Balloon framing is worse-is-better (2021)
constructionphysics.substack.com
constructionphysics.substack.com
1) Nails were expensive. Timber framing does not require any nails -- it uses dowels which can be made cheaply with a drawknife.
2) Unlike @simonsarris' wood, most wood available to post and beam constructors was not particularly straight. Post and beam is very tolerant of faults in lumber.
3) With post and beam, you don't need to square all four sides of a beam. You can get away with squaring off one(the external one) plus the spots where any corner braces go. If you are hewing with a broad axe and an adze, this is a huge time saver.
4) In rural post and beam construction, the beams do not all need to be the same size. You can use whatever tree you have lying around, as long as it is big enough. This is an advantage, as you can use a local tree and save the extremely laborious trip to the sawmill
So to summarize, you can have a bunch of low-skill farmers harvesting and preparing trees for beams. Then you need a high-skill carpenter to put the mortises in and assemble the whole thing.
Another regional difference is they put the powder room light switch next to the door on the outside, why? Has anyone seen this in any other area?
It also lets all the “look good” labor be done at the very last moment.
In my personal opinion the only thing that comes close is shiplap and it don’t look as good to some and doesn’t fireblock as well.
As long as the paper is halfway intact, drywall is very difficult to remove and provides significant strength to a wall. It’s a composite material, and excellent fire barrier.
It’s really obvious when it’s up compared to not.
It’s not as much as lathe and plaster, but lathe and plaster is extremely difficult to work with in every other way, and far more labor intensive.
Plywood on a wall is important for shear strength, but lathe and plaster doesn’t replace it. Properly designed earthquake resistant shear walls became a thing long after lathe and plaster were phased out.
plaster & lath is harder to work with, but has many superior qualities (re: moisture, sound, heat, malleability) that it makes it worth it in many residential cases (not so much commercial, where reconfiguration is more frequent).
[0]: a lathe is a machine tool
My favorite when checking out a potential house purchase once was a small wet spot in the middle of a wall.
When I pressed on it with my finger - and my finger went right through - into live termites!
That finger press probably saved me $75k and months of headaches.
https://up.codes/s/shear-walls-sheathed-with-other-materials
There are easy to install drywall elements (heavier drywall, or sound deadening backing sheets) that also cut down on noise.
As with all things, ‘it depends’. Lath and plaster isn’t used much anymore because the cost rarely outweighs the benefits.
In non-seismic shear wall usage, it’s allowable to use either.
(Edit: fixed my very persistent autocorrect from lath to lathe - doh, thanks for noticing that)
You could bring an example of code or calculation instead of anecdote to demonstrate your point.
If that makes me rude, then feel free to downvote as desired.
Now, if you nail a piece of cardboard to the square, the corners will stay square when force is applied because the cardboard resists that force. You could even use paper and get the same results.
TIL gypsum board is given some shear strength credit in the code books:
https://up.codes/s/shear-walls-sheathed-with-other-materials
I wouldn't have guessed it, I wouldn't trust it if it was close to failure, but there it is.
I think the least attractive aspect is how drywall fails catastrophically, and once it's broken the strength can't be restored. This is probably why I didn't expect it to be counted in structural calcs.
The most noticeable place I've seen it is in garages; the ones that are drywalled on the inside don't seem to lean as much as those that aren't.
The workbenches in my shop consist of multiple cheap, crappy pressed-wood folding tables from Office Depot, secured to each other on multiple sides with equally-cheap metal brackets. You'd think this would result in a rickety, unsafe platform that would blow apart in a stiff wind or buckle under light vertical load, but instead they are stouter in all three dimensions than most actual retail-grade workbenches. (And I don't have to feel bad about drilling into them!)
I can see drywall working exactly the same way, given enough studs and enough nails. The problem to be solved -- and the lesson I learned when I hacked these workbenches into existence -- isn't necessarily insufficient rigidity, it's too many degrees of freedom.
for a dream home, i'd love steel or mass timber for the exterior framing to reduce (maybe eliminate) interior load-bearing needs, so that interior layout is maximally configurable while still allowing lots of windows. expensive, but dreamy!
