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Old vs. new growth trees and the wood products they make

Aurornis
124 replies
1d2h

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.

bertil
45 replies
1d1h

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.

VHRanger
27 replies
1d

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.

turtlebits
19 replies
19h46m

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).

MarkMarine
17 replies
19h15m

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.

turtlebits
7 replies
17h51m

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.

MarkMarine
6 replies
17h34m

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.

danans
2 replies
1h22m

those rain screens have a million staple holes in them right?

Rain screens are mostly holes (empty space). That's how they allow drying of the exterior wall assembly.

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.

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.

MarkMarine
1 replies
39m

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.

danans
0 replies
20m

You can use traditional materials with a modern understanding and make a much better house, it just takes longer to build

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.

so this cheap, throwaway culture we’re in looks down on it.

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.

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.

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.

sarchertech
1 replies
16h45m

You know there are buildings built with OSB and wrapped in Tyvek that are older than 50 years and are still standing right?

MarkMarine
0 replies
1h45m

Do you think these houses will last hundreds of years? I don’t.

coryrc
0 replies
16h28m

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.

ok_dad
6 replies
18h58m

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!

turtlebits
2 replies
14h50m

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.

ok_dad
1 replies
13h12m

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.

danans
0 replies
1h6m

I open the windows every day, and in the summer most of the night.

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.

MarkMarine
1 replies
17h39m

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.

ok_dad
0 replies
15h42m

I love watching Mr chickadee. Thanks for the paint link!

VHRanger
0 replies
18h3m

Check out stuff by Joe Lstiburek (build science expert) and Brent Hull (linked in OP, historic restoration expert, has YouTube channel)

hattmall
1 replies
17h11m

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.

MarkMarine
0 replies
1h48m

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.

ok_dad
0 replies
19h0m

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.

bertil
6 replies
1d

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?

nf3
0 replies
23h0m

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.

jnellis
0 replies
23h21m

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.

hattmall
0 replies
17h4m

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.

bluGill
0 replies
1d

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.

VHRanger
0 replies
1d

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.

JAlexoid
14 replies
19h59m

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.

sfn42
5 replies
18h36m

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.

mannyv
4 replies
18h17m

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.

sfn42
0 replies
9h20m

I never claimed Frank Lloyd Wright knew more than the Romans..

defrost
0 replies
16h24m

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...

coryrc
0 replies
16h33m

His buildings are known for being high-maintenance. I've had houses with 70-year-old concrete foundations that are perfectly functional.

JohnAaronNelson
0 replies
14h35m

Don’t blame Wright. The builder changed the design and didn’t pick the right concrete.

scotty79
4 replies
6h34m

I'm puzzled why would anyone make windows out of wood when PVC exists.

woah
1 replies
2h2m

It’s required by law in San Francisco

scotty79
0 replies
1h11m

Good to know. Wow. Just wow.

KaiserPro
1 replies
1h53m

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.

scotty79
0 replies
1h13m

Because PVC windows last ~15 years,

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.

are massive,

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.

and are not structural, unless there are steel supports.

Load bearing window? That's insane idea as well.

Wood lasts a shit tonne longer, assuming you maintain it.

Yeah, so not really, because people don't maintain things on average.

The only thing really thats better is the thermal performance, and price.

Which are the two most important qualities for a window, plus the ease of use which is better for pvc and stays better.

pfannkuchen
0 replies
11h36m

After all the wood frame construction techniques came to the US from Europe.

As did the musket.

hx8
0 replies
8h41m

there's little difference between a good wood frame and masonry house, today

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.

coryrc
0 replies
16h51m

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.

lostlogin
0 replies
15h1m

As a European, I was confused to read that wood was considered structural enough that they needed this…

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.

JCM9
0 replies
18h23m

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.

coldbrewed
43 replies
1d1h

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.

xnx
31 replies
1d1h

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.

bluGill
18 replies
1d

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.

VHRanger
5 replies
22h2m

The bigger lesson to take from the above: don't build to last too long.

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.

JAlexoid
3 replies
21h34m

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!

turtlebits
1 replies
20h5m

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.

JAlexoid
0 replies
19h43m

If you have to replace your siding wholesale every 20 years to prevent water intrusion - you're not building for "a very long time".

oooyay
0 replies
15h56m

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.

bjt
0 replies
21h7m

Selection effect here. Plenty of old houses weren't built to last. You just don't see them anymore because they're gone.

abdullahkhalids
4 replies
20h48m

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.

xnx
1 replies
20h13m

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.

xyzzyz
0 replies
19h47m

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.

jandrewrogers
0 replies
13h45m

That is mostly wall mass and engineering, not anything to do with the use of wood. I have lived in very quiet wood buildings.

gottorf
0 replies
20h24m

Modern wood houses have very poor noise insulation

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.

xnx
1 replies
23h50m

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.

Probably even more applicable to software projects!

bluGill
0 replies
23h6m

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.

turtlebits
1 replies
19h57m

What people want out of a house changes over time.

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.

nuancebydefault
0 replies
2h45m

A house is so much more than a shelter from the environment. If it were, people would live in garages made of metal plate.

Any "wrong" things with a house can be fixed.

Fixing anything can be done / is possible. That doesn't mean it is the brightest idea to always do so.

BizarroLand
1 replies
22h31m

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.

JAlexoid
0 replies
20h25m

Granite countertops sit on top of wooden frames. They're as long lasting as the wooden frames underneath.

mannyv
0 replies
18h11m

"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.

softfalcon
4 replies
1d

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.

bluGill
3 replies
1d

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.

RoyalHenOil
1 replies
21h15m

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

softfalcon
0 replies
11h8m

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.

Karrot_Kream
0 replies
22h46m

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.

NegativeLatency
3 replies
22h44m

Metal brackets and hangers required in new construction make new houses much stronger

doubled112
1 replies
21h59m

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.

RyanCavanaugh
0 replies
17h45m

Using the same material for load-bearing and non-load-bearing parts seems like the definition of overengineering.

bombcar
0 replies
21h29m

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.

foofie
0 replies
1d1h

Do new building codes account for this?

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).

I would expect a house built today to be much safer (...)

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...

bombcar
0 replies
21h31m

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.

VHRanger
0 replies
1d

Do new building codes account for this?

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.

RyanCavanaugh
6 replies
1d1h

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.

tlavoie
2 replies
12h15m

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.

RyanCavanaugh
1 replies
11h59m

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...

