid fault (engineering cares that you cannot get pushed through the walls cartoon style, but a small hole is not a problem). Laypeople often reject great engineering because the marketing on bad engineering is better - old houses is one of those cases.
In some places, the problem is that scammy builders are not building homes to spec.
I'm talking about very serious flaws: not like drywall being thin, but more like joists that are thinner than the engineer specified or incomplete flashing that lets water leak into the insulation whenever it rains.
A few years ago, I worked in a brand new building, and we had issues like windows being installed inside out, pipes not being connected together, and rainwater trickling down walls under the paint.
These builds are poorly engineered -- not by the engineers and architects, but by the builders ignoring the engineers and architects. You can see numerous egregious examples here, for example: https://m.youtube.com/@Siteinspections
Yeah, this is what I’m referring to. It doesn’t matter if you have codes if people don’t follow them because of laziness and corruption.
I’m getting down voted, I guess I touched a nerve of the civil engineering folks.
I came to the knowledge I have from having discussions with my civil engineering friends. They were immediately disenfranchised a few years into their careers when they saw the corruption of the “construction cartels” in my city.
I’m sure it’s not true of every city, but it is in the city I live in here in Western Canada. Also common elsewhere in the world.
I don't think it's just the marketing. As you said in your earlier comment, old houses overengineer things that are visually obvious to the homeowner but not of actual safety importance. Humans are very susceptible to this visual bias. As you say, they're not inspecting fire stops, insulation standards, sprinkler placement, etc.
Metal brackets and hangers required in new construction make new houses much stronger
Do those brackets and hangers make up for the particle and pressboard my stairs are made out of?
Seriously, they could have come out of a flatpak. I assumed cost cutting, because the risers are a different board than the tread.
Using the same material for load-bearing and non-load-bearing parts seems like the definition of overengineering.
Those metal things they use to hold prefab trusses together are hated by firemen, because once it starts burning they just curl off and the strength is gone.
Yes. Survivability to fire is explicitly listed as a requirement, and different classes of buildings have strict requirements on survivability (i.e., how long a structure must remain safe while subjected to a fire).
It is, but there are nuances. For example, modern houses have additional requirements on energy efficiency, which mean thermal insulation. Elements used in thermal insulation applications are regulated, but it turned out that some assumptions regarding flammability ended up not being met under some circumstances. Consequently, we've started to see a few incidents such as the Grendell tower fire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire
Another event was the much recent fire in a Spanish residential complex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Valencia_residential_comp...
Iirc sprinklers are now required in homes in many areas.
And homes are much more resilient to other forms of damage, like actually having to be bolted to the foundation instead of just resting on it, etc.
Yes, we have code about fireblocking, minimum insulation in wall cavities, etc. for that.
Structural code also updates with wood quality testing. In structural charts I've seen, old growth is around 3x stronger for the same size as newer SPF. It's about on par with an LVL product.
We've more than compensated for this in other building materials, processes, and codes. Your odds of dying in a house fire are far lower than they were even in the 1970's, let alone the 50's or 20's.
That's probably more because of smoke detectors (and perhaps fewer smokers) than anything else. I'd love to get a sprinkler system retro-fit though, as that would make an impressive difference.
All the lighter-weight joists made with OSB burn far faster than the 2x8s or whatever they replaced, and home furnishings are made with large amounts of flammable synthetics.
At a live-fire course I was on, the scenarios we worked on were fueled by stacks of wooden pallents, lit by an instructor's tiger torch. One of the instructors asked us if we knew the fuel equivalent of a typical love seat with synthetic foam, in pallets. We all figured it was lots, but not the real answer: NINETY.
They've done the research and, well, the newer houses really are just better at having fewer fire deaths. I suppose it's possible the fires that do occur are worse, but on net your death rate is lower in a newer house.
https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/advocacy/docs/top-prioriti...
