51–60 of 100 posts
(I am not a US citizen, but visited many times) Why not build houses using concrete/cement? Poor Asian countries have been building houses for decades using concrete and less maintenance. No, it is not about weather. Concrete can be easily used in Southern US states where winter is less than a month or no snow at all. At least the structure can be concrete and the walls be wood or drywall. I think it is the wood mafi…
> Why not build houses using concrete/cement? Partially because until recently, wood was the most plentiful and cost-effective building material in parts of the US. It is far more seismically resilient than brick or concrete. It is also much easier to modify if you want to add a window or other opening - cutting an opening in a concrete or cinder block wall is much harder. Wood, when responsibly harvested, also seque…
(I am not a US citizen, but visited many times) Why not build houses using concrete/cement? Poor Asian countries have been building houses for decades using concrete and less maintenance. No, it is not about weather. Concrete can be easily used in Southern US states where winter is less than a month or no snow at all. At least the structure can be concrete and the walls be wood or drywall. I think it is the wood mafi…
(I am not a US citizen, but visited many times) Why not build houses using concrete/cement? Poor Asian countries have been building houses for decades using concrete and less maintenance. No, it is not about weather. Concrete can be easily used in Southern US states where winter is less than a month or no snow at all. At least the structure can be concrete and the walls be wood or drywall. I think it is the wood mafi…
Costs. The type of lumber used to frame American houses is (well, used to be) quite cheap. Concrete is like $10 per cubic foot. While, a timber framed wall is mostly air. An 18x8 foot wall made of timber would take about 16 boards to make and take an experienced team less than 20 minutes to put up. That's $100 or so in material costs at current (extremely high) prices, plus maybe $100 in labor (this is pretty hard to…
Concrete is used as a base for apartment (like four or five over two) but wood still makes up the majority, and there aren’t a whole lot of residential projects in the country built as massive concrete tower blocks outside of some specific regions.
Policy bankrupts large swaths of the logging industry. We create restrictions that substantially increase the cost of harvesting timber on public forest lands ( and add fuel load btw ). This has left major land owners as our primary source of timber ( read monopolistic ). Allow these timber companies to ship our timber overseas to create an intentional artificial shortage ( yes it is documented ). I know, let's solve…
> Allow these timber companies to ship our timber overseas to create an intentional artificial shortage ( yes it is documented ). Am I understanding right that this would mean US would be incentivized to not export lumber (since domestic demand would grow in response to the increase in canadian lumber prices), and conversely, Canada would just fill the export gap left open by the US, leaving Canada in a stronger, mor…
- The inventory of raw timber ( the type you see in log yards ) has grown too large.
- Lumber mills are lowering the amount they will pay for raw timber as a result. As well as the rest of the end lumber market.
- This causes timber companies profit per foot to drop.
- The timber companies decide to "export" raw timber overseas at a loss.
- This in turn raises the rate the Lumber mills and Lumber consumers pay out pacing the original loss on "exported" timber.
It is important to also note, most of this timber came from public lands to begin with.
The overall point is OUR resources were exported at a loss so OUR prices would increase. Forests are part of the wealth of our country. Letting a timber company send it overseas to increase domestic timber prices should be illegal.
(I am not a US citizen, but visited many times) Why not build houses using concrete/cement? Poor Asian countries have been building houses for decades using concrete and less maintenance. No, it is not about weather. Concrete can be easily used in Southern US states where winter is less than a month or no snow at all. At least the structure can be concrete and the walls be wood or drywall. I think it is the wood mafi…
It varies between regions, but in general, building with wood is significantly faster and less expensive than using concrete. They are also easier to remodel, extend, and ultimately demolish, but these are secondary reasons. Some areas, such as regions of Florida or Arizona for example, have substantial historical housing stock made from concrete. However, the majority of new construction is wood for the reasons stat…
(I am not a US citizen, but visited many times) Why not build houses using concrete/cement? Poor Asian countries have been building houses for decades using concrete and less maintenance. No, it is not about weather. Concrete can be easily used in Southern US states where winter is less than a month or no snow at all. At least the structure can be concrete and the walls be wood or drywall. I think it is the wood mafi…
Costs. The type of lumber used to frame American houses is (well, used to be) quite cheap. Concrete is like $10 per cubic foot. While, a timber framed wall is mostly air. An 18x8 foot wall made of timber would take about 16 boards to make and take an experienced team less than 20 minutes to put up. That's $100 or so in material costs at current (extremely high) prices, plus maybe $100 in labor (this is pretty hard to…