As expected, the coefficient estimate for the percentage of houses built after 1989 (pctpost89) is negative and statistically significant. This implies that, in counties with newer housing stock, all else equal, the fire death rate is lower. Interestingly, when identical regressions to model 1 were run using different cutoff points for new stock, such as the percentage of houses built after 1979 or 1969 or 1959, the coefficients were of roughly similar size, were always negative, and the associated t-statistics were at least as significant.
tlavoie
0 replies
11h18m

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.

nordsieck
1 replies
16h55m

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.

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.

quickthrower2
0 replies
13h29m

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.

NoMoreNicksLeft
0 replies
19h43m

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.

softfalcon
0 replies
1d1h

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.

liquidpele
0 replies
1d1h

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.

huytersd
0 replies
23h50m

Old growth lumber takes longer to start burning but once it takes, it going to be a hotter more resilient fire.

ch4s3
0 replies
1d1h

but it's also much less resilient during a house fire

Mass timber and other new engineered products should be good for this.

foofie
13 replies
1d1h

For normal construction tasks, I don't care one bit about this one bit. And you shouldn't either.

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.

VHRanger
11 replies
1d

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.

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.

bluGill
10 replies
1d

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.

VHRanger
9 replies
1d

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.

jajko
5 replies
23h18m

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.

VHRanger
4 replies
22h48m

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)

JAlexoid
3 replies
19h52m

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.

VHRanger
2 replies
19h12m

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.

jajko
1 replies
8h2m

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.

VHRanger
0 replies
3h32m

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.

Overall, some folks love repairing old broken stuff (or need to due to financial circumstances).

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.

Investing into relationships and intense experiences work generally better here.

I don't think they exclude each other at all

I see plenty of older folks who maintain their houses and garden around themselves

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.

rootusrootus
1 replies
22h23m

the double seal breaks

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.

VHRanger
0 replies
21h55m

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.

bluGill
0 replies
23h17m

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.

shagie
0 replies
19h35m

Engineered wood indeed creates elements from imperfect timber that are free from defects and exhibit the same engineering properties, if not better.

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.

---

There's a story on how the renovation of Oxford's dining halls ...

https://longnow.org/ideas/humans-and-trees-in-long-term-part...

In all likelihood, the story is a blend of myth and reality. While the College, in keeping with standard woodland practices in Britain, has always kept groves of oaks intended for construction purposes, it isn’t clear that any particular set of trees was officially designated to replace the beams of the College dining hall

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...

perrygeo
6 replies
15h6m

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.

earthwalker99
4 replies
13h11m

so it's possible but not under capitalism

rayiner
3 replies
12h56m

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).

DinaCoder99
2 replies
6h34m

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.

VHRanger
0 replies
3h28m

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.

PeterStuer
0 replies
7h58m

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.

Arrath
5 replies
21h56m

For normal construction tasks, I don't care one bit about this one bit.

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!

ChoGGi
4 replies
17h56m

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).

VHRanger
3 replies
3h27m

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

mapt
1 replies
2h54m

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.

VHRanger
0 replies
1h18m

Ah right it was decking 6x6 that warped in the sun.

How do you prepare those after buying before building?

jugg1es
0 replies
1h26m

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.

singlepaynews
2 replies
13h1m

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)

cfn
0 replies
10h57m

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.

Bluestrike2
0 replies
4h43m

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.

porknubbins
1 replies
15h16m

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.

logical_proof
0 replies
14h58m

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.

marttt
0 replies
14h36m

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.

madaxe_again
0 replies
15h59m

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.

ortusdux
13 replies
1d1h

In my opinion, living old grown trees >> old growth wood > new growth wood.

Modern 'new growth' forestry is very sustainable, but old growth poaching still happens quite often in the US. I have friends on the regulatory side of logging and I've see illegal activity first hand.

I know that this article is not advocating for the logging of old growth trees, but focusing on the idea that 'old growth is better' can cause customers to value it enough that the extra profit incentivizes illegal harvesting.

Personally, I would like to see densified wood become a viable option. Even lightly densified new growth meets or exceeds the qualities of old growth wood.

https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/new-densified-wood-...

https://jwoodscience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s1008...

joshspankit
6 replies
1d

My takeaway was not that we should harvest old-growth (doing so is inherently unsustainable), but that we should not throw out old growth wood when we find it (say for example when tearing down a house)

ortusdux
2 replies
23h51m

I know that was the spirit of the writeup, but I think it's important to be mindful of the big picture.

It reminds me of the struggle with the ivory trade. If you want to stop ivory poaching, the logical step is to ban the sale of ivory. Unfortunately, if the demand is still there, this new scarcity will drive up the price and incentivize more aggressive poaching.

The solution is to also target the demand. When billiards had a boom in popularity during the 1860's, a firm put out a $10,000 reward for anyone that could make a better alternative to ivory billiard balls. This led to the invention of the first synthetic polymer. The firm was able to corner the growing billiards ball market while undercutting the demand for ivory. The invention, for better or worse, also created the synthetic/polymer/plastic industry.

The problem is that old growth wood is better. This is why I would like to large scale densified wood product production take off. In theory, you can take a cheap sustainable product and turn it into a superior, stronger, longer lasting alternative.

VHRanger
1 replies
23h34m

Glulam is rocketing in popularity, though.

It's a good product, carbon-negative, strong, fire resistant, etc.

Northern Europe already uses it a lot, it's starting to come to North America slowly.

amenhotep
0 replies
17h4m

I looked up glulam and it was immediately recognisable as the giant wooden structural beams I've noticed in my local Tesco, so yes, can confirm :) very interesting thing to learn, I'd been struck by how massive they were but never really thought any deeper about it.

robocat
1 replies
20h58m

Recovering the wood from old houses costs a lot - mostly crew time. Demolition crews do recover the most valuable wood (large beams, planks and panels of rarer wood species that are no longer available). Safety and speed also matter.

Meanwhile the market for the recovered wood is limited. I've never seen someone use second hand wood for framing commercially (and I would suspect trying to do so would cause code or inspection issues). People building for themselves might - but they also often recover the wood themselves too.

Just my observations from watching many houses get demolished (still happening over a decade after earthquake here in Christchurch).

Recovered wood of nice old wood (particularly Rimu) does get used in furniture.

ortusdux
0 replies
19h18m

I caught up with an old friend a few weeks ago that just started a new career as a reclaimed wood salesman. Thanks to Pinterest, home improvement shows, etc, demand is at an all time high.

According to my friend, the largest seller of reclaimed wood in the US is a subsidiary of a fencing company that happens to have a significant number of government contracts to fence in federal grazing land. They replace their fencing every ~5 years and then sell the wood as reclaimed at a significant markup. It is technically reclaimed, but he said that they have to spend a lot of time removing those stapled on lumber yard price tags.

Less reputable operations force age lumber in the sun or use hydrogen peroxide, and then just lie about it being reclaimed.