If it's a production builder built house, it might have 3/8 inch drywall.
1/2 or 5/8 inch drywall makes a big difference to how solid a wall feels but that usually only happens in custom high end builds.
There are on entire sections on each of these -- 1) how nails fell in price due to steam power manufacturing, and 2-4) how standardized lumber from across the country was available cheaply when local wood was scarce, due to steam power sawmills and railroads.
The whole point is that you don't need local wood, or high-skill anybody at all.
I have no idea how you think the author doesn't "connect the dots".
You are pointing to a different set of dots than gbronner.
They are talking about the advantages of post-and-beam construction - extremely tolerant of heterogeneous and uneven lumber, can avoid using nails, etc. This article gives the impression that post-and-beam construction needed tons of expensive materials and skilled laborers - but they are saying it's not the case, it just was less amenable to economies of scale. You can't ship in hearty lads to hew logs the way you can ship in boards and nails.
Of course, in the past two years the Home Depot has been out of stock sometimes as well.
https://www.harborfreight.com/saw-mill-with-301cc-gas-engine...
Whenever someone says, I want to write X program from scratch. I’m going to send them this link.
An axe and a broadaxe and a chalk line (though people originally just used charcoal).
Making beams is not that hard, especially if you have lots of wood and not a lot to do in the winter.
This allows you to produce post and beam beams for personal use quite cost effectively -- they don't take that much time to saw, and the transportation cost is basically nil because you are going to use them on-site, and you don't pay the monster weight penalty to put them on a truck. You can't kiln dry everything, but you can air dry it, and it tends to be extremely good for construction. The waste can be burned in a wood boiler.
chop tree -> hew it on-site -> haul to building area is very cost effective.
If you have infinite wood (remember, clearing land requires removing the trees anyway, and people would often burn them just for the potash), it is both cheaper and better to use post and beam.
What you are saying is also true, but is not pertinent to the article.
The most eye opening bit of learning for me was also mentioned in the article:
"The skin of the building, which previously only served as a barrier to keep the elements out, now also braces the wood stud walls, increasing their load bearing capacity."
Prior to sheathing, the framing is downright rickety!
Rockets with balloon tanks (such as the original Atlas) even rely on pressure from the propellant tank contents to strengthen the structure.
https://apollo11space.com/why-are-the-interstage-rings-of-th...
The final cost was $5,206.72 (all local pine including boards, no plywood or glue, cedar shingles), and I partly took off about 2 months of work (working on this during the day) to frame it.
There are some photos here, though far more on twitter: https://simonsarris.substack.com/p/the-goose-palace
If you can stick frame a shed its certainly not beyond you to timber frame one. You'll need to read a book or two and buy a few hundred $ of chisels. But no part of it is fundamentally difficult. Before this project I've used my circular saw more for cutting down brush than building.
Some budget item detail if you want to build something like it: https://twitter.com/simonsarris/status/1592159452995944449
And more construction pictures: https://twitter.com/simonsarris/status/1584169368203956225
There is a third way ... timber framing with steel column caps and timber connectors, etc. ... steel plates from Simpson that you connect with lag or through bolts.
PS thanks for your posts! The goose palace and the house build are both super inspiring.
I used Jack Sobon's books, mostly Timber Frame Construction, but Build a Timber Frame House is good too.
I just finished a horizontal cedar fence. Building physical stuff is much more fun than programming, a bit more wear and tear on the body though.
> bit more wear and tear on the body though
So true - it took me a loooooong time to recover from the day I poured the cement pad under the shed.
Good luck on your shed in the spring!
I'm not a builder (I'm a musician for the most part), but what I've built is to a pro standard and millimetre-accurate. That wouldn't have been the case had it been post-and-beam!
That is, yes on pole structures which can be great.
But remember, a pole building is, ipso facto, a temporary structure. The poles are always rotting.
