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Wood is no good!
Last Post 16 Feb 2009 07:46 AM by boettg33. 81 Replies. |
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slenzen
Basic Member
Posts:434
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| 19 Jan 2009 03:36 PM |
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A big factor is we are a pretty mobile society. What is the ave length of stay in a house? 5-7 years? (will prob be increasing now with a slower economy) I'm guessing in many other countries it's much longer and easier to justify financially. It's hard for most to justify spending any more than they have to for the good of anything else but their pocketbook. So the challenge to the industry is creating products/methods that meet goals of affordability/efficiency/green etc... a term I coined is "smart green". Green that makes financial sense has the best chance of succeeding. You will always have the early adopters but wholesale change counts on the broad middle market participation.
Another factor is will consumers be educated enough to differentiate between a poorly constructed home and a well constructed home to have higher resale value for upgraded homes. This area needs much work by the industry IMHO. I think its pretty rare for a customer to ask a real estate agent how a home is built rather than does it have granite countertops. |
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cmkavala
Veteran Member
Posts:4327
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| 19 Jan 2009 04:10 PM |
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slenzen;
well put!, I would also add that real estate appraisers usually give no additional consideration for an EnegyStar home that uses 30-70% less energy. There are E star apraisal guidelines somewhere, but no one is using them. |
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| Chris Kavala<br>[email protected]<br>1-877-321-SIPS<br /> |
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Ebo
New Member
Posts:11
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| 21 Jan 2009 05:56 PM |
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What is this concern about the longevity of a house? People want what they want. If there were two houses for sale next to each other in a desirable neighborhood or area one typ. wood framed the other concrete and neither one suited the current (future) trends, designs, features, archecture, ect. of the time. The wood house would be more atractive to new buyers as a teardown project. The concrete house might just sit there being undesirable because of the expensive demolition and disposal (of concrete), forcing the buyers to seek other building sites and possibly contribute to the urban sprall problems. |
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ICFconstruction
Veteran Member
Posts:1324
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| 21 Jan 2009 06:29 PM |
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What urban sprawl problems? |
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| Brad Kvanbek - ICFconstruction.net |
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richntiff
Basic Member
Posts:108
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| 21 Jan 2009 06:48 PM |
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What is this concern about the longevity of a house
And you are on this site why???
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cmkavala
Veteran Member
Posts:4327
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| 21 Jan 2009 07:24 PM |
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Posted By ICFconstruction on 01/19/2009 7:38 AM
You are right, the wood framed houses they are building are disposable houses. I also agree with your statement,"I am not saying we need to totally abandon stick frame construction" stick framing is suitable for interior walls. wood is good for my fireplace and termites |
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| Chris Kavala<br>[email protected]<br>1-877-321-SIPS<br /> |
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Ebo
New Member
Posts:11
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| 22 Jan 2009 08:05 PM |
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C'mon man, unless you plan on spending the next 60+ years in your cement house, It will become the old "clunker" on the block and being difficult to remodel, (people want what they want)... it to will end up in the landfill or maybe turned into subgrade material under a new sidewalk if they can separate the styrofoam. Have you ever seen a limestone quarry? or the Kilns at a concrete production facility? I have a friend who lives in a town there is such a facility and his cars look like stucco mobiles from the limestone dust cretated .I have seen a lot of trees grow back where they were harvested, but never seen a limestone quarry reclaimed. Energy efficency can be had with a wood house that is built from a renewable, abundant natural (USA) forrests. |
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Jelly
Veteran Member
Posts:1017
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| 22 Jan 2009 08:18 PM |
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It's a strange view, that we should build out of temporary materials with built-in obsolescence because trends will change.
Europe is full of beautiful structures made to last, which have stood the test of time for centuries and have been passed down through several generations. On the other hand there are parts of Europe with horrible looking Soviet-bloc architecture which dehumanizes its occupants, but nonetheless is too massive and expensive to tear down (so far).
Personally I think the idea actually inspires an argument for good design. Houses should be made to stand for generations, but their design and aesthetic should last, too. |
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Bruce Frey
Basic Member
Posts:429
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| 23 Jan 2009 05:00 AM |
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Posted By Jelly on 01/22/2009 8:18 PM
Europe is full of beautiful structures made to last, which have stood the test of time for centuries and have been passed down through several generations.