His company mostly sources their wood from the demolition of old barns and warehouses. The senior sales people that trained him said that their job use to be much easier as they could just offer demo companies free removal. Now the DIY crowd is going around offering to buy boards off structures, and owners are starting to view that old eyesore of a barn as a cash cow. They had to bring on more sales people just to do the leg work and negotiate with owners.

Anyway, that convo is what was on my mind when I reacted negatively to the main post.

njarboe
0 replies
19h45m

It is not inherently unsustainable but practically so. You can cut down one thousand year old tree per year for every thousand trees of similar size. I have not done the calculation but maybe a few trees per square mile per year.

ivm
5 replies
21h51m

> Modern 'new growth' forestry is very sustainable

It is not, I live in southern Chile, my house is right next to a Radiata Pine plantation. The ecological damage of pine and eucalyptus plantations is immense – the loss of biodiversity, the excessive water consumption, the poisoning of other types of vegetation, the degraded state of the soil after clearcut logging, etc.

Plus the social damage, lots of those plantations are on indigenous lands stolen by various machinations in the past.

Plus the heightened fire risk because of the pyrophoric nature of pine and eucalyptus trees. Native forests show much greater resistance to the propagation of wildfires which have become a yearly catastrophe in Chile in the past decade.

MaxHoppersGhost
4 replies
17h50m

Plus the social damage, lots of those plantations are on indigenous lands stolen by various machinations in the past.

How is this “social damage” the fault of the forestry company and not the folks who took the land 200 years ago?

All land is stolen, as I’m sure the indigenous tribe in Chile who lived there took it from someone else who was already there. I’m not asking the modern ancestors of the Normans to give me back my ancestor’s Anglo Saxon lands in Northumberland. Nor am I blaming them for it 1,000 years later.

ornel
1 replies
15h0m

"All land is stolen" is a very lazy statement. Lots of land in this planet is occupied peacefully. It's just that Europeans have been doing it to each other and the rest of the world

rmah
0 replies
4h24m

In fairness, everyone has been doing it to each other for millennia.

julianeon
0 replies
15h46m

I think your time factor is off. It's not 1,000 years ago, or 200 years ago. In Brazil for example, it's often closer to 'yesterday' - it's happening right now. Imagine a mix of forgery, assault and theft, all of which is blatantly illegal.

See this link from Yale:

Piauí is what Brazilians call a grileiro, a land-grabber — someone who invades Indigenous or public land, or land that simply does not belong to them, before claiming it as their own. They frequently use fake documentation to carry out activities such as illegal logging, mining and real estate speculation.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/land-grabbers-the-growing-ass...

ivm
0 replies
2h7m

As the other person said, these events are often much closer. For example, the Selk'Nam genocide happened in the first decade of the 20th century, the company owners behind it were never prosecuted, and the generational wealth have carried on to the present day. Then you have 20th century Latin American dictatorships that also redistributed the lands to their cronies.

According to the World Bank, "indigenous communities safeguard 80% of the world's remaining biodiversity and forests on their land are better maintained", and with less and less unoccupied land available, there are a lot of forces interested in displacing them.

> All land is stolen, as I’m sure the indigenous tribe in Chile who lived there took it from someone else who was already there.

Not necessarily, many tribes in the southern part of South America were first to settle here in the past 12,000 years.

amluto
12 replies
1d

The value of old growth lumber is the reason we should NOT throw out old windows.

Your 100 year old window probably has single paned glass, lead paint (which is an unmitigated disaster on a double hung window, possibly exceeding the degree of hazard from every other lead painted part of a house combined), and is likely installed in an uninsulated wall without a proper sill flashing.

That last point is worth some consideration. Essentially every window ever made either leaks or will leak. A small leak from a protected window [0] into an uninsulated wall cavity may not be terribly damaging. Add insulation and it’s a different story. Fortunately (per code! although many contractors completely ignore it for residential construction), newly installed windows are installed over a sill pan or other flashing that collects the water that leaks through the visible sill and directs it toward the outside.

So, sure, maybe it’s worth the money to remove a double hung window, carefully and safely remove all the paint, retrofit an insulated glass unit into it, and reinstall it with proper flashings. Or you can buy a new window and trash the old one.

[0] Old architecture was generally much better than new architecture at having little details that direct rain away from walls, windows and doors.

VHRanger
8 replies
23h18m

The problem with the new window is that people are most likely to buy a window that is unrepairable and will fail in 15 years.

So changing a wood window for vynil/plastic/aluminium is signing up to a subscription to the window company.

Also, the nice thing is that everything you described above is easily DIY'able (yes, even the lead paint).

amluto
4 replies
19h42m

For the amount of money you’ll pay a competent contractor to strip, re-glaze, repaint, and replace the sash in an old window, you can buy a nice new window. With an engineered and tested sealing system that will keep drafts out a lot better than whatever you retrofit into your old window.

Also, in cold climates, you’re up against physics. The inner surface of the glass, especially around the edges, gets cold. If you keep your interior air at a comfortable humidity level on a cold night, water will condense onto the glass. Some of it will drip onto the frame. Over the course of a few years, even really nice wood will not really appreciate this.

So maybe don’t get a window with wood around the glass in a cold climate.

VHRanger
3 replies
19h7m

My point is you can DIY that strip/reglaze work. If you contract it out it will be expensive, yes.

Wood windows on the old property have fared much better than plastic or aluminum. Plastic fared the worst.

Condensation will happen, but wood won't rot unless it can't dry out. It can dry out because you heat the house for one.

That said any material will take damage if you let water intrusion (plastic frames too!)

If water gets behind paint in painted wood, it'll rot.

Some windows have better details for this - the trim and sill are sloped so that any water will naturally drip out instead of gathering.

The windows that survived a long time tend to have those trim details that seem esthetic but are really functional.

amluto
2 replies
14h43m

The condensation issue isn't necessarily water intrusion -- the cases I've seen on windows in otherwise good condition were repeated wetting of the inside surface of the wood at the bottom of the glass.

This won't rot most wood, especially in cold weather. But it's terrible for the finish and the appearance, and it can cause brittleness and splitting.

VHRanger
1 replies
3h38m

Yes, these things mostly happens because people get important details wrong.

It might be bad flashing on the exterior, bad trim details on the interior, or not heating the windows appropriately in the winter, etc.

Seeing these sort of issues as I renovate houses I've owned made me realize the difference between bottom dollar and paying for quality. And also stuff that masquerades as quality but is overpriced junk.

amluto
0 replies
1h35m

I’ve seen this in a nice, well-constructed, fairly well insulated, fairly well-sealed house. The outdoor nighttime temperature would be 0F or down to -10F or so on an ordinary winter night.

