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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Also remember, the vast majority of houses built in 1824 didn’t survive either. For the ones that did it’s mostly down to maintenance.
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.
However, leaky houses probably contribute to their longevity as those areas are able to dry from the outdoor air flowing indoors instead of rotting.
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.
Combined with what you said about it being wet, I'm guessing you live in the subtropics.
Building in a climate/ecology conscious way in tropical/subtropical places is very different than in colder places, and most of the knowledge out there is for colder-than-tropical climates, and frankly I don't know much about it.
But one thing that translates well between the climates is shade - shade structures and roof overhangs - especially on the sides that take the most solar load.
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?
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.
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.
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.