
More buildings should be made of wood - pseudolus
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/01/05/why-more-buildings-should-be-made-of-wood
======
Johnny555
Can wood buildings provide good sound isolation between floors?

I've lived on the 3rd floor of a wood framed 4 story apartment building, and
won't repeat that experience if I can help it -- we could hear the couple
upstairs very clearly, footsteps, their dog jumping off the couch and barking
out the window, late-night sex, all were easy to hear.

In contrast, I lived on the 5th floor of a 9 story concrete and steel high
rise, and couldn't hear anything. I even had the upstairs neighbors ask me if
I could hear their new treadmill, and I could not.

I assume that the sheer mass of the concrete floors made it so quiet -- Can a
wood framed building be constructed with that same level of isolation?

~~~
mattlondon
FWIW, I live in a brick and concrete building and hear all the things you
mentioned, sometimes not just from immediately adjacent units, but also often
units two or three floors away in some cases, e.g. loud parties or
drilling/hammering (the rigid structure conducts the sound around the building
I think - kinda like tapping on a metal pole or rail: doesn't matter where you
put your ear on the pole you still hear the noise from the tapping)

~~~
twelve40
loud parties or drilling/hammering? in a wooden building (in a pretty regular
US home at least) you hear people gently walking or even just coughing on the
floor(s) above or below you

------
sohkamyung
That's a lead article in The Economist. A longer article on the merits of
modern wooden buildings can be found in the same issue at [1]

[1]
[https://www.economist.com/international/2019/01/05/efforts-t...](https://www.economist.com/international/2019/01/05/efforts-
to-make-buildings-greener-are-not-working)

------
jimmy1
I CTRL+F'd for "deforestation" in the article, thinking that anyone in their
right mind talking about using that much more timber would at least mention
it, and was surprised not to even see it mentioned.

> When a mature tree is cut down, a new one can be planted to replace it,

Again, expert carpenters could correct me if I am wrong, but the higher
quality desired wood is called "old wood" some of which is over one hundred
years old. You can't just snap your fingers, plant a field of trees and expect
that to be ready in time to meet a surge of demand. The stuff is already
extremely hard to come by -- you ain't gonna find it on the shelf in any big
box store.

The vast majority of the stuff used today is "new wood", cultivated to grow as
fast as possible, so the wood is not as dense and, as a result, weaker and
more susceptible to decay and instability. Not exactly what I would want my
skyscraper built out of.

I am assuming the author was considering composites and manufactured wood
products as well -- again, these have not been proven to be as structurally
sound as old wood over time.

Then the other factor in play here is the increased demand in logging. Logging
is one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet. You would technically be
requiring more loggers, thus causing more logging deaths.

Not so sure this is such a good idea, but I could be wrong.

~~~
bamboozled
That's true that newer woods are softer, but often for structural applications
special types of engineering wood products are produced from newer woods which
are very strong. One example that comes to my mind is structural ply, it's
really strong stuff and practically always made from soft timber.

~~~
jimmy1
I found a reference here
([https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr190/chapter_...](https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr190/chapter_12.pdf))
that discusses the mechanical properties of some of these fabricated
structural wood products. Everything seems to be in comparison to just plain
hardwood, but nothing seems to point to that it meets or exceeds the strength
of hardwood. I am not convinced that any amount of glue, plastics, and
pressing together other hardwoods (presumably, young woods as well) will stand
up against good old fashioned old wood timber, which I simply don't think we
have enough of to start building tall buildings with. If that's the case I'd
rather be on the top floor of a steel building.

~~~
mikeash
They’re only going to design the building to be strong enough to withstand the
loads it needs to bear, plus a standard safety factor. If they use a stronger
material, they’ll use less of it so that the resulting strength is the same.

I can understand being skeptical of decay, fire resistance, sound deafening,
or other factors like that, but being worried about the strength makes no
sense.

------
taneq
I don't see any mention of termites. Wood is much less attractive when you
live in a termite-prone area - they're hardy little buggers, they can chew
through concrete to get to your timber framing, and if you don't catch them
early enough your entire house needs to be rebuilt.

