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Please keep politics out of this and stick with Economics instead.
The tariffs have a great deal to do with politics. The production of lumber was also negatively impacted by COVID, which was used for political fodder from the very beginning. This is not the economics or politics sub forum, so why should one be discussed and not the other?
"New Carbon Market Pays Southern Pine-Growers Not to Cut
Companies such as Microsoft, Royal Dutch Shell pay timberland owners to keep trees standing in an effort to offset emissions "
Here is a new way for Southern pine growers to get paid for their timber: Leave it standing.
Companies eager to offset their emissions are paying Southern timberland owners not to cut more than a million acres of mill-bound pine trees until next year.
The idea is that the longer the timber stands, the more carbon the trees can sponge from the atmosphere before becoming two-by-fours and telephone poles.
The companies are credited with socking away carbon in wood, measured in metric tons and documented with tradable assets called carbon offsets. Companies buy offsets to scrub emissions from the carbon ledgers they keep to show investors and customers their pollution-reduction efforts. Landowners get a check as long as their trees remain standing.
The market’s architect, SilviaTerra, plans to expand its Natural Capital Exchange this summer from Southern pine to hardwood forests there as well as to woods around the Great Lakes. The firm uses satellite photos, forest surveys and computer programs to size up timber, calculate how much carbon the trees can sequester and determine how many offsets their owners can sell. The price—$17 an offset—was set with an auction that landowners began by naming the price it would take to keep them from cutting...
...Molpus Woodlands Group LLC, one of the country’s largest timberland investment-management organizations, agreed to hold off harvesting about 468,000 acres across the South, said Dick Kempka, whose job is to generate non-timber income from Molpus properties...
Last edited by RationalExpectations; 04-20-2021 at 04:01 PM..
From what I read, the wildfires in CA, and subsequent rebuilding are a factor causing the high prices. If there's another bad fire season this year, it may delay lumber prices dropping.
~10,000 homes destroyed by wildfires.
~1,500,000 new homes built every year.
that's about 2/3 of 1%. Makes a great story, but it's not very accurate.
We drove along the Oregon Coast, through both the Coast and Cascade Ranges and saw lots of log trucks with loads. In both Washington and Oregon we passed by mills stocked with stacks of logs. Of course, in Astoria, many of the logs were for export.
I had to buy a treated 2x10 x10 before we left at Lowe’s ($36) and an employee told me that there was reduced amounts of lumber coming through the border.
I did something similar after reading that and checked random pieces with a moisture meter at home depot. Right now my rough 2x4's have a moisture content only slightly higher than the average from home depot. They're stacked, stickered, and covered, and I won't be getting to the framing of the walls until likely June or July. So they should be at a good moisture content by then. Even so, I likely won't be finishing the interior until next winter. So it will dry even more. I'm using a combination of 3/4" pine beadboard and lathe/plaster for the walls. I personally dislike drywall walls. It's an inferior product.
I wish you would do a YouTube series or something like that about this build. I would absolutely love to watch the process of doing a modern build with the old materials and techniques (100% serious).
I wish you would do a YouTube series or something like that about this build. I would absolutely love to watch the process of doing a modern build with the old materials and techniques (100% serious).
There are a handful on youtube of folks that documented their own timberframe/post-and-beam houses. Mr. Chicakdee does it with almost exclusively hand tools.
But Arctichomesteader seems to be building a modern stick frame style home. Really, homes in the US have been made basically the same since the mid 19th century.
The industrial revolution made nails available for cheap. The advent of water driven sawmills meant lumber could be milled quickly.
Previous to that it was sawn or hewn by hand. Tenons cut, mortises chopped, required a high level of skill.
Cheap nails, and the ability to zip a log into 2X or 1X boards in minutes, as opposed to a day spent hewing, eliminated that.
Aside from exterior and interior materials, the houses are built the same, or better, as they have for nearly 150 years. OSB/Ply sheathing makes a stronger house than board sheathing. Drywall is cheap, but not as quiet as plaster. The rest of it? Not that different. Slightly different materials, same recipe.
I wouldn't quite call my house modern but it's not fully 19th century either. The architecture is 19th century (basically a raised half cape with ell for the kitchen, early Victorian style trim on it), it will have antique gas or combination gas and electric fixtures throughout (gas parts still gas), fireplaces in all major rooms (Rumford fireplaces), a wood burning gravity hot air heating system, antique hardware throughout, and antique windows (some from the 1820's, one window from the 1790's, all fully stripped of lead paint and refurbished). But a modern concrete block foundation (reinforced and filled), electricity (off grid solar), insulation in the walls. I would say "modern" plumbing but late 19th century plumbing was little different, just less efficient as far as toilets or water heaters went. I'm not much of a talker in person but maybe I will have to document the construction some for fun. I like some modern technology, obviously, but I don't think that overall home construction has really improved. The life expectancy of a new house has actually declined.
Plywood is strong but both plywood and OSB fail rapidly in a fire compared to solid wood (once the glue heats up it comes apart). OSB will rot quite rapidly if there's an undetected water leak in comparison to solid wood or even plywood. Engineered lumber like LVL's and wood I-joists, as well as roof trusses, are all quite strong in ordinary conditions but cause a home to fail quicker in a fire. Giving you less time to escape and creating more danger for firefighters. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...ickly-6926285/
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