Why Are New Houses Being Made Out of Wood?

Humans have used wood four housing for thousands of years, Americans have been doing it since the Europeans landed on this continent, so what are you so worried about OP?

Exactly what I said, r1. Learn how to read.

OP has just been reading The Three Little Pigs and is concerned. Susan Collins-level concerned.

You can't in some places due to earthquakes.

Most brick houses are not actually built with bricks as the foundation (think medieval castles with fat stones/bricks stacked atop one another).

What we know as "brick houses" have a brick facade...basically brick installed in front of the wood that frames the house.

One word, OP: cost. An all brick/stone veneer home iwould add at least 50K to the cost of even the most modest home.

I have a brick exterior. It's all wood framing inside of that. Houses are made with wood.

R2 Not at all what you said

I hope it’s OP sarcastically admitting his mistake, R8. Surely it’s not some some bizarre online gaslighting attempt.

Wood is a much better insulator. Stone houses are cold and damp.

Wood is also more flexible.

[quote] Does this make me sound butch?

I have the weirdest boner right now, R5.

On the west coast most houses are made of wood, OP. It’s a plentiful reaource and it’s safer in an earthquake. I’m not sure why you’re all up-in-arms about it.

*resource, obvs! ^

I’m in Florida, first floor houses are concrete blocks or poured concrete, but second floors are sometimes made of wood. Sensible people walk past those builders and head to DRHorton where both floors are built from concrete blocks and therefore much safer in a hurricane.

Wood construction is faster and cheaper. And the issue of availabilty and cost of materials specific to the geography.

Wood construction and brick veneer construction over wood or metal framing is all but unknown in many countries. The idea of hollow frame walls and floors/ceilings (wood or metal) stuffed with a bit of rolled insulation applied to paper and exterior facades tacked onto this sort of construction like a pair of clip-on earrings induced head scratching where I live. Here walls are of masonry (terracotta blocks and bricks). Have a large room that you want divided into two? Don't call in carpenters and sheet-rock installers, call masons who will build a partition in masonry and finished by plasterers: solid, long lasting, and the interior walls easily rearranged later as desired.

New housing construction on wood and metal framing structural framing is built to last about 50 years, but major such as roof cladding, wood floors, appliances, insulaton are closer to 15 years.

This is the DRHorton I used.

Single story old growth wood frame stucco house on a raised concrete foundation, solid as a rock since 1960 the year it was built. This is in a nearby suburb of New Orleans with no history of flooding, since this area is about 11-14 feet above sea level.

And I'm waiting for my 120-year-old thee-story brick house to collapse in an inevitable earthquake, with the broken gas lines torching me and the attached wood 4-car garage I could have lived in amid the rubble, if only I had survived.

A mere 5.8 could do it and a 6.4 would level most of the city in which I live.

They renovated shot gun houses for low income residents here, the contractor inspected the old dilapidated buildings and said the framing and wood was solid, they were made if old growth Bald Cypress, just the trim floors etc needed the attention. I know when old houses like these are demolished, the lumber is sold at high prices.

They renovated shot gun houses for low income residents here, the contractor inspected the old dilapidated buildings and said the framing and wood was solid, they were made if old growth Bald Cypress, just the trim floors etc needed the attention. I know when old houses like these are demolished, the lumber is sold.

Yep, if you live near a giant hill or mountain, and there's a landslide, you're fucked.

R17 - that makes sense where you live! :)

Where I live (off the west coast of British Columbia), wood makes sense, both for financial and safety reasons. My wood house is fifty-years-old and is just fine. It’s not airtight; it breathes. It swells in wet weather and dries in our summer droughts. It’s not mouldy! I don’t know why you assume wooden houses are inherently mouldy, OP…? Maybe they are where you live, they are, but not here in our cool-summer Mediterranean climate.

Brick houses are so rare in my city (Victoria, BC). There are a few that were built in the 1800s, but they’re so rare as to be remarkable. They creep me out, to be honest, and you couldn’t pay me to live in one because of earthquakes.

Yes, of course fire is a concern, but it’s a concern in brick/concrete houses as well! There’s a lot of flammable material inside and, at best, you’d be left with a shell that needs to be knocked-down. What’s the difference? 🤷🏻 (this is directed at OP, not at you)

Houses are ideally built for their climate. I know my grandparents’ brick houses in northern England were cold af in both winter [italic]and[/italic] summer, but there bricks were cheap, so…

I guess new houses at witches

Wood provides MUCH BETTER insulation than brick or stone, thus lowering heating/cooling costs. PLUS . . . the wood can last forever, as long as you take care of it.

In Carol O'Connell's [italic]Stone Angel[/italic], one character's Louisiana house was built by her father to last, made of cypress wood. The character is letting the house fall apart, but it's taking forever.

We love wood houses.

Wood houses can be very durable. There are many wooden houses in New England and Virginia built before 1700 that are still standing and perfectly sturdy. As others have mentioned, you have to maintain them (painting the wood regularly, etc). And, most importantly, they have to be on a proper foundation. Wood touching soil is a recipe for disaster and/or a feast for termites and wood-rotting organisms. I'm linking a picture of a stave church (wooden church) built in Norway in 1150. Seems perfectly sturdy to me. But notice that it is on a stone foundation and the ground slopes away from it in all directions. Super important in wood construction. The current building methods using wood framing and interior walls made of sheet rock are designed for ease of changing the configuration and for inserting wiring, piping, etc. How they are clad and how they are insulated makes a big difference to their longevity. There are a ton of ranchers, split levels, and more modern housing types built from the 1930s onward using these methods where I live and they seem to be holding their own. But I live in a dry cool climate in the West and that might make some difference. Over time in almost all architecture there will be some settling and ceilings may crack, or floors will no longer be perfectly level. This modern type of construction is no different in that regard.

Houses in Japan DEPRECIATE, they knock them down and build new, I know they have timber but that seems like a lot of wood. Most new houses are made with OSB anyway, even in America with plenty of lumber, solid wood is expensive. Europe has no timber to speak of, just Scandinavia and Russia.

OP must be a crackhead

R20 is that by any chance in Jacksonville Fl ? Ive got a mantle I picked out of the garbage when they tore down dozens of those shot gun shacks to "revitalize" a black area. Of course all there is there now are weedy lots. DR Horton are notorious here in Fl for shitty construction. I think theyve been sued many times over it.

What a stupid ass thread.

Have we learned nothing from the 2nd Little Pig? He built his house with wood (sticks), which is not wolf proof.