Interesting paper, thanks. It does make some of the same distinctions I did, around smokers and smoke alarms. Another thing mentioned about newer construction is the improved blocking and stopping. For example, one old style of framing was "balloon frame" construction, where you would have gaps that might run vertically from basement to attic. That gave fire a channel to rip vertically through a structure, and is clearly a terrifying idea once it catches. [Edit] Oh, I forgot to mention, it also discusses what conclusions can't be inferred. "Regrettably, much of the available data is not helpful. For example, no data are collected on the age of the structure where a house fire death occurs, despite the obvious link between the two."
The starting point of this though, was the idea that the materials in the house are actually better than in the past. To the extent that they'll tolerate fire longer before collapsing, they aren't, and the gases from the foam cushions, carpets and drapes are more toxic than ever. The reason this was drilled into our heads is that it means less time to get into a fire, and someone out, before we all have to leave for our own safety.
I am very surprised by this.
I'm sure that building codes ensure that the actual houses are more fire resistant. And fire fighting has probably come a long way.
But the typical home is full of processed plastic fabric. Which burns a whole heck of a lot faster than either cotton or wool. Carpet, curtains, clothes, furniture, etc.
I am sure smoke alarms make a big difference and people not smoking. Circuit breakers instead of fuses. Plus all the for fire exits and fire doors in apartment blocks.
Perhaps, but I'm not sure I live swimming through an invisible ocean of fire retardant chemicals that are in all home furnishings and most clothing and so forth. I'm not exactly a California Prop 65 fan, but I do wonder if those are anything any sane person wants near them.
Also, in Japan, they are requiring old growth timber for home construction in certain northern areas for earthquake resilience.
The reasoning is that old growth lumber handles repeated compression better as they are denser, harder, and firmer. New growth timber is squishier due to it being softer with less tightly grouped growth rings.
At first I thought that made no sense, then I realized building a house out of sponges is not ideal. Fighting collapse is sometimes more about rigidity in the correct place rather than absorbing all shakiness everywhere.
I mean, by the same logic, you could say every house should be built from steel. Of course old growth is stronger, just like steel is, but using them for the majority of cases would be simply ridiculous at scale.
Old growth lumber takes longer to start burning but once it takes, it going to be a hotter more resilient fire.
Mass timber and other new engineered products should be good for this.
I agree, and I'd go as far as to say that the author is a bit confused and showing some confirmation bias. Let me explain.
Engineered wood indeed creates elements from imperfect timber that are free from defects and exhibit the same engineering properties, if not better.
This has absolutely zero to do with old vs new growth trees. It is exclusively due to the need to maximize the amount of wood you can take out of a tree. Old growth trees might have more wood to pick and choose from, but nothing stops anyone from using the exact same techniques with timber from old growth trees.
The only reason why you don't see as much old growth trees in this process is the fact that there aren't that many anymore.
Another reason why you see new growth trees being used extensively in engineered wood products is that you can put together massive structural elements from smaller lumber elements, and they are far cheaper and plentiful.
There's a story on how the renovation of Oxford's dining halls required massive oak trees which were hard to come by, but it turned out those who built Oxford's dining halls had the foresight of planting oak trees when they built the structure. They did so because they knew the beams would eventually have to be renovated.
https://longnow.org/ideas/humans-and-trees-in-long-term-part...
With engineered lumber you do not need to plan centuries ahead to have your structural elements. You just build the elements you need from the timber you have at your disposal.
The author mostly cares about rot resistance in a window, though?
New engineered wood products rarely help with this. We have treated wood, but if someone is making an exterior window they'll generally resort to using a rot resistant species (white oak, sapeeli, cedar in budget applications) that isn't the SPF we use in engineered lumber.
I see this with my wooden windows from the 1990's - they're rotting and will have to be replaced wholesale. My wooden windows from pre-1960 on the other hand are restorable.
And in both your 1990s windows and your pre 1960s windows modern windows are so much better that you should replace those windows just for the better insulation value.
You replace the glass for the insulation value. You don't need to (and shouldn't!!) replace a wooden frame.
Replacing good wooden windows with vynil/aluminium windows is basically signing up to a subscription to the window company. You can't really restore that vynil crap, and the lifespan has a hard limit at 15 years when the double seal breaks.