At 65F, 50% RH inside, the dew point is 46F. If you like sleeping warmer, 72F, 50% RH has a dew point of 52F. Most people like sleeping with shades or blinds closed, so somehow the inner glass surface, hiding behind window treatments, needs to be kept above the dew point or condensation needs to be tolerated. There’s a ~20 degree difference permitted between room air and the glass surface and the remaining 50-60 degrees between glass surface and outside. That’s a tall order to avoid condensation.

One can maintain a lower humidity (which is easier to do on a poorly sealed house). 30% RH at 72F pushes the dew point below 40F. Lower humidity also reduces the rate of condensation and speeds up drying in the daytime.

bad flashing on the exterior

I don’t see how exterior flashing affects this. It’s an interior problem.

bad trim details on the interior

Well, yes, I guess? If you make whatever interior surface touches the glass be impervious to water (fiberglass, vinyl or aluminum, for example, although aluminum has its own thermal issues), then maybe you don’t care about condensation. If you use very very well-insulating windows (triple paned with warm spacers, for example), you can actually reduce condensation.

not heating the windows appropriately in the winter

The only houses I’ve seen that heat the windows either have forced air vents or radiators by the exterior walls. This is a somewhat outdated practice to help compensate for poorly insulated walls. Old houses may also have very low interior humidity, further reducing the problem.

I’d rather have a comfy house with comfortable humidity, built to tolerate a comfortable humidity. If that means aluminum-clad or fiberglass windows, so be it.

scotty79
2 replies
6h25m

I never seen failed pvc window after decades of zero maintenance. I own maybe 25 window panes and can't imagine wanting to own a single wooden one.

VHRanger
1 replies
5h17m

You probably don't have the same definition of "failed" as I do.

If it leaks air, it failed. There are easy ways to test that.

Most people only think of mechanical failure, or the double glaze popping as failure.

You can do simple tests to see if your windows have failed, and I'm sure after "decades of zero maintenance" most of yours have.

scotty79
0 replies
1h24m

In Europe apartments are pretty much air tight. Any source of air in there are window and door "leaks". If you don't have enough of them then pressure of the ventilation can be high enough to suck the air through the p-traps in your plumbing. So PVC windows have built-in "leaks" in form of slightly opening them so that seals on them are no longer sealed. Or even separate holes with filters and regulated (non-airtight) barriers that allow adjustable (but never down to zero) air intake.

Because of that I don't consider any window that can't be made air-tight to be a failed window because otherwise I'd have to consider some of them to never be working by design because they have separate holes in them exactly to prevent air-tightness.

All of this is necessary because in general PVC windows can be way more air-tight than wood windows and stay air-tight way longer. Which is harmful to homes with ventilation that doesn't have dedicated air intake.

yjftsjthsd-h
2 replies
23h53m

lead paint (which is an unmitigated disaster on a double hung window, possibly exceeding the degree of hazard from every other lead painted part of a house combined),

I'm drawing a blank; why is lead more dangerous there than elsewhere?

amluto
1 replies
23h42m

Because you end up with lead-painted surfaces that rub against each other when you open and close the window, which can turn the paint into a fine airborne powder.

Other than that, lead and its common compounds as used in paint are solids and are ordinarily pretty good at staying put. Unless you chew on the wall or the paint is damaged, lead painted surfaces may not be immediate hazards if you leave them alone.

ipqk
0 replies
19h57m

Paint can flake off in other areas too (like corners where pets & humans brush constantly against it). For adults, this is not a big deal because we'll just eventually sweep it or vacuum it, but for babies or pets, they may eat it which is very bad.

rbanffy
11 replies
1d2h

This hints that there is market space for managed forests with slower-growth trees that would yield wood better suited for high-end woodworking. Assuming a 3-to-1 ring density from current fast-growth to this slower variety, one could expect prices similarly higher accounting for the longer growth plus financial cost of the land.

tivert
8 replies
1d2h

This hints that there is market space for managed forests with slower-growth trees that would yield wood better suited for high-end woodworking. Assuming a 3-to-1 ring density from current fast-growth to this slower variety, one could expect prices similarly higher accounting for the longer growth plus financial cost of the land.

We're probably talking about trees that would more than a human generation (and perhaps several) to reach marketable size.

There's market demand for consuming that kind of old growth wood, but it's wager that it's impossible for the market to produce it. As an institution, it's just too short sighted.

buzzerbetrayed
4 replies
1d2h

How does the wine industry overcome this with really old bottles of wine? Who are the people that are preserving bottles of wine for 30 years before selling them? And why wouldn't there be a market for a similar thing in the lumber industry?

tivert
0 replies
1d1h

How does the wine industry overcome this with really old bottles of wine? Who are the people that are preserving bottles of wine for 30 years before selling them? And why wouldn't there be a market for a similar thing in the lumber industry?

30 years is less than a human lifetime. Also, that's not the time you need for old growth, it's what you need for regular timber:

https://texasfarmbureau.org/timbers-a-crop-that-takes-years-...:

The industry is doing better now. Timber farmers plant trees, thin them out every few years to allow the better trees to grow and then harvest when trees are around 25-35 years old. They then harvest, replant and start the process all over.
candiddevmike
0 replies
1d1h

A bottle of wine doesn't require at least 50 sqft of open land

bluGill
0 replies
1d

Wine is aged best around 20 years. 30 years you cannot tell a difference (remember that some years were better than others so you might be able to tell because of that). By 100 years the wine is clearly going downhill and probably isn't drinkable anymore.

PeterisP
0 replies
1d1h

The wine (and also e.g. scotch) industry runs its core business on not-that-old product, on which it makes almost all of its money, and may keep a relatively tiny niche of really old stuff for sentimental (for the owner), PR or branding purposes. It doesn't work that way for commodities - a forestry or lumberyard selling a few really old oak logs doesn't help them charge a premium for their 20-year old lumber in a way that works for a winery or distillery.

vonzepp
1 replies
1d1h

Even pension funds can't think on that length of time. Really only institutions like university can. Lots of Oxford colleges are known to look at these time scales. It has been around for As someone said Harvard will probably be around longer than the united States.

rbanffy
0 replies
6h6m

Even pension funds can't think on that length of time.

An interesting way to legislate conservation is to mandate pension funds to set aside a fraction of their portfolio for investments that take longer to mature, such as slow-growth managed forests.

rbanffy
0 replies
18h20m

it's wager that it's impossible for the market to produce it.

Where markets fail for being too shortsighted, we can always introduce governments or international bodies. Once you plant the trees, there is little upside in cutting them down and more upside in letting them reach maturity.

