Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested • Hacker News Board

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#71

Post by doctorhandshake » Thu, Oct 26, 2023, 6:44 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #42

bastardoperator wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue there is zero point in using real hardwood on floors these days given vinyl planks are way cheaper, way more durable, and look nearly indistinguishable from real thing.

We went with a mid-grade LVP in the basement (ease of install, cost, and water-resistance). It's fine in that use case, but it has some drawbacks over wood. The primary one I've noticed is the damage pattern (from moving furniture, etc) isn't good - wood patinas better, where LVP just gets gouges. Maybe there are more expensive LVP options that don't do this.

I prefer to use patina to refer to acceptable or even desirable wear, and in that sense, LVP doesn't patina at all, but rather gouges, as you say.

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#72

Post by doctorhandshake » Thu, Oct 26, 2023, 6:47 PM UTC

aaronax wrote: post #16

Black locust is basically as good as ipe--competitive in characteristics like hardness and rot resistance, and I think slighly lower in price. It has been used for years for fence posts and now a lumber industry for it seems to be maturing. Apparently it grows like a weed and is even considered invasive in some places. I used black locust for a large porch and am very pleased with it.

I did an enormous amount of research when replacing my deck this summer and BL was top of my list. My experience trying to source it here in Eastern PA was, to put it mildly, off-putting, as everyone I spoke to wanted to, unprompted, spend the first 30 minutes of the conversation telling me how shady their competitors were, especially when it came to claims of domestic sourcing.

I ended up doing a kind of 180 and installing Accoya wood, which, geographically and species-wise is about the furthest thing from BL available, but felt to me like a good investment in longevity and thus embodied carbon, even when accounting for the long boat trip(s) to my place.

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#73

Post by doctorhandshake » Thu, Oct 26, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

everybodyknows wrote: post #17

By "exclusive" is apparently meant high-priced. Those of us who are excluded, or object to becoming complicit in denuding forests, will build our decks out of pressure-treated pine and Trex.

I hated these options as well and thus did a bunch of research into thermally-modified and acetylated timber. I'd recommend investigating those options if you don't want plastic or PT.

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#74

Post by LoganDark » Thu, Oct 26, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

hcurtiss wrote: post #64

LoganDark wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this page ever actually load?

LOL - it did for me. It's also here, though it looks like it's 14mm now. https://www.floorcity.com/collections/calypso-laminate-floor...

That one works, thanks!

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#75

Post by notatoad » Thu, Oct 26, 2023, 6:53 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #23

marricks wrote: post #10

It’s why you gotta burn ivory. When something is a luxury item for the wealthy rules don’t really matter you have to destroy the market.

Unless it is a piano keyboard, because musicians are aware of this and so the only pianos with ivory keyboards have ivory from nearly 100 years ago. There would be interest in new ivory by a few (generally because they have an antique piano with one broken key), but they will demand proof that the ivory was sustainably harvested (There was a park a few years back overcrowd with elephants that was looking into providi…

>but they will demand proof that the ivory was sustainably harvested

yes, i'm sure this is true for 100% of people buying fancy pianos, and "proof of sustainable harvest" isn't at all a loophole that gets used to sustain an illegal ivory trade.

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#76

Post by fanatic2pope » Thu, Oct 26, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

aaronax wrote: post #16

Black locust is basically as good as ipe--competitive in characteristics like hardness and rot resistance, and I think slighly lower in price. It has been used for years for fence posts and now a lumber industry for it seems to be maturing. Apparently it grows like a weed and is even considered invasive in some places. I used black locust for a large porch and am very pleased with it.

Osage Orange is another interesting domestic species that is extremely strong and also resistant to rot. I use it as a contrast wood for projects where I don't mind the colour change from bright orange to black over time. Things like small inlays but especially as pegs for draw bored mortise and tenon joints. A quick online check reveals it is sold in sizes probably useful for building decks.

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#77

Post by chmod600 » Thu, Oct 26, 2023, 6:55 PM UTC

bastardoperator wrote: post #37

frozenlettuce wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I was watching Property Brothers and saw two episodes where both houses had Brazilian Hardwood flooring. The funny thing is that I live in Brazil and it is quite rare to find houses with that type of flooring - the bureaucracy and costs associated make it very expensive - but that might not be the case if the customer is Canadian

I would argue there is zero point in using real hardwood on floors these days given vinyl planks are way cheaper, way more durable, and look nearly indistinguishable from real thing.

The worst are floors with a thin layer of hardwood surface (a few mm) over some "engineered" material below making up the rest of the plank.

I'm not sure vinyl is indistinguishable from real hardwood, but I'd take it over a worst-of-both-worlds compromise.

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#78

Post by xyzzyz » Thu, Oct 26, 2023, 6:55 PM UTC

hcurtiss wrote: post #52

abakker wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardwood floors can be re-sanded and refinished many times over, generating no waste. Vinyl floors get scratched and then thrown away. Wood is renewable, vinyl comes from oil wells. I'm not certain this is actually logical.

We may be an anomaly, but we have 13.5mm laminates[1] which I'd say were relatively high grade when we put them in. The product we used didn't come with stair kits so we had to do the staircase with oak stained to match. We have two full-size golden retrievers. Eight years later, the laminates look like the day we installed them -- literally. The oak is all scratched up and will take a lot of work to refinish. [2] I…

Laminates are closer to hardwood flooring than to vinyl. Put it in simplest terms, they are basically the same as hardwood flooring, but you can only sand and refinish them maybe once or twice. This limits their lifespan, from 100+ years of full hardwood flooring to “only” a 30-40 years for laminate.

Vinyl, on the other hand, is completely different, and is unlikely to survive daily use in serviceable state for more than 20 years, typically even less than that.

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#79

Post by munk-a » Thu, Oct 26, 2023, 6:58 PM UTC

bastardoperator wrote: post #37

frozenlettuce wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I was watching Property Brothers and saw two episodes where both houses had Brazilian Hardwood flooring. The funny thing is that I live in Brazil and it is quite rare to find houses with that type of flooring - the bureaucracy and costs associated make it very expensive - but that might not be the case if the customer is Canadian

I would argue there is zero point in using real hardwood on floors these days given vinyl planks are way cheaper, way more durable, and look nearly indistinguishable from real thing.

There are very reasonable hardwood materials available - it's just better to prefer sourcing them from countries without illegal exploitation issues. Canadian hardwood is pretty affordable and quite durable for flooring - as an alternative.

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#80

Post by jabl » Thu, Oct 26, 2023, 6:58 PM UTC

digging wrote: post #51

dwater wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> treated wood also doesn't rot That is a pretty broad statement so perhaps you're thinking of a different thing than me when you say "treated wood", but the typical pressure treated pine you get at big box home improvement stores will absolutely rot. They reformulated the treating agent in 2004 so it's no longer using arsenic, and since then pressure treated wood just doesn't last as long. Generally in my area, fenc…

Is your wood unstained? If you stain or paint it, wood should be lasting longer than 5 years. I think my mom rebuilt her wooden deck after about 10 years at least. I don't know what this plastic wood is tbh, but I'm having a hard time imagining any plastic surface looking good after 5 years of rain, sun, and boots. Maybe if you sand it down annually. I'm not a fan of grinding microplastics into my yard.

> I don't know what this plastic wood is tbh

It's basically combining wood fibres with a plastic resin (instead of lignin as in natural wood), then manufactured with some kind of molding or extrusion process.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood%E2%80%93plastic_composite