~~~
benj111
Ahem. First google link "There is an urban legend that says that termites can
eat through concrete to get into a home." [https://www.termite-
control.com/termite-infested-homes/termi...](https://www.termite-
control.com/termite-infested-homes/termite-and-building-material/concrete-
termites/)

~~~
taneq
Huh, there you go. Although the third link on DuckDuckGo
([http://mytermitetreatmentcosts.com/do-termites-eat-
concrete/](http://mytermitetreatmentcosts.com/do-termites-eat-concrete/)) does
say:

> However, older degraded concrete is occasionally weak enough for termites to
> make their way through. The same has been known to be true with lime mortar
> which is common with brickwork. Termites have been known to make their way
> through the lime mortar between brickwork to get to the wood behind them.

So it's not completely impossible.

------
abalone
Cement/concrete is a MASSIVE contributor to global warming (8% of CO2).[1]

Steel is not far behind at 5%.[2]

I feel like we need to talk about this more. Whenever "urbanists" go on about
the environmental cost of sprawl and transport, first thing I think about is
all the concrete & steel their vision requires. At least we can make transport
sustainable.

[1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/science-
environment-46455844](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46455844)

[2] [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611961/this-mit-
spinout-c...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611961/this-mit-spinout-
could-finally-clean-up-steel-one-of-the-globes-biggest-climate-polluters/)

(I guess the Economist cites different estimates, 6% and 8% respectively, but
it's in the ballpark.)

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Most urbanists prefer putting buildings closer together with less roads and
parking lots in between over building taller.

~~~
abalone
What's your source? Most urbanists I read at least in the context of San
Francisco _definitely_ advocate building taller. Maybe not skyscrapers, but at
least 4-6 stories. And the "formula" for that type of construction uses a
concrete first floor.[1]

I'm not _against_ the urbanist vision per se. I've just found that it's very
"politicized" and they tend to not want to talk about CO2 impact of dense
urban construction like it's some kind of attack. Like, I got downvoted a bit
for my comment. Why can't we talk about this?

[1] [http://archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com/2015/03/how-one-
plus-f...](http://archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com/2015/03/how-one-plus-five-is-
shaping-american_27.html)

~~~
TheCoelacanth
One floor of concrete plus five floors of wood is a common pattern, but it
isn't necessary. You can easily build a six story building wood frame
building.

Also, a big focus of urbanists is the "missing middle"[1]. This is the idea
that there is too much focus on single family houses and high-rises and too
little focus on housing that is shorter, but still denser than single family
houses.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_Middle_Housing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_Middle_Housing)

------
conchy
Seems like this analysis has vastly under-appreciated wood's tendency to burn.
Yes, I see they've mentioned how in one specific type of burn test "modern
cross-laminated timber panels perform better in fire tests than steel ones"
... but come on, are they suggesting that any kind of wooden house is safer
than a cinderblock house? Storm risk?

It's great that wood is environmentally friendly and all, but does this
opinion really consider how many more humans would likely die in house fires
or tornados if we all moved into wooden homes?

Vast swaths of this planets are covered in nothing but cinderblock structures,
and you know another thing they don't really need to worry about? Fire
departments.

