Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
As I’m sure others have mentioned plywood and properly rated exterior OSB are actually much more dimensionally stable than board foot lumber. For sheathing the house it’s not necessarily a budget choice - they can really be great materials for soundness and quality.
There are different grades of plywood and OSB, and different house designs where timber frame might make more or less sense than poured concrete, grouted CMU, panelized construction, etc.
just thinking. why are most houses in the us out of wood? i was reading once that its because americans move often, the wood industry was lobbying well and its cheaper? but i dont get it?
Americans lack the engineering know how of Germans. Really, nothing Americans do can rank with the awesomeness that is Germany.
No doubt properly built reinforced concrete is way to go most places. It will stand up to high wind and about anything else you can throw at it. Floods, just hose it out. But in earthquake areas, something that can give with movement of earth might be better way to go. A good yurt would seem practical in such an area. With nothing close that can fall on it. Tall commercial buildings are designed with mechanisms that counterbalance with wind. They have to, that tall and you always have some effects of wind.
As to stick built, I too would prefer old way of building only with saw lumber. Real old slow growth tree kind of lumber not the fast grow jack pine and poplar type woods. There were building techniques that made it quite strong. Sheathing the house with boards at 45degree angle for instance. But nothing wrong with real plywood long as its thick enough. Usually problem with plywood and OSB is that its not attached well enough. Horror stories in hurricane areas of sheets of roof sheathing put on with two or three nails from nailgun. Just enough that it doesnt fall off from mere gravity. Lot stuff is put up with appropriate inspector bribes quick as possible. The glued stuff has downside of lot of out-gassing of formaldehyde and such. In USA incredible pressure to always maximize profit so lot shoddy construction and corruption. More profitable to build shoddy and replace it in 50 years than to build something for the centuries.
Should also mention its not easy to find somebody to build unconventionally. Contractors have their profits figured. Anything that deviates from what they are used to, they dont want to deal with. The only differences they want to deal with is interior decoration or color of roofing or siding. Nothing structural. Even finding somebody to build a conventional but super insulated house is difficult. It adds little to building cost, but take lot attention to detail. Pays for itself quickly, though if you are moving in 5 years, then you dont care. You have to go find a specialty builder to get anything else. And you are going to pay whole lot more for such. You will get nicer house, but you better be well heeled.
This is all 100% correct. We are building with fiber reinforced high performance concrete with ICF and precast panels for the floor and roof. And yet we have to do 80% of the labor and genera contracting ourselves, because trying to find even a luxury home builder who will work with some of the leading edge industry materials is very difficult. They don’t like working with systems they don’t know, even when those systems are superior in performance and even cost. That’s a people problem and not unique to contracting, honestly.
Still even with our deep love of concrete and the fact that our forever home is going to be almost entirely built of the stuff, I cannot downplay that other engineered timber materials also perform fairly well and have their own advantages. I wouldn’t build another house out of them without applying the Fortified House program criteria to the design for durability, but the ease of fit on site, light weight, cost efficacy, and wide availability of plywood and exterior rated OSB makes them great products for your average tract home. And if the contractor is careful in the build and the design is proper for the location’s specific site conditions with weather, wind, seismic, etc, I’m not so snobby as to think that contractor cannot make a quality home from timber frame, timber product sheathed, and timber clad products.
For our desires and performance it isn’t the right material, but that doesn’t mean it’s totally crap
There is old housing built with solid OAK. It is as sturdy as concrete. No creaks in a real Oak stairway.
Most of Chicago's bungalow-belt of the 20s 30s boom-period. Were true Brick homes, full basements and foundations of course, and Oak used throughout. They will be around another 100+years. Its later eras too. Different styles but Brick and Oak thru the 60s.
Newer construction might have issues in the US Sunbelt cities. But most Northern-tier U homes were solid pre 1970s especially. With WOOD EVEN.
just thinking. why are most houses in the us out of wood? i was reading once that its because americans move often, the wood industry was lobbying well and its cheaper? but i dont get it?
Lots of home building podcasts out there with homes built of mud bricks, compressed straw (mildew), log cabins, "printed" structures made from mixtures from metal dust to mars regolith. Commercial space made to be fire proof can be made from cast concrete with aluminum stud framing.
.
Not too many brick buildings these days Many courses of brick which are load bearing. Today a house is a system of various materials which may have brick cladding which has very little to do with holding the floors and roof up.
Wood works. In the future maybe recycled plastic. Cost is the biggest determinative.
I live in NE Wyoming, and here the soil is so expansive that for a basement to last it's got to be poured and reinforced concrete... at least that's the only thing I'm aware of that holds up, and even it will often crack leaving wide cracks that leak water when it rains (or when you water your yard).
I happen to be a home inspector for mortgage companies, so I inspect all ages of homes, from new to more than a century old. (We don't have many homes older than a century, since our town was founded in 1891 with most of the early buildings put up quickly rather than for longevity.) The biggest problem I see with old homes around here (all of NE Wyoming) is foundations/basements. Many of these old basements have walls of mud and nothing much else. Concrete block basements are crap here. Our soil shifts too much. Poured concrete with lots of reinforcing steel is about all I've seen that lasts any amount of time. I've even seen a few old basements built with wood! If the drainage is okay, some are just fine a century later, but most are crap.
I once built a 45x80 airplane hangar. I had the "dirt" removed about 4 feet down and replaced it with sand, then poured 8" of concrete on top with fairly heavy steel reinforcement in it. That was 40+ years ago, and although I no longer own it, I never saw a crack in the floor for the first 20+ years, as long as I did own it.
I live in NE Wyoming, and here the soil is so expansive that for a basement to last it's got to be poured and reinforced concrete... at least that's the only thing I'm aware of that holds up, and even it will often crack leaving wide cracks that leak water when it rains (or when you water your yard).
I happen to be a home inspector for mortgage companies, so I inspect all ages of homes, from new to more than a century old. (We don't have many homes older than a century, since our town was founded in 1891 with most of the early buildings put up quickly rather than for longevity.) The biggest problem I see with old homes around here (all of NE Wyoming) is foundations/basements. Many of these old basements have walls of mud and nothing much else. Concrete block basements are crap here. Our soil shifts too much. Poured concrete with lots of reinforcing steel is about all I've seen that lasts any amount of time. I've even seen a few old basements built with wood! If the drainage is okay, some are just fine a century later, but most are crap.
I once built a 45x80 airplane hangar. I had the "dirt" removed about 4 feet down and replaced it with sand, then poured 8" of concrete on top with fairly heavy steel reinforcement in it. That was 40+ years ago, and although I no longer own it, I never saw a crack in the floor for the first 20+ years, as long as I did own it.
Common construction technique in Florida... slab on grade. There are very, very few is any basements in south Florida. Water table too high. Also... stem wall construction is becoming more common.
Americans lack the engineering know how of Germans. Really, nothing Americans do can rank with the awesomeness that is Germany.
And if you have any doubt, just ask a German.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
They will be around another 100+years. Its later eras too. Different styles but Brick and Oak thru the 60s.
Aluminum