......and a lot of them leak air and water, are very uncomfortable to live in and are ridiculously expensive to maintain and remodel (just stirring the pot a bit;-). As for the old Soviet era buildings, when I left in 2005, Moscow was starting to tear down the Kruschev era exposed block residential buildings and replace them with modern structures. This was really a ploy for the "favored" Russian developers to get prime land nearer to the center of the city. They eventually plan to work on the HORRIBLE precast high rise buildings, but given the current state of economic affairs, the low probablility of that actually happening drops to practically zero. The Russian and Eastern European residential blocks actually make the old high rise projects in Chicago, St. Louis, etc. look quite good. Bruce |
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cmkavala
Veteran Member
Posts:4327
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| 23 Jan 2009 09:00 AM |
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Posted By Ebo on 01/22/2009 8:05 PM
C'mon man, unless you plan on spending the next 60+ years in your cement house, It will become the old "clunker" on the block and being difficult to remodel, (people want what they want)... it to will end up in the landfill or maybe turned into subgrade material under a new sidewalk if they can separate the styrofoam. Have you ever seen a limestone quarry? or the Kilns at a concrete production facility? I have a friend who lives in a town there is such a facility and his cars look like stucco mobiles from the limestone dust cretated .I have seen a lot of trees grow back where they were harvested, but never seen a limestone quarry reclaimed. Energy efficency can be had with a wood house that is built from a renewable, abundant natural (USA) forrests. Ebo I don't live in a cement house, I live in a steel SIP house with a wood burning fire place. The house is made using 3 recycled toyotas |
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| Chris Kavala<br>[email protected]<br>1-877-321-SIPS<br /> |
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jdebree
Basic Member
Posts:497
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| 23 Jan 2009 04:26 PM |
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Oddly enough, man had it right when he lived in caves- solid construction that won't rot, and underground, to reduce heating and cooling costs, and excellent protection against violent weather. It is a fact that in this country, houses are disposable commodities. At least the cheesy 'McMansions that they slap together will be easy to tear down.
I'll concede that ICF is probably a superior way to build a house (you win). I might even consider it for all or part of my build, finances depending. Since the only way I can afford a house at all is to build it myself, material costs are a much bigger percentage than they would be for a turn-key house. Ease and speed of construction is also an important factor for me. Part of my resistance to newer technologies is my comfort working with wood. I have the tools and the knowledge. Anything else would be a learning curve. ICF certainly looks easy, but I have recurring nightmares about the pouring process! |
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cmkavala
Veteran Member
Posts:4327
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| 23 Jan 2009 05:51 PM |
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Posted By jdebree on 01/23/2009 4:26 PM
. ICF certainly looks easy, but I have recurring nightmares about the pouring process! jdebree; Exactly! About 6 years ago I took training and was certified as a LOGIX ICF contractor. But after the training I said NO WAY. I ascribe to the KISS phylisophy. And ICFs are a system that when things go bad they go VERY BAD, cast in concrete so to speak. I have installed SIP roofs over ICF walls that were done by others and had to deal with the out of plumb poured walls & crooked poured tie beams. Its when nightmares beacome reality. Your right about caves - now thats thermal mass! |
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| Chris Kavala<br>[email protected]<br>1-877-321-SIPS<br /> |
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toddm
Veteran Member
Posts:1152
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| 23 Jan 2009 06:52 PM |
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As Edmund Burke said famously, you can't plan the future by the past. I would expect the U.S. housing market to draw closer to the European model in the next couple of decades. Whether green building benefits remains to be seen.
The biggest change is obvious to anyone following the woes of U.S. banks: the easy mortgage is toxic sludge to be avoided at all costs. Continental Europeans never did easy money. Families there must save for ten or 20 years to come up with a downpayment large enough to satisfy a lender. As a result, housing decisions there are made with less frequency and more thought than they are on this side of the Atlantic. Or were in the U.S., anyway. I think we're in for a long spell of tight credit. If Fannie and Freddie survive the recent unpleasantness, one suspects that they'll be a lot pickier than they used to be.
Add to that the fact that speculation is dead. Even Alan Greenspan now accepts that home prices can fall, and that flipping, trading up and cashing out have risks associated with them. Speculation was the real curse of the last 20 years. Developers built schlock houses and sold them to people who recognized them as schlock, but wanted to keep the home equity money machine rolling along.
Finally, consumers pay more attention to value in tough times, and less attention to conventional wisdom. The 1930s were a period of housing innovation, for example, thanks in part to Frank Lloyd Wright's heavily publicized claim that he could build extraordinary homes for ordinary Americans. He had two-word rebuttal for skeptics who wanted to know how. "Concrete block," he answered. He designed about a hundred small, custom houses between 1935 and 1955. Only about 30 were built because bankers were put off by radical styling that we call a ranch or rancher today. The first was built in Madison, Wis., for $5,500. Its current owner bought it in 1982 for $108,300. Its current assessment is $275,000.