I'm just replacing the panes and restoring the wood. On the parts where the wood rotted out, I'm replacing the crappy cheap wood with rot resistant hardwoods.
Modern windows aren't that much better. Window companies have good marketing.
A 200 year old single pane window is R-1. Double pane is R-2, and with argon maybe R-3 or R-4.5
Triple pane is R-3 to R-6 depending, and vacuum sealed glass is R-4 to R-14(!!! But no one buys that).
Changing an old window to a new one is often a stark difference because the old window leaked air. Not because the R-value is much lower. You can fix that with reglazing.
Not sure where you buy from but good quality plastic windows have definitely more than 15 years durability. Ie ours are 20 and no sign of weakening isolation.
We have cca proper winters (maybe not this year) and thermal+humidity sensors in most rooms so a badly insulating window/door would be noticed quickly.
Can you explain what CCA is?
I live in Ontario, I also have proper winters. It's not so much the plastic windows I bought than the ones previous owners did.
The argon seal eventually fails with enough cold/hot cycles, or wear on the silicon seal, etc.
If you're a diligent homeowner, you probably minimize the temperature cycles and take care of the seals, they might last 25-30 years (especially if it's good quality units).
If I'm buying a new window I want something that I can repair and maintain for a long time. So it's wood frame for me, and specifically a rot resistant wood species if possible (not old growth, unless it's reclaimed)
Do you not realize how long is 15 years? Or how long is 25-30?
The windows in our house, Hudson Valley(NY), are at least 30 years(all mechanical parts are labelled as "pre-1994") - they are not showing much wear... considering that we get -20C to +30C swings every year.
If you're paying $20k every 20 years, that averages out to a $80/month "window subscription" when itemized
That said, my property is really old and has effectively all window types in one place or another. Because it had 15years of lack of maintenance I can see which are repairable, which aren't, and how fast each degraded.
The really old windows aren't much of an issue (as OP said). Reglaze, reseal, performance is decent.
Cheap wooden windows are more of a problem, but repairable and upgradeable.
Cheap plastic windows have not fared well all. The plastic frame isn't in place due to heat/cold/UV exposure and they're a full replacement. They leak tremendous air and let bugs in.
The aluminium windows have fared a lot better.
I guess Swiss quality is simply Swiss quality. If your windows after 15 years leak bugs inside than my friend previous owner bought the cheapest of the cheapest possible from aliexpress of last decade(s), not even ultra cheap eastern European stuff is that bad that quickly.
Overall, some folks love repairing old broken stuff (or need to due to financial circumstances). Most of us, our life satisfaction lies very much elsewhere and to spend our valuable remaining free time to just to learn properly and maintain such stuff that doesn't matter much in long run seems... unwise. Investing into relationships and intense experiences work generally better here.
I see plenty of older folks who maintain their houses and garden around themselves (I mean proper gardens with fruits and veggies etc, not those uniform fugly mandatory US lawns). It takes so much of their energy that they have little time nor energy for some other serious hobbies, travel etc. Eventually in old age they can't keep up and its extremely depressing for them, since their effort is usually lost to their kids and they just get rid of that ol' house.
I don't doubt Swiss made stuff is much tighter and has better detailing than North American builder grade crap.
For the "leaks bugs" part - ladybugs here will find a way in as soon as you have a 1.5-2mm gap. They find them all. It can be between the frame and the siding, the silicone caulk cracking, a mechanical window that doesn't quite close tight, or anything else. It's a nice confirmation that your window has failed and leaks air.
With that said, I mean no offense to your beautiful country, but Swiss weather isn't as rigorous as Canadian weather. In the last week we've had a 36hour period with both +14c and -19c outdoor temperature. Our weather puts a lot of expansion stress on any outdoor facing material.
That's true. There's also a philosophical position that I don't like buying new when repairing isn't that hard. I've done it for TV's, computers, windows, etc. It's fun to learn how things work around you as well.
I don't think they exclude each other at all
For what it's worth, it's one of the better hobbies for retired people. It gets them outside and moving. Being close to nature is good for you as well.
Ideally they'd have hobbies that would keep them close to other people (the best thing for you), but all in all it's much better to be out gardening than on Facebook rotting their brain.