OTOH, these boutique managed forests will be vulnerable to the development of cheaper alternatives (such as compressing multiple crappy logs into a good one).

tunesmith
0 replies
1d

The downside for that is that it would require growing the trees more slowly, which means, given the volume needed, we'd probably need more trees, probably responsibly grown within other existing forests that already have partial canopy cover, which means we'd need to have larger reforestation efforts, which would in turn have some sort of effect in terms of slowing down the pace of climate warming due to more carbon sequestration... I'm sorry, was I talking about downsides?

icegreentea2
0 replies
1d2h

Current "fast growth" lumber is already operating on a ~10-20 year time frame.

Getting to something old growth like will probably need like over 60 years at a minimal.

Reclaimed wood (depends on your application) is currently only like <5 times as expensive as new growth product.

While it's definitely true that the supply of reclaimed wood will dwindle, meaning that if you start such a project today, you'll probably be able to command a significantly higher price multiplier in 2090... I think that sentence alone explains why this doesn't happen at any significant scale.

DudeOpotomus
11 replies
1d2h

This is also the case with guitars and other musical instruments (pianos, violins etc.).

Old growth not only sounds better, it lasts longer and looks better.

Salvaged redwood is one particular place that this really stands out. There is no VG Heart available these days. If you want good straight, heartwood, you have to salvage old lumber or scavenge the forest floor for old felled logs.

When I see old houses in CA built from old growth redwood torn down and tossed into the landfill, it breaks me.

downrightmike
5 replies
1d2h

Guitars made with soaked logs that have been in the great lakes for the last 100 years sound especially well because the cells get hollowed out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6EnWSwfQ7w

DudeOpotomus
3 replies
1d2h

Yeah, Sunken wood. Mostly used on electrics. Personally I cannot hear any difference in these guitars. But people seem to like them. Probably for the look...

brandall10
0 replies
1d2h

They're used in electrics? I've only heard about them in acoustics, ie. 'sinker' mahogany.

MSFT_Edging
0 replies
1d2h

Tonewood for electrics is mostly a myth anyway. Extremes might play a role but 99% of the time its almost entirely down to the pickups and picking hand.

Acoustic guitars are a totally different ball game of course.

nemo44x
0 replies
22h46m

Yeah I had a Martin Guitar made from "Sinker Mahogany" harvested from a river in Belize. Amazing to think that these were so plentiful that the British just let the ones that didn't make it sink to the bottom of the water. Literally hundreds if not thousands of them. It's absolutely beautiful wood for a guitar though, especially if paired with red pine for the top.

jorts
1 replies
1d2h

There’s a YouTube video from the 50s or so showing them cutting down old growth redwoods. I tried watching it but couldn’t make it. Made me too emotional.

DudeOpotomus
0 replies
1d2h

With you on this one. It's impossible for me to fathom the thought of cutting down a tree that took 2000 years to grow. Let alone is so majestic!

We humans are incredibly shortsighted. Today, we only have 2-5% of old growth trees left... and that's only because of people like you and me ( who care) fought to purchase them. Otherwise, someone would cut them down and sell them for a few bucks.

duffyjp
1 replies
1d2h

Redwood is amazing. My dad has a picnic table with redwood boards he bought in the 1980s which is in basically perfect condition today despite living outside in Wisconsin the entire time.

ejb999
0 replies
1d1h

Have a set of outside porch furniture as well - that my wife had at her parent's house even before she was born - so the set is at least 58 years old, and besides having weathered a bit in color - are as good as new.

greenie_beans
0 replies
1d2h

<3 yamaha nippon gakki red label from the 60s/70s

GenerWork
10 replies
1d2h

These old windows are structurally superior and can be restored instead of replaced.

How do they deal with the superior energy efficiency of new windows? Even basic vinyl windows are better in terms of energy transfer, unless they're replacing the window frame with more modern equipment (factory made vinyl/aluminum) while keeping the original windows.

VHRanger
2 replies
1d

Wood is a better insulator for the frame itself than either vynil or aluminum.

For the glass itself, you update it to something better than a single pane. Or put a storm window as needed.

nemo44x
1 replies
22h42m

Adding a storm window is better. You don't want to replace the old glass if possible as it's very aesthetically beautiful.

Although energy efficiency in these homes have other problems. The walls are probably not insulated (and probably shouldn't be without a vapor barrier added outside beneath the siding - otherwise you will get lots of mold over time) and the weight box for the sash's are not insulated and can't be unless you want the window to no longer function, which may be OK as you can seal around it then.

VHRanger
0 replies
21h58m

I'm going through insulation woes with my 1870 house right now, and people drastically overestimate how their uninsulated walls are the issue. Your walls are most likely at least something like R-9 if not more depending on the old house you have.

The actual issues, in order of importance, are:

1. Air sealing the house. So yes, replacing and repairing windows. Not because double pane is so much better, but because your windows and doors are leaking unconditioned air into the house.

2. Roof insulation

3. Basement/crawl space insulation. Yes, this is more important than walls

4. Now you think about the walls. As you said, depending on the climate, from outside in may be safer (which can also be true for roof and basement depending on materials)

sonar_un
1 replies
1d2h

He made a video not too long ago about old-school windows and some of the ways that they can be still efficient and beautiful. But the kinds of projects that he works on are not really "passive house" type buildings.

https://youtu.be/hLbTpa9uEoY

VHRanger
0 replies
1d

I mean, he puts vacuum-sealed glass on the performance version of the windows he makes.

That's even better as a product than triple-glazed windows.

onlypassingthru
1 replies
1d2h

It's a bit of a kludge but I've used exterior storm windows with old windows. It can make a big difference but doesn't compete with the efficiency of a modern vinyl argon filled double pane.

VHRanger
0 replies
1d

It actually does if your seals are good.

Argon sealed double panes aren't magical in terms of R-values.

bhickey
1 replies
1d2h

When I renovated my old house I had the 1890s windows refurbished. To accomplish this, a carpenter cut the windows in half, replaced the glass with double pane glass and laminated it back together. I had new sash weights fabricated to compensate for the added weight. This was definitely more expensive than a rip and replace, but we were able to save about 90% of the original woodwork. Sills were replaced with synthetic because it was the best way to prevent water intrusion.

VHRanger
0 replies
1d

Nowadays there's a vacuum sealed glass product called Pilkington Spacia that's the same thickness as a single pane, but has about the R-value of a triple pane window.