~~~
goodcanadian
Like all things, it depends. In North America, the vast majority of houses are
wood frame. The incidence of deadly house fire remains rare. If you build to
code, wood frame houses can be quite safe. As for storm risk, there is a lot
you can do to strengthen a wooden house against hurricanes. Cinder block
houses lose their roofs just as easily as a wooden house if it is not properly
anchored. There are also a lot of places where hurricanes just aren't an
issue. Finally, wood generally fares better in an earthquake as it is
naturally flexible whereas cinder block houses most assuredly are not.

~~~
conchy
Over hundreds of years of proximity to nearly limitless natural lumber, North
Americans have evolved a highly complex network of water mains, smoke
detectors, fire hydrants, and fire fighters to quickly come and put out the
fires that inevitably happen before everyone burns because we build nearly
everything out of flammable, cheap wood!

Imagine how much money and effort we could save if we build shit of of
something that doesn't burn!

------
xte
I have built since few year my first wood house (Euroclass A+) and have had
very limited "long-term" experience of wood structures for small "garden-like"
construction, in summary: they are damn good in terms of thermal isolation,
fire resistance (yes, wood burn, but structure sustain heat _more_ than
concrete!), and maintainability (especially to change something inside, if
wood is properly designed) however we should copy Japanese way of wood fitting
to avoid metal fasteners (screws etc) because after years they tend to loose
simply due to internal forces in the wood structure due to thermal dilatation
etc.

Also I do not really now how long steam brakes towels can last, they are
plastic and plastic normally do not last longer... Formally they are
guaranteed 10 years. If we have designed implants properly they can be changed
with a long but not extreme work however...

Another point is fragility in general: to have proper insulation, at least in
EU but I assume also in the rest of the world, we use "VMC" (forced
ventilation with air-air heat exchange) and while they are essentially
brushless motors running calm and slowly they have filters, humidity
regulators (that are essentially "heat pumps/fridge like machines) etc and
again I do not know how much they can last in years.

With a broken ventilation living it's _hard_ , I experienced it very well
since I have start inhabit my house before it's completion and I have to keep
windows opened a bit or I literally suffocate inside in around 12 hours... And
the resulting "closed smell" was really high... Probably that's the very same
thing for modern concrete construction but that's is... Without some machines
and electricity it became really hard to live inside...

BTW I'm happy and I note to some likely to downvote in these arguments: this
imply little buildings like two/three floor maximum. We can build taller
building in X-Lam but they are more experiment than reality. So draw your
conclusion. The population model for modern wood houses it a Riviera model,
not a skyscrapers town.

------
peterwwillis
Previous discussion on making more wooden buildings:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18174491](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18174491)

What it's probably gonna come down to is, can we make it cheaper than other
methods? Will someone make enough money to really push modern wood composite
prefab structures? Because let's face it, the construction industry doesn't
give a crap about sustainability.

------
markvdb
Wood is good. Straw is even better.

Fire and earthquake resistance are two big advantages straw building has over
brick, concrete and metal.

Have a look at the wikipedia article [0] for a short intro.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw-
bale_construction#Proble...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw-
bale_construction#Problems_with_straw-bale)

------
bungle
This company seems to be doing wooden bricks (or legos):
[https://www.aaltohaitek.fi/frontpage](https://www.aaltohaitek.fi/frontpage)

------
l_camacho84
How about just building less houses? Even China has overproduction of houses.
All comes down to our economic paradigm where we need to produce infinitly
otherwise we colapse

------
skookumchuck
There are an awful lot of unforested areas which could be planted with trees.
I'm surprised none of the green initiatives are about planting large
quantities of trees. Trees remove CO2 from the air, sequester it in wood, and
provide lumber for building.

I'm a bit leery of wood skyscrapers, however. What happens when they burn?

~~~
jonathankoren
The tallest wooden building allowed is only five stories. Wood framed
buildings higher than that need special approval.

[http://www.woodworks.org/experttip/what-is-the-tallest-
wood-...](http://www.woodworks.org/experttip/what-is-the-tallest-wood-
structure-allowed-per-current-building-codes/)

~~~
detritus
As youngtaff points out, this is not true internationally...

London, UK, 10 storeys: [http://waughthistleton.com/dalston-
works/](http://waughthistleton.com/dalston-works/)

Vancouver, Canada, 18 storeys: [https://www.thinkwood.com/our-projects/brock-
commons-tallwoo...](https://www.thinkwood.com/our-projects/brock-commons-
tallwood-house)

And then there are hybrid wood/steel structures, with a Japanese company
planning a 70 Story tower:

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42839463](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42839463)

------
craftyguy
I'm sure Paradise, CA would disagree. There's no one construction material to
rule them all, it should be chosen based on the local environment/situation.

~~~
Doxin
A wood construction doesn't catch fire more easily than other building
materials if done properly. In fact once caught fire wood is much more
predictable than other materials.

~~~
craftyguy
> In fact once caught fire wood is much more predictable than other materials.

Uh, once caught fire, the structure is compromised and almost always lost.
Success? (lol)