That's the seal between the panes of glass that make up the cartridge, has nothing to do with what the frame is made of. Replacing it when the seal fails is pretty trivial.
You're correct. But that's also the point at which people generally realize the plastic has cracked or bent and is leaking air, etc. etc.
I consider leaked air part of the r-value, but you are correct that is the real problem. It isn't just the windows, it is the seal between the window and frame, and the frame itself that are also problems.
If you can fix old windows to be good - then good. I fully agree modern windows are not great, but R-2 is still better than 1.
Tangent - some research from the '60s that shows the impact of the computer age on the timber industry:
CROMAX - A Crosscut First Computer Simulation Program to Determine Cutting Yield (1963) https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA134223.pdf
Development of a Computer Method for Predicting Lumber Cutting Yields (1967) https://www.nrs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/rp/rp_nc015.pdf
Veneer Recovery Prediction and Analysis Through Computer Simulation (1969) https://wfs.swst.org/index.php/wfs/article/view/398/398
Note that these are not frequently referenced PDFs and I occasionally had difficulty with the first click for them.
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https://longnow.org/ideas/humans-and-trees-in-long-term-part...
Another example (more grounded in modern times and less myth)...
https://www.military.com/history/why-us-navy-manages-its-own...
https://www.oldsaltblog.com/2020/11/constitution-grove-the-n...
https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/2015/05/11/the-wooden-wall...
It's worth pointing out that old growth timber operations and lumber products ARE actually reproducible forever with intensive management on a small scale. With what some might say is proper respect for the forests. You will get wildlife, and recreation, and cultural values, and food gathering, and hunting, and strategic timber harvest that provide physical/monetary value. You may not get the volume of 2x4s out of Home Depot, but it is is, technically and ecologically, a forever sustainable source of wood. Until the sun stops shining.
so it's possible but not under capitalism
It’s not possible under any system where the median American house is over 2,000 square feet. In a system like say colonial India, you can build things out of old growth hard woods (but the majority of the population lives in a hut).
Hell, why build with wood at all when other materials like bamboo are around? Because nobody is trying to sell you bamboo. Our use of wood has everything to do with market effects run amok.
This: https://rizomebamboo.com/
Because bamboo is really bad at many things we do with wood.
Wood is different. Each type of wood has its advantage and disadvantage. A pine tree is more different to a Maple tree than you are to a great white shark in the evolution chart.
If bamboo could be easily used to make SPF studs we'd be all over it - it's a $100B industry and bamboo grows extremely easily.
Not in practice. It only takes one economic downturn, or one opportunistic local governement to loosen the reigns, for that forest to be gone in months. This is what has been happening all over Europe over the last decade.
The only thing about it that I care about is the sheer amount of time wasted as a kid standing around the lumber yard as my dad rummaged through the entire bin grumbling about how shit wood was these days, full of knots, not a straight board in sight, etc.
Well, yeah, dad, you (literally, he was a logger) cut down all the good shit!
The wood is shipped wet, you have to let it dry out while strapped, or it'll be hockey sticks.
Good shops will buy better grades and store it inside a warehouse instead of a yard. That's how you can get straight 20' 2x4s for making forms (or whatever).
Yeah, drying wood in the sun in one big reason for warping.
Big box stores sell you wet wood - when you have it on the construction site it'll start warping and checking as it gets exposed to sun
I don't think they sell a lot of green (fresh) lumber. At my big box store on the East Coast:
For indoor structural construction, they're selling "kiln dried, 19% or below" Southern-Yellow-Pine or Spruce-Pine-Fir categories, specified in #2 quality grade or better. This SYP KD19 #2BTR mark or SPF KD19 #2BTR mark is lumber-industry-standard. It's stamped on the wood.
For outdoor construction like decks, they'll sell you copper-compound pressure treated wood which is indeed rather wet, and dyed green.
And then in a tiny section at the back, they'll sell you a single, large doug fir board green, as well as two SKUs of engineered LVL boards for bearing beams. Mostly you see Doug Fir more on the West Coast.