Even the 8x8 heartwood columns 30x coated in creosote ... after 30 years of service they had to be chopped and under-joined to prefab concrete columns.
And so with that in mind, the idea that you would replace a 6x6 column (with 6x4 = 24 inches of surface exposure to ground and fungi) with a 6x6 exterior exposure and another 24 inches of interior* exposure (between each 2x6) is crazy.
I know people are doing it. I know the wood is treated. It is in the ground and wet and if you dig it up in ten years you'll have 3 little 1x5 wedges surrounded by rich, fungus filled dirt.
I don't know if a pole structure is the right choice for (you or your project) but do yourself a favor and use actual poles.
When I think of a pole structure, I think of continuous poles that extend into the ground.
Almost all of your sway strength is dependent on a continuous member going below ground level and most of the economies of a pole structure are realized by not building the footing all the way around.
That said, if you are not bound by seismic it is perfectly reasonable and I agree with you - Brettstapel[1] columns, such as sistered 2x6, would be just fine.
From your link - here is what I would think of as a pole structure:
https://permacolumn.com/products/perma-column-system.html
... and we have used that product (Perma-Column) to retrofit one of our barns: 24 reps of jack up, chainsaw off, dig out hole, and insert from below ...
For the same reason you mentioned, namely Googling and YouTube videos, I don't believe this is the case either. When the pandemic first struck, I took an interest in carpentry. I found a guy named Paul Sellers who guided me through constructing not only my first project in a set of durable trestles that I still use most days today, but also my first workbench, which I built the frame using, of course, M&T joinery. Each joint while not exactly the most beautiful work is still functional and holds true. It takes some time, patience, the willingness to be steady and not rush -- traits I think we all possess or can learn to posses.
I have also since undertook some more modern carpentry jobs using construction lumber and built garage shelving, a playground for my kids, a back deck, and replaced some rotting facia boards on my home.
The takeaway for me was, while I was pleased with being able to produce useful things for my family to enjoy, the act of using a powered circular saw, wrestling with an air hose to run a dangerous nail gun, and fussing about with construction adhesive and caulk was definitely no where near as enjoyable (or therapeutic) as the process of chiseling out those mortices, or sawing wood by hand. And I am proud of all the projects I have done, but the thing I am the most proud in a weird way was the work I was able to be more intimate with.
So better here may mean more efficient and economical, which I 100% agree with. But it also comes at a loss in my view.
I dream of building a house one day, of modest size. When that time comes, I am almost certain I will attempt to do it the traditional way.
(fyi If anyone is interested in learning balloon framing, I cannot recommend Larry Haun's house framing series enough)
I think it comes down to commodity vs craft - and if the goal is to simply produce a house or to produce a house where the process and craftsmanship was good for your soul.
The loss of craftsmanship is something I think about and lament on frequently. It's not just about making things. Of course modern methods are more "efficient" in the strictest capitalistic sense.
But there is more to the puzzle than that. I fear we aren't considering what we have lost in return, not limited to relationship between master and apprentice, knowledge transfer in the most natural way, and the connection to your work, to name a few.
And with the ongoing improvements to AI via things like ChatGPT, and the learning tools and tricks and opportunities they open up, and more of the old craftsman and tradesmen and women of old passing on to the next life, we may soon start to also see the decline of knowledge soon, as we will relegate more and more of that to our models.
Some IKEA furniture, such as their cheap bookshelves, are an amazing example of this. Basically it's a rectangle that wants to lean into being a parallelogram, and it readily does, until you tack up the backing piece which is like 1mm cardboard with dozens of nails. Cardboard that would bend, twist, rip, etc. in many directions, but works perfectly at keeping that parallelogram rectangular! Same idea with sheathing/framing.
Ikea--and other flat pack furniture--takes this approach to an extreme. Their backs are the absolute bare minimum to keep the carcass sides square under their own weight. Apply a bit of pressure to the corner of one of their bookcases, for example, and you can easily move it out of square. Cheap knockdown joinery that's meant to be easy to assemble make the problem worse. The bookcase won't have a very long lifespan, but that's acceptable for most of their customers. They're cheap and easy to replace for a reason. Other Ikea cabinets, with internal dividers, are a bit stronger because they're no longer relying on just the back to increase rigidity.