You could replace the glass with it yourself if you order the correct sizes.

anon291
0 replies
1d2h

I live in a 100 year old home with old windows. Storm windows work. Also, the panes are fairly easy to replace and if you want to put the money into it, I believe they make a double paned product you can replace the panes with. Despite the large initial investment, it's overall cheaper because you never need to replace. We've actually had a few panes broken, and it's dirt cheap since normal glass is cheap, and the pane replacement is a DIY-doable project (remove glaze, remove plane, place new pane, reglaze).

thekid314
8 replies
1d2h

Here's a story about Old Growth forests in New England that I shot for Smithsonian Magazine. The most interesting part was seeing archive photos of New England when it was basically clear cut for firewood and pasture. Today we think of it as wooded, but that is relatively recent: https://www.daviddegner.com/photography/discovering-old-grow...

peteradio
3 replies
1d1h

Very beautiful shoot. Some of those trees were rather huge! Wonder what the biggest looked like in the old growth.

nemo44x
2 replies
22h50m

They looked like this:

https://ravenwhimsy.tumblr.com/post/174022634675

And to think, they were just used for any old thing back then. This lumber doesn't really exist anymore other than reclamations.

grosswait
0 replies
20h46m

That’s a Douglas for – not native to New England

beastman82
1 replies
1d1h

Is this true in NH/ME/VT as well? I see western MA in your article. (btw it's cool thanks for sharing)

fireflash38
0 replies
1d1h

Very much true. Just look at the undergrowth, and the types of trees.

soperj
0 replies
1d2h

It was wooded before the clear cutting.

Mistletoe
0 replies
1d1h

I love this shoot, thank you for sharing.

MiguelVieira
8 replies
1d2h

It's interesting to point out that the wood has tighter rings and is more durable not necessarily because it came from old trees, but because the old growth trees grew in mature forests where they were in the shade of other trees, and thus grew more slowly and had tighter rings.

Trees growing in full sunlight grow quickly and have more widely spaced rings. Balsa wood for example, which is very light and soft, comes from balsa trees that have evolved to grow very quickly in sunny gaps caused by fallen trees in tropical forests.

njarboe
4 replies
1d

The main reason old growth trees have tight rings is not that the tree is growing slowly (in mass) but that the diameter and height of the trunk is so large that the rings are very narrow. A 200ft tall tree with a 8ft diameter trunk with a 50 foot sunny top will put on a lot of mass but it is spread out over the surface of the truck. The added ring each year will be thin. Old growth forests are rare and I think people don't have a good idea of how big old growth trees can be. The old growth redwoods are admired for their size but other trees also get very large. At a small museum in the northern Sierra foothills I saw a photo of a 16ft diameter Douglas fir. It's too bad none of these trees survived (that I have found). Many pictures of logging trucks with just one log on them.

You do definitely get thin rings when the trees are shaded but the monster old growth trees, the thin rings are usually due to the size of the trunk.

mlsu
1 replies
23h1m

I know nothing about wood but does this mean that the heartwood has relatively wide ring spacing (since it grew when the tree was low and small?

RoyalHenOil
0 replies
20h19m

You see this in trees that have grown up in forest conditions. They sprout in a patch of sunlight, but then they eventually fill the space and can't grow as quickly anymore.

In trees that are grown in more open conditions with plentiful sunlight, water, and nutrients, the growth rings are more even because there is nothing holding back their growth and forcing them to slow down.

nemo44x
0 replies
22h53m

The main reason old growth trees have tight rings is not that the tree is growing slowly

No, it really is. Old pine from and some hardwoods grew in densely populated forests and there was a fight for sunlight. This severely limited how quickly the trees could grow per year resulting in tighter rings and far superior lumber.

Tree plantations are specced out to plant trees the perfect distance from each other so they can grow super fast. Spiked with fertilizers a pine can be harvested in year 15 for modern lumber. It's amazing how fast they can grow trees with enough sunlight and food.

RoyalHenOil
0 replies
20h28m

Larger trees grow more slowly due to increasing competition (especially for canopy space) with their neighbors.

If trees are planted with sufficient spacing, an old tree's outer growth rings will be the same density as the inner growth rings. Trees grow to the water, sunlight, and nutrients that are available to them -- up until they become diseased or they grow so large that they struggle to support their own weight (at which point they start losing branches, which means they no longer get enough sunlight). To counteract the pull of gravity, older trees stop gaining height and instead focus on adding girth (i.e., thicker growth rings).

Tree plantations achieve a higher wood output by progressively thinning the plantings as the trees mature. This allows the remaining trees to keep growing at a fast clip and results in more even grain in the lumber.

fireflash38
1 replies
1d1h

Great explanation of why certain species of trees are both fast growers and 'fast fallers'. Tulip Poplar trees for example are often first/second growth, and they are also often the trees that will break/fall during storms too. They trade that fast growth for durability it seems.

grosswait
0 replies
20h48m

In my observation, tulip poplars, get a bad rap. They do drop limbs routinely, but I don’t see them getting knocked over by wind. I see pine trees blow over the majority of the time. Of course, different forest composition might change the odds, but for my area tulip poplars seem pretty strong

ipqk
0 replies
20h8m

Thank you! this was the information that was missing from the blog, and I scratching my head a bit.

anon291
7 replies
1d2h

I live in a 100 year old home in the PNW and I've broken dozens of 'wood' rated drill bits trying to drill. It can take upwards of 10 minutes to drill through a single 2x4 stud in my house. It's honestly insane that they're considered the same material.

I do a lot of hobby wood working and the old growth pine seems to have more in common with ipe wood and the like rather than the stuff you buy in the stores. I'm holding on to all that old wood like it's gold.

specialist
2 replies
1d

Are those spade bits? Meaning flat with two cutting edges.

My home's framing is mostly old growth. I bought an auger bit for rewiring. It's looks like a corkscrew. I won't ever use a spade bit (for making holes in framing) again.

My son then brought over his hole hog (?) power drill. It's scary powerful. Mosdef practice with some scrap wood first.

anon291
0 replies
23h24m

I've lot both spade bits and smaller normal bits. Best is an auger bit and being careful to keep the drill straight.

FiatLuxDave
0 replies
22h53m

Since you mentioned the hole hawg, and this is HN, I thought I'd post this classic for anyone who hasn't seen it before:

Unix, the Hole Hawg of operating systems: http://www.team.net/mjb/hawg.html

Aloha
1 replies
1d1h

There is also another survival bias factor.

Wood continues to cure and harden (and shrink) when it's put into place in construction - in 70-80 years, It'll be just as hard as the wood in a house from 1890.

VHRanger
0 replies
1d

Incorrect. As the OP post shows, if you cut down a 300 year old tree it won't cure the same as a young-cut SPF piece of wood.