You can tell green / wet / fresh wood with a moisture meter, but you can also just pick it up - it will be up to four times as heavy.
KD19 is a maximum rating for structural uses. In reality they're often taking it significantly further than that in the kiln depending on the distributor (10%, 12%), but not quite as dry as the indoor of a house either. Drying distortion with KD19 is nonzero, but usually something small enough that you can ignore it with typical construction techniques. Large 2x12 SYP boards generate the most complaints, because the wood likes to warp more than others, and 2x12 is so large you're not going to get it sawn with a clean grain pattern.
Ah right it was decking 6x6 that warped in the sun.
How do you prepare those after buying before building?
Big box stores do not sell green wood. They sell kiln dried wood. The wood warps at the construction site if it is stacked without proper air flow around all sides. It takes years to dry wood without a kiln.
Can this line of thought be extended to MDF board, which I have a revealed preference for? (revealed preference == I notice that I keep choosing to use MDF board in my projects, regardless of my opinions on wood)
There are different grades of MDF each with a specific density. I suppose that a denser MDF will last longer, it certainly is heavier and stronger.
There's nothing wrong with MDF for certain applications. You just have to recognize the tradeoffs and how they affect the piece. Anyhow, to answer your question, there are different grades and qualities of MDF. If you go to a local plywood supplier, you'll find they tend to source higher-quality MDF than you'll get at a home improvement store like Home Depot. The same goes for plywood and even the small selection of hardwoods home improvement stores carry. If you can find a wholesaler who doesn't have minimum order sizes, it can even be less expensive. Just don't expect them to break the sheets down to fit in a car.
High quality MDF tends to be denser, has a more consistent surface quality, and the composition of the wood fibers tends to be finer and more consistently distributed throughout the board. You'll get finer quality cuts (though 99% of the time, you'll want to edge band the MDF anyhow), for example. That said, you don't really go and get a stock list ordered by MDF density (beyond normal and lightweight MDF, anyhow). It's more just a characteristic of the better quality MDF, with relatively minor density differences between brands/product lines.
The bigger benefit is that they're much more likely to stock certified low and no-added-formaldehyde MDF, which make a big difference in formaldehyde off-gassing. Some people are more sensitive to it than others, and the last thing you want is for a beautifully veneered furniture piece to have to be returned because it's irritating the hell out of someone's eyes and nose.
One thing about advesives- they are not stronger than original materials against all types of loads. Break an 8 ft 2x4 in half and glue it back together, then jump on it, where will it break next time? Right in the glued spot. I’m no engineer but have seen this lots of times because the original failure is usually at the point of maximum stress so glue there is not a fix.
Glueing endgrain to endgrain is not the proper way. Try a lap joint and you’ll be surprised at the strength of the face to face glue bond.
Disregard: I misread what you were saying. Shoulda had a v8.
Overly intensive forest management is a huge problem in my country these days. Nonetheless, the general progress in wood processing technologies does feel remarkable. I remember discussions on somehow pre-processing softer wood like alder or aspen (or maybe it was still birch) to make it stronger, and then and then using it for building structures. This is interesting for sure (considering how quickly these species grow), even if one would philosophically side with the environmentalists.
Eventually, you do find yourself caring, when you can’t find a single decent bit of construction lumber in the country.
Wood in Portugal is laughably bad - they cut down all of their domestic stock of commercially viable construction lumber decades ago, and the domestic lumber industry feeds pulp and pellets exclusively, as there’s not much other use for eucalyptus and soft, twisted white pine.
Where this then leaves one is with imports - and it appears lumber producing companies sell their waste to Portugal to be sold as the only product available - honestly, everything has huge bark inclusions, pith, rotted out chunks, knots that bisect the entire piece, you name it. Can’t dry it either - leave it loose and it twists through 180 degrees. Strap it and it splits into splinters. Do it slow and it grows mushrooms.
I ended up importing everything from Estonia, where they know how to manage slow-growing forestry reserves. People literally came from the local villages to come admire the wood like it was an alien spacecraft - Baltic pine, but nice tight stuff that hasn’t flinched in 40 degree daily cycles.