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Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

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Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#91

Post by holoduke »

abakker wrote: post #39
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.

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.

Buy you have ceramic alternatives. Wood looking ad well.Good in combination with floor heating and probably last for a 1000 years.

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#93

Post by spandextwins »

spandextwins wrote: post #88

Plant more trees. Now. Find a spot in your yard or common area and plant a tree.

I don't understand why people are downvoting advice to plant trees. Are there so many anti-tree people out there? I'll bet they use toilet paper...but maybe not. All that paper and wood has to come from somewhere. Replace and replenish.

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#95

Post by solomonb »

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.

Another interesting option is Accoya lumber. It is acetylated softwood performs as well as traditional hardwoods in exterior applications. It looks nice too.

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#96

Post by solomonb »

doctorhandshake wrote: post #72
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 ins…

How did you like Accoya? I've been thinking about using it for a few projects.

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#97

Post by jeromegv »

spandextwins wrote: post #93
spandextwins wrote: post #88

Plant more trees. Now. Find a spot in your yard or common area and plant a tree.

I don't understand why people are downvoting advice to plant trees. Are there so many anti-tree people out there? I'll bet they use toilet paper...but maybe not. All that paper and wood has to come from somewhere. Replace and replenish.

Because planting a tree in your yard has nothing to do with the deforestation of the Amazon and the impact it has on this very unique ecosystem?

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#98

Post by thomasstephan »

To be spending a lot of time working in the rainforest in Peru where logging (legal and illegal) is everywhere, you can't trace properly. Certificates are easy to forge, the entire pipeline is pen and paper. How can you tell once the legal wood and the illegal wood are in a container which is which? You can't.

So many people here are outraged, how many of you are supporting on the ground teams protecting rainforests?

If you care, do your research, support causes like https://www.junglekeepers.org (disclaimer here; that is the one I know, work for and support) and don't use exotic woods.

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#99

Post by rtsil »

civilitty wrote: post #2

In my (albeit limited) experience, if you can’t get some sort of provenance documentation for exotic hardwoods from the lumberyard, it’s almost guaranteed to be unsustainably harvested, mostly outright illegally. Unfortunately it seems that most lumberyards open to the public and contractors are full of such wood because the legit stuff is even more expensive and sold mostly to high end furniture manufacturers and sp…

Documentations are easy to buy in many countries where those exotic woods are sourced. Most of the traffic are done by people in the government or by those who put them there.

Re: Exclusive hardwood may be illegally harvested

#100

Post by JAlexoid »

abakker wrote: post #39
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.

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.

> generating no waste

Have you ever redone flooring? Because there's definitely waste when hardwood floors are refinished. Arguably equal to replacing a segment of PVC flooring.

But... The amount reflooring we do, it's not even a concern. Even if PVC comes from oil - flooring has years of service and isn't burned for fuel. It's what we call "durable goods". Quality PVC flooring doesn't scratch easily and doesn't require polyurethane refinishing.

Reducing animal sourced food consumption would have a bigger impact, than abstaining from PVC floor planks.

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