Comment by ramshanker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ramshanker | Hacker News Reader

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I am a civil-structural engineering and have obvious bias for Concrete. Over here in India, literally all houses are built using Concrete and Burnt-Clay-Brick / Fly-Ash-Brick Masonry. I hope Concrete gets promoted more as a building material. They buildings which are professionally designed easily withstand 2500 Year Return Period magnitude earthquakes. Last time I enquired on HN about preference for Wood in US (remote areas) Building Materials, someone said, can't design house venerable to High Seismic Activity. While my exposure to US Building codes is limited, I know for sure, ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) have excellent Earthquake Loading criteria. It should be doable. Perhaps some regulation could help there.

A personal example: Wardrobes are usually made using synthetic-wood over here in India. I went a step ahead, and got it build using Steel-Sheets. So a major chunk of fire potential removed from the house. And it was within 10% of the cost of wood work. Termite free forever as bonus ! Have a look at the photos in google maps listing of the local manufacturer. https://maps.app.goo.gl/7Wrt4rNtcpez53Bm6

Wood is incredibly cheap here in the United States. Estimates I have seen in the past is a stone home will cost 15-25% more per square foot than a wood-framed home in the same location. Making it more resistant to earthquakes (a requirement in California) raises the price even further. At the end of the day, cost will almost always win.

In Europe, usually the cost of land is considerably higher than the construction. Must be true in rich parts of LA too.

One thing I think about is concrete is a major consumer of energy and contributes a large amount of CO2, something like 8% of the global emission. Whereas wood literally grows on trees while sequestrating said carbon. I realize that there re efforts to make concrete carbon neutral but until that happens building with concrete is not environmentally friendly.

But if you live in a tinderbox like California, that will only get worse from climate change, how long will that sequestration actually last? How much carbon will be emitted rebuilding and replacing?

Those people need to be housed either way so that energy is already spent. The path forward for Californians or any one in fire prone areas is to practice realistic fire-resistant home building and landscaping. Many of these techniques developed do not require concrete. That or these areas will have to be no-build zones.

Adding to that, concrete buildings rely on a lot of steel, which is another major emissions driver, and production of both also leave a lot of toxic waste behind.

Construction should try to use both sustainable materials wherever feasible, and strongly favour refurnishing existing houses over new buildings.

We also build with concrete. In the USA wood is very cheap and it's easier to work with, so you end up with a larger house at half the price of a concrete house. Also wooden houses have a "warmth" that is missing from bricks.

The way Americans look at it is: I can get a house twice as big for less. I'll just get insurance with the money I save.

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