As for homebuilding, exterior sheathing plays a critical role in racking strength, resisting wind loads, etc. by effectively tying the stud wall assembly together. But as with the Ikea bookcases, for builders looking to save every penny that can be found, there are options. Stuff like Thermo-Ply--basically, aluminum-faced cardboard--is used in lieu of plywood or OSB. It might not immediately disintegrate if it's properly covered with a quality house wrap as a water-resistant barrier, but how common is that with most production builders? And that's completely ignoring serious weather events like hurricanes, which will turn all that cardboard into mush.
You can even take it a step further and rely on metal strapping and tension ties instead of structural sheathing.[1] That kind of house should at least use panels of foam insulation on the exterior, but given that it's generally a radical cost-saving measure, you'd be lucky if you even get that. Here's a terrifying video[2] walking through a new spec home that just relies on a cheap and ineffective house wrap. The unlucky buyers are going to have lots of fun with water damage, mold, bug infestation, and more. To say nothing of the house's other problems.
0. https://blog.lostartpress.com/2021/03/09/types-of-cabinet-ba...
1. https://www.continuousinsulation.org/sites/default/files/H30...
I recently used this technique when building a temporary support wall to cut a 10'x7' hole in the side of a commercial building and had to temporarily brace several of the roof trusses
Balloon framing was purely a method of convenience back when consumers were able to get their hands on 30-40 foot framing timber. As such, it was only popular during a limited window when sawmills were popping up across the West and virgin old-growth forests were being clear cut.
The author is using "balloon framing" to describe the entire concept of modern framing. But if you start throwing around "balloon framing" to describe modern houses you will at best get weird looks from contractors and at worse draw the eye of fire inspectors.
The image comparing balloon and platform techniques should probably have suggested the existence of a broader term.
> Today in the US, most houses and apartments are built using light framed wood construction.
> This system is a variant of a framing style known as balloon framed construction
Also, to the guy sidethread, the distinction between balloon framing and platform framing is the subject of several paragraphs, with illustrations.
In the building codes it is a method of light wood framing (not the other way round).
It can also be a method of light metal framing…in practice this is probably more common in the wild (in the US), because long light metal studs are straight and lightweight and hence more “wieldy.”
They came about at the same time, and shared many of the same concepts, but they are completely different technologies, and one didn't necessarily come from the other.
My dad was a firefighter and later a chief who served on a state codes commission. He dealt with hundreds of fires in homes built this way, they were destructive only secondarily to “cock loft” rowhouses with shared attics.
We happen to live in a house built this way - whenever we renovate a section of the house we have modifications done to exterior walls to reduce the risk, which is that a fire, say one originating in an electrical outlet, can travel up to the roof in <7m. Once the roof is involved, the house is toast in as little as 15m.
This is a lot of additional fiddly labor and labor drives construction practice in the US.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220327025123/https://www.fineh...
He's also got a series of Youtube videos explaining the process step-by-step:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_jmNLNnqSM
Dude is super sharp, plus wants to make sure he and his team all can work into their 50s, so they spend money on lifts and tools that make their jobs safer.
That's explained in the article, with a drawing even.
"Today, balloon framing (mostly in the form of platform framing) remains the default construction method"
* timber frame construction
vs
* stud frame construction
and that stud framing is divided into ballon framing (now rarely used, because of fire hazards, as noted by the article) and platform framing.
I've never come across "balloon framing" as the generic term for "build a house with lots of small wooden vertical pieces, plus sheathing".
"Balloon-type" balloon framing is still practiced even for new houses, because it allows a lot of exterior work to be done on the ground instead of three stories up:
Anywhere with high energy prices, hot/cold climates, or environmentally conscious buyers, thats a no-go!