It simply can't - it's effectively not the same material. Just in terms of growth rings, wood density, heartwood content, etc.

icameron
0 replies
1d1h

Same here, I gave up trying to use a spade bit for drilling that old wood. It’s impact driver and speed bit or auger bits, or bust. Nothing quite like the smell of old lumber!

VHRanger
0 replies
1d

I have a 1870s house in Ontario, lots of old growth red pine.

This stuff is really heavy and resistant, you keep it indeed.

carterschonwald
3 replies
22h37m

Is this true for wood that’s from the same species of tree? How much of the wider growth rings are attributable to increasing co2 levels? I’m really curious what the mechanism is.

Like, I’m half inclined to assume the new growth tree is a pine (they grow really fast ) and the old growth is some hardwood.

VHRanger
2 replies
16h28m

Yes, it is for the same species.

I have old growth red pine and modern pine in my property, the old growth stuff is so much heavier and stronger it's comical.

As said in the OP, it's largely because the old trees are much older, so the wood is simply denser.

mlhpdx
1 replies
14h48m

I don’t believe they are. I don’t believe it because I’ve removed “new” Douglas fir trees and enjoyed the tight grain lumber. The growing conditions and age are important, not when they were grown. Old growth is just old trees grown in natural forest conditions. That still happens all over Oregon.

VHRanger
0 replies
5h13m

Yes, growing conditions are certainly most important. Old growth had particular growing conditions - a very high and dense canopy for once.

Species is also more important FWIW! If you're making a window you should get a rot resistant species, not old growth stuff.

The point in OP is that if you find old growth stuff, hey, try to keep it because it's probably really good wood.

User23
3 replies
1d1h

The sad thing is there’s no good reason not to have 100 year wood readily available.

Suppose you have 100 acres. Every year you harvest one, replant it, and move on to the next. In a century you’ll have an annual harvest of excellent wood. But what will happen instead is whoever ends up with the land will clear cut it, take the big payday, and plant fast growing junk if they replant at all.

ejb999
2 replies
1d1h

worse yet, there is a very vocal set of people (many on HN) that want to force you to develop your land in order to build more housing by imposing unaffordable land taxes on undeveloped land - very short sighted.

for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38276883

ipqk
0 replies
19h55m

Yeah, so short-sighted that we now live in the worst housing crisis in history, with rampant homelessness due to lack of housing and people barely being able to afford to live.

bluGill
0 replies
1d

If you have land in a city then you are wasting it by not developing it, and that harms the city. If you have rural land though there isn't any reason not to grow something for long term.

buzzerbetrayed
0 replies
1d2h

My initial reaction to your comment was "Why are they using wood ladders at all?". Luckily I clicked and it's the first question answered in the article:

Wood is resilient in ways which aluminum—now standard for fire department ladders—can't even compare. "You know if you take an empty coke can and bend it three or four times and it tears really easy? That's what aluminum ladders will do," Braun says. "They have a seven to eight year lifespan, after which they need to be replaced."

Wooden ladders, on the other hand, can last indefinitely. "You can stress wood right up to its failure point a million times; as long as you don't go beyond that, it will come right back to where it was. They can be involved in a fire for a pretty long time; after that, it's just a matter of sanding off the top coat of material then inspecting the wood. If it's good we'll re-oil it, revarnish it, and put it back in service."
Hippocrates
2 replies
1d2h

Pretty interesting to see the difference in the grain. I do notice the softness of the wall studs when I hang anything in my newer place. Still "they dont build em like they used to" is a bit... wrong. Nimby's or "old heads" as we call em, badmouth new builds for their quality. I've lived in extremely well-built 18th century homes, and now one that is less than a decade old and I greatly, greatly prefer the latter.

Newer features I appreciate are engineered joists (stronger, less creaking floors and noise transmission), doors and double pane windows that seal out air and noise, good insulation, central HVAC, PEX plumbing, neutral wiring, and the fact that if I need to fix or replace anything, it can be easily ordered if not found at a hardware store.

Yeah, maybe some of these materials are not as "sturdy" to the touch and maybe they have a shorter life-span, but I am positive they work better and are cheaper/easier to maintain.

eropple
1 replies
1d2h

> Yeah, maybe some of these materials are not as "sturdy" to the touch and maybe they have a shorter life-span, but I am positive they work better and are cheaper/easier to replace.

They are cheaper, they are easier to replace, and at the moment (wood nerd hat on) we genuinely do not know if they have a shorter lifespan. But it's very likely that they do not, in part because of the construction around them. These concerns are not, in my experience, something that you really hear people who spend much time around structural work bring up. It's mostly a "back in the day" thing.

For furniture, on the other hand--things are different. But dimensional lumber as practiced today is a modern miracle.

Hippocrates
0 replies
1d1h

I'm definitely no wood nerd but, yeah, I wouldn't intuit that a softer, new-growth wood would just disintegrate in 100 years time, or much more, for that matter.

As you allude to the material around it, we now have engineered, weather resistant sheathing, house wrap, and vinyl or metal siding, or some such very weather-proof stuff.

Most of the issues I have had with "old growth" wood in my 17th century homes were just due to water penetrating where it should not, rotting that wood, and then causing me a headache trying replace it with a similar material.

tehcodez
1 replies
1d2h

There's a wonderful podcast, Shannon's Lumber Industry update that discusses this topic in detail, I can't track down exactly which episode. The point he makes is, yes, sure they are "better" lumber, but lumber can also be a sustainable resource. We've done a MUCH better job producing construction lumber (what those two-by material is used for in the vast majority of cases) in a sustainable manner. That old framing lumber came from just demolishing old growth trees. You can still find comparable lumber, this is what fine furniture makers do.

https://www.lumberupdate.com/about/

thekid314
0 replies
15h11m

Thanks, I never expected to subscribe to a lumber podcast, but I am now.

gmuslera
1 replies
1d2h

What about flammability?

If "new" wood is somewhat less flammable because sap or something like that, replacing old forests with new ones, moving the operations of wood harvesting from forest to forest in a sustainable way may get a bigger time window for freshness and lower a bit the risks of the captured carbon by trees/forests burning down (something that is getting more probable as the world warms up, a positive feedback loop), while getting better quality wood in the process.

Of course, a lot of uses of wood is burning it down for home heating, that won't be in the equation, but is something that may be phased down. And not sure how this goes for other uses of wood like making paper.

VHRanger
0 replies
1d

Old wood is much less flammable because of the wood density.

Timber framed buildings are considered somewhat fire-retardant compared to stud-built buildings. As the exterior of a timber burns, the blackened part insulates the interior of the timber from the fire.