If you don't want to click it's T-Studs - 2x3s with diagonals dowels with a 1.5 inch air gap
The actual manufacturing steps I'm sure are all automated, and not exactly complex, so the added manufacturing steps should be far outweighed by the reduced raw material and logistics cost.
I'm going to guess the increased price is some combination of 'we have a patent on it' and 'we charge more because there are no competitors, because we have a patent on it'.
Balloon framing is extremely thermally efficient, which is why it's used in places like the northeast US which have freezing winters!
The foam sheet insulation you speak of is relatively new to the industry, at least for middle class homes. Having a continuous layer of insulation outside the framing definitely makes stick framing more energy efficient than it would be with traditional fiberglass batt insulation in a wall cavity.
Most american buildings talk about R10 to R15, and occasionally you might get up to R20 if you build it well. Verticals of balloon framing are usually ~R5.
New buildings in England need to have walls of R32 as an absolute legal minimum (and more for ceilings and floors). And England has pretty mild weather compared to much of the USA.
Which is to say there are shop drawings and you can’t just go down to the store on Saturday and strap a few to the roof of your station wagon even if you just want to build a shed.
In the broad sweep of history they are a modern product.
But in 1995 I worked with a guy who used to work at the local plant. That’s how I learned about them.
Later he and his brother built a house out of them…that’s where the panels on top of the wagon image comes from.
Double stud construction with blown in cellulose has also been around a long time. (You can get R45 with a 12” wall)
For example, balloon framing is very rare in most of Europe - where people generally prefer brick, stone, blocks or even cast concrete. Something that won't rot away or creak in the wind.
Europe doesn't really have winter compared to North America, unless you're making a quip about their energy crisis ;-). Compare someplace continental and ridiculously far north like Rovaniemi, Finland to, say, Fargo, ND; the latter has colder winters, despite being 20 degrees of latitude further south. And yet everyone in Fargo builds with stick frames.
A well-built and well-maintained wood house can last multiple generations and keep warm in the meantime. Though, granted it's probably more expensive to maintain than equivalent masonry.
Neither does most of America. You nitpicked one place in NA then forgot sweden finland and norway exists...
This is a fairly well-known concept. From a starting place in Europe, usually one has to travel 10-15 degrees of latitude south to find similar winter temperatures in North America. See:
- Helsinki, Finland vs. Syracuse, NY: 17 degrees of latitude
- Warsaw, Poland vs. Pittsburgh, PA: 12 degrees
- Berlin, Germany vs. Roanoke, VA: 13 degrees
You have to go into Russia to find truly cold winters. Kazan, probably the coldest major city in the European side of Russia, has similar winter temperatures to Edmonton, AB, only two degrees further south.
Understanding the requirements made me develop a lot of respect for balloon framing.
> Something that won't rot away or creak in the wind.
Even in parts of the US that have a much harsher environment than any part of Europe -- extremely hot and humid weather conducive to wood rot, termite infestations, hurricanes and tornadoes -- people still build with wood because it's a lot cheaper. Sometimes I think it's strange, but it also makes sense, I suppose.
The only injuries that occurred timber framed houses in Christchurch in the 2011-02-22 earthquake were from brick chimneys falling through the roof.
> Balloon frame has a few disadvantages. One major one is that the exterior wall studs all the way to the roof, which provides an unbroken path for fire to travel.
Fire blocking is a very simple and well-known practice that avoids this pitfall completely. the failure to mention fire blocking makes me question the authors overall construction competence.
It feels as if they are arguing that stick framing is worse than timber frame construction because it's "more difficult to engineer many more smaller connection points". which may have been the case in the early days of stick framing, but like in software development, builders have developed codes, standards, conventions etc. that make modern framing very much a straightforward process. As well as all the fasteners and metal hardware has been exhaustively engineered.
> And beyond that, as a structural system, it lacks any sort of aesthetic elegance or simplicity. It’s made up of lots of flimsy-looking members.
Yea, thats the point! Structural elements do not need to have any aesthetic appeal as they are hidden by finishes and cladding. Its a feature, not a bug. As long as it is structurally sound, that is all that matters.
> It’s undesirable from an architectural perspective as well. Balloon framing has largely been used for simple residential structures (or worse, mobile homes) that have historically had little architectural involvement. The size and strength of dimensional lumber makes it difficult to use it to create large or architecturally impressive spaces... The architecturally influential residential buildings are more often built from more flexible materials such as concrete or steel.
I disagree with this as I've seen some incredibly beautiful "architectural" homes that used wood framing but that's subjective and not my primary objection. Where i have more of an issue that now the author is comparing wood stud framing to concrete and steel which is an apples to oranges comparison. It's an inconsistency it what the main subject is being compared to that makes the overall thesis of this fall very flat for me.
The "worse is better" paradigm may make sense for many software applications, but the connection here to residential construction and framing practices is such a strecth.
Others have mentioned that it's a little murky if the author is critical specifically of balloon framing or of stick built construction in general.
The irony is that balloon framing is more feasible today than ever. Balloon framing downsides:
1. Really long dimensional lumber
2. Fire risk of continuous cavities
3. Ledger/joist connection to balloon studs
The solutions?:
1. Engineered lumber. Dead straight and incredibly strong LSL (laminated strand lumber) and LVL (laminated veneer lumber) come in basically whatever length you reasonably need them.
2. Fire blocking is well understood. Insulation materials like mineral wool can further drive fire risk inside a stud cavity to near zero.
3. An innumerable number of well engineered and reasonably priced structural fasteners and metal connectors with well understood properties make it straight forward to build a second story floor off of balloon framed studs.
2022 is a great time to be balloon framing. In fact, you'll see it in large great rooms for floor to vaulted ceiling walls. Some framers who like to preassemble as much as possible on the ground and then lift the wall for efficiency and safety will balloon frame as well.
Tim is an excellent teacher and the perfect example of this technique.
However, I saw older structures using wood beans, mixed with stone, bricks, and/or adobe.
Insulated cavity walling with blockwork inner leaf and brickwork outer leaf (or sometimes rendered blockwork) remains incredibly popular though.
> Today, balloon framing (mostly in the form of platform framing) remains the default construction method for single family homes all over the world
Worse-is-better is about how a faster to market, good enough solution that people can use is better than the 'better' solution that comes later. The solution that is simple will be used again and again, the elegant solution that is more efficient or more general but harder to apply will be neglected since users have high skill with the simpler tool and will prefer it as a result. Balloon framing (and then platform framing) is simpler AND more elegant AND far cheaper AND produces a superior result, so it's simply not a case of worse-is-better.
It covers similar ground and has a thesis that “what allowed the hamburger to take over as the quintessential American cuisine and get exported everywhere are the same historical, cultural and economic confluences that contribute to the proliferation of the light wood frame for construction. . . . Light wood framing is the hamburger of the building industry”
Often buildings that have sheet metal exteriors are "post framed". Post framing is quite similar to post and beam. A "mortise and tenon" connection is implemented for securing the roof trusses to the posts. On site laminated 2x material is used or a notch is cut in post.
It seems most buildings in Taiwan are simply made of concrete. IDK too much about construction but when I watch them build it's like, frames of metal into which they pour wet concrete. It's crazy how fast buildings get put up this way, they tore down an entire building down the street from me, started construction about maybe 3 weeks ago tops, and today there is a fully formed building with fixtures, windows, the works, sitting there. Quite pretty, actually.
But this quote is for me one of the huge downsides. It's a NIGHTMARE to hang anything on my walls, first off. If I try to put a pin in for a poster, it bends. A nail could end up taking out chunks of the wall if I'm not careful, if I can even penetrate. And, once the fixtures are in, that's it. To run more wire, you've got to get out the (I think?) jackhammer. It seems every day all I hear is the sound of concrete being banged away at with some kind of power tool. If it's happening in my building, it's reverberating through the whole structures. It's horrible lol.