That said, timber construction isn't as sustainable as stick-built. But we should preserve old growth wood wherever we find it.

zip1234
0 replies
14h12m

The article isn’t fully accurate. For example old growth is not more knot free. That depended on a lot of factors. Maybe the wood used for windows was more knot free but that is a different matter entirely. Here is a counterpoint article: https://www.finewoodworking.com/forum/old-growth-vs-second-g...

waltbosz
0 replies
1d1h

I group up in an area where all the houses were built in the 1930s. All old growth lumber. At one point, the University of Delaware was buying up houses on my street, including one directly across the street from mine. A crew came along an took the house apart and loaded the lumber onto a flatbed truck.

I'm not sure where the lumber went to, but it was pretty cool to watch.

They just left the lot empty with grass and a few trees.

sonar_un
0 replies
1d2h

I absolutely love watching Brent Hull videos and I am kind of shocked to see his page on HackerNews. For those of us who are into aesthetic design and back-to-roots craftsmanship, this is the guy to watch.

He had a video a couple of years back on this exact subject. https://youtu.be/cWX4PgCFk7c

renewiltord
0 replies
21h48m

This is pretty convincing. We should all cut down the old trees for homes. The new stuff isn’t very good.

ourmandave
0 replies
15h44m

One of my favorite ads was a lumber company showing how they plant two trees for every one they cut down, and framing it like they were preserving nature.

When in fact they were planting future trees they planned to cut down, like a farmer planting corn, just on a longer time line.

nothercastle
0 replies
1d2h

That’s why for structural applications glue laminate are popular.

netcoyote
0 replies
22h58m

I experienced the decrease in wood quality firsthand when I worked for my dad's business building custom wine cellars. I worked in the factory building wine racks for a couple of years after graduating high school in the 1980's, and then infrequently helped install cellars until he retired in the 2010. (It was a great opportunity to travel the world and install cellars in exotic places like Japan, Singapore, & etc.)

The early cellars were all constructed using redwood, which was at that time plentiful and inexpensive ($0.20/lineal foot for 1x2). Redwood is easy to work with because it's harder than pine but softer than walnut and oak, so easy to saw and pin. "Clear heart" wood from the center of the tree doesn't warp much if stored well. It's also absorbent and so takes glue well.

We particularly liked using redwood for wine cellars because it's resistive to mold due to the high tannin content. Wine cellars are susceptible to mold because the cellar's refrigeration is designed to keep a high humidity level (70-80%) so as to prevent "ullage" (loss of liquid due to evaporation). Corks are semi-permeable, and so wine evaporates through the corks due to osmotic pressure.

Because I visited my dad's factory infrequently, I found the changes in wood noticeable -- the same way it's surprising how much my friend's kids have grown since I last saw them, unlike my kids who I see daily!

Over time redwood became increasingly expensive, and the quality lower, with more "A grade" wood containing sapwood instead of the clear heart wood we preferred, and fewer tree rings. Wine racks use quite a large number of small pieces -- lengths of 1x1, about 0.75" x 0.75" -- and at that small size the lower quality of the wood meant more pieces were unusable due to issues with the grain. It's important to select for good wood grain so that folks don't stick their hands in a wine rack and pull back a bleeding stump filled with redwood splinters, which are nasty because the tannin in the wood also prevents the body from disolving them easily.

Over time we switched to other sustainably-farmed wood like jarrah and mahogany, though those woods were super hard to work with -- they chewed up saw blades and were hard to get pins through.

jrexpr
0 replies
2h55m

The difference between old growth wood and new growth wood is like the difference between granite and paper. Old growth wood has better stability, durability and longevity. New growth wood and the windows they’re made of, begin to rot and warp after only twenty years.

To help salvage, recycle or reuse wood products, the American Wood Counsil has a website: https://reusewood.org/

hfghfgh
0 replies
1d2h

That banner is so bad I can't read the article at all.

divbzero
0 replies
19h6m

Sixty years ago, timber companies began to grow Radiata Pine in countries like New Zealand and Chile. Grown for quick production, these trees produce very little heartwood and these trees have fewer growth rings per inch.

So is the difference between old growth and new growth primarily in the type of trees? Or are there other factors that contribute to speed of growth?

deutz_allis
0 replies
21h21m

I live in a 'century home'. Old growth is really neat and something to be cherished. At the same time modern engineered lumber products like LVL's, OSB with insulation and weatherproofing and other innovations should be respected for the purpose they help serve. A lot of older homes in my area are using these new methods and products to keep older structures alive for the next century, with improvements in moisture control and insulation/energy usage along the way.

Everything in a good balance.

danans
0 replies
1h43m

If you do't have old growth wood windows to preserve, but are looking for a long lasting alternative, consider fiberglass framed windows. Fiberglass can be made to look like almost anything, and unlike some other modern materials (i.e. metals), it's a good insulator.

brianm
0 replies
22h19m

I'm not sure how this applies in softwoods (like the hemlock & fir type stuff usually used in construction), but it is not really so obvious that slow growth (tight rings) is better than fast growth (wide rings) in hardwoods. The fast growth wood is usually much less likely to shatter or split under strain -- which for some purposes (anything delicate, or with staked construction such as Windsor chairs, basically stuff which needs to bend some under use) is preferable.

I'd need to break out my [Hoadley](https://www.tauntonstore.com/understanding-wood-2nd-edition-...) to confirm, but my belief is that you are trading modulus of elasticity for modulus of rupture.

bitmagier
0 replies
11h38m

Whether wood grows fast or slow depends mainly on the tree species. Nowadays, you find still good wood for furniture and windows from oak trees for instance. It's just more expensive.

ProllyInfamous
0 replies
23h14m

A historic home [c1920] in my neighborhood had an elevator installed; I ended up fishing out four 3ft 4x12 segments, and they're absolutely fantastic (color, density, rings, smell).

No clue what I'll ever do with these, but they seemed too cool to just garbage.

JCM9
0 replies
18h29m

One of the many reasons older homes (especially pre WWII) are way better built. Older homes use bigger timber of old growth. Newer homes used smaller diameter timber of new growth. There’s no comparison. Provided it was taken care of I’d take a pre WWII home over something much newer all day long. You can always update cosmetic issues but you can fix the inferior structural construction of newer homes. There’s a reason why “This Old House” is a popular thing in places like the Northeast.

DannyBee
0 replies
58m

Any structural engineer or serious lumber person will tell you this is wrong.

In fact, if you go over to the Reddit discussion on this post, they all agree.

New growth has much fewer knots and issues because they are grown in a way that does not force the trees to compete for sunlight.

As such they grow straighter, taller, and with far fewer knots and anomalies.

The old stuff is denser but that is the only advantage.

It's worth not throwing out but it's not magically better.

We don't care about making new growth denser because we created lvl, lsl, psl, clt, etc.