There's upsides though! Normal sounds stop HARD at the boundaries of an apartment. If you're outside someone's apartment door, maybe you'll hear something, but we don't hear shit from the neighbors, and I've checked, they can't even hear when I'm producing bass heavy music. I like that. Gotta make sure to get some stuff up on the walls though to prevent echo.
Don't they leave conduits and junction boxes in the walls when they run the initial wires?
Frankly I find it terrifying cause I don't think the contractors know anything about that structure of the building and who knows what they're doing to the structural integrity of a building in an earthquake zone. Like I said I'm ignorant of this stuff so maybe its not a big deal.
It's just "simpler is better for simpler things", which is hardly controversial. Use two dimensions of wood, simple connectors like nails, simple hand tools, less precision work. Heck, you end up using less wood even if you heavily overprovision and thus tolerate local faults, compared to large-beam construction. It's an aerospace-grade win.
What "worse is better" means in the software world is that an easy-to-do solution overtakes all, from simplest things where it belongs to the very top. This way PHP, which was a poorly-made thing even according to its creator, not just took over the space of simple dynamic websites, but also ended up powering world's largest services, such as Wikipedia and Facebook. (Now PHP looks hip; back when Wikipedia and FB experienced their meteoric growth, it sucked as hard as the legends have it, at everything about programming craft, but was a piece of cake to run and host.) For the author's analogy to hold, the Empire State Building would have to be built with balloon frame technology, and somehow stand.
Not so fast. My 5+1 has loads of sprinklers and its a nightmare. Every few years the sprinklers start leaking, or someone drills a hole or breaks a spinkler pipe. It causes catastrophic damage. Its one of the main reasons my next place will be concrete.
Not a very useful analytical framework.
Interesting article otherwise.
(PIX : https://imgur.com/a/4Yr21PR )
Much of what is called proper modern shed engineering (IE the building code) is actually just how to meet the minimum legal requirements for the least amount of cash. So keep that in mind.
My next shed is going to be a bag of air sprayed with foam.
I do see the two 2x4"s on the back wall, and I guess it's fairly light with the metal roofing as walls...
That roofing on the walls is pretty tough stuff. Serves as a diagonal brace and more. I don't think it's gonna fold over.
I'm curious why it's still prevalent in Japan? Most new Japanese houses are not built in the old machiya style.
I thought this was a weird one. Aren't roof trusses pretty often made off-site and delivered and craned into place? I also see trucks with framed-out walls driving around that just seem to need to be lifted and nailed into place. Is that not what those are?
And yes, we have tree plantations, but they're mostly sitka spruce, and there aren't _that_ many of them compared to potential demand for wood.
No it's not, the total amount of forest in the USA is increasing.
It is still way, way down from the levels when Europeans first arrived.
now seriously: i have seen some wood structure in northern Europe. but in general, using bricks creates sturdier, better isolated houses. that can resists for centuries, literally. they don't mold. they don't burn. so why not? it's just better from my point of view.
My wooden house was built in 1953 with a concrete watertight cellar serving as the foundation. The wood doesn't start until more than half a metre above ground. I see no reason why it shouldn't last another fifty years or more.
Why? It seems absurd to me to only have a dwelling last for half a lifetime. This view seems to assume a disposable, consumerist logic, which seems at odds in my view both from reasonable use of energy and time and with a sustainable civilization.
Your average house in the city is going to get bulldozed after 30-50yr because in that time things will change enough that someone is going to want to develop the site into something else.
Your average farm house is probably a 200yr structure.
I've never lived in anything that wasn't at least 50 years old and usually at least 200 years old - so that seems very odd to me. Mind you, I appreciate different countries and cultures etc.
Next you will be saying that roofs need to be replaced every 10 years! ;-)
Having lived in a European house with 50cm thick stone walls that had a mold problem, I disagree with this statement.
It was one of the stranges feelings i had when i visited usa that the houses felt like toy houses or something.
If anything, the modern building code is a testament to why the way people on HN build software is at best irresponsible and at worst a threat to society.