There are two lessons here for green builders. Mortgage lenders will call the tune for years to come, and they much prefer mainstream to different. In the end, Wright was a great architect and a failed utopian. Secondly, to reach critical mass, to become mainstream, new technologies must sell both sides of the value proposition, price as well as quality. Wright was expecting his clients to mix cement and cast their own blocks, and many of them did.
In the end, the homeowner is going to build the house he can afford. The wood industry has developed an alphabet soup of OSB, LVL and I joists to address affordability. From where I sit, alternative building industries seem content with niche markets of affluent customers who can indulge their greenness, and DIYers who are willing to pay the premium in sweat equity. That is a strategy for extinction. Green building and cost effectiveness should be two sides of the same coin. Why aren't they? |
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cmkavala
Veteran Member
Posts:4327
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| 23 Jan 2009 08:37 PM |
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Posted By toddm on 01/23/2009 6:52 PM
. Why aren't they? toddm; its getting there, We use steel SIP technology , we have gone thru 2 building code changes here in Florida in the last 7 years and one energy code change & another on the way While conventional builders scramble to adapt their construction to keep up with the newer stronger/ more efficient homes at additional cost, we have done nothing, our steel SIP construction methods have continued to meet all new codes with the same methods we used 12 years ago So the conventional methods are increasing in cost more rapidly than altenative methods. Some of the bigger tract builders like Lennar have experimented with SIPs, but re-tooling the industry takes time and is driven by consumers that will demand more that the "basic" house. Saving $100+. a month on utilities will become more attractive as homes will eventually be forced to have an EPA sticker as cars do showing the estimated mpg usage. As local and federal governmets offer more and more builder incentives to build "Energy Star" all builders will be forced into newer technolgies or get left behind still building their model T's |
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| Chris Kavala<br>[email protected]<br>1-877-321-SIPS<br /> |
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Bruce Frey
Basic Member
Posts:429
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| 24 Jan 2009 04:05 AM |
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Just to add a bit more fuel to the fire.....
The Portland Cement Association sponsored a study (I can cite references on Monday if anyone is interested) a few years ago comparing the carbon footprint of a "traditional" stick home to a concrete (ICF) home. They considered the materials, the construction process and the energy consumption after completion. (The results of PCA study were cited in another comparison study I was reading).
The results of the PCA study were that the stick home had a much smaller carbon footprint for materials and for the construction process. After ±3 years, however, the reduced energy consumption of the ICF house offset the material and construction process carbon savings of the stick house.
A caveat here is the use of a "traditional" stick home as the basis of the comparison. If a tight (infiltration is a bigger driver of energy consumption in the north than R value), well insulated and constructed stick house were used, I suspect the carbon payback period would probably be a lot longer. In theory, IF the energy consumption of the two houses were about the same, the stick house would have a carbon footprint advantage.
toddm........in my view, the Euro model is really quite complex, involves a lot of cultural/socio/economic factors and varies a lot from country to country, but it is clear we can take some important lessons from them. I suspect, however, that there could be a long debate about WHICH lessons those should be.
Bruce
(who knows that you can create a 'scientific' study to justify any almost any position you choose to support) |
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ICFconstruction
Veteran Member
Posts:1324
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| 30 Jan 2009 08:31 PM |
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I don't give two deuces about carbon footprint, I think it is a lot of BS. I am using ICFs because they are stronger, more energy efficient and don't rot or mold. |
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| Brad Kvanbek - ICFconstruction.net |
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Donnerwetter
Basic Member
Posts:100
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| 30 Jan 2009 09:40 PM |
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Just to add a bit more fuel to the fire.....
Geez Bruce...I thought that wood structures burn quite well by themselves :-)
ICF Construction...All that smoke during fire...Talking about carbon footprint :-) |
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cmkavala
Veteran Member
Posts:4327
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| 31 Jan 2009 08:31 AM |
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Posted By ICFconstruction on 01/30/2009 8:31 PM
I don't give two deuces about carbon footprint, I think it is a lot of BS. I am using ICFs because they are stronger, more energy efficient and don't rot or mold. Don't know if its BS or not, I don't think its a theory thought all the way thru. Anything done dometically to reduce enegy will help the foot print. All the benefits of the ICFs are also in Steel SIP construction, Plus they are easier & faster to install and less to insure. |
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| Chris Kavala<br>[email protected]<br>1-877-321-SIPS<br /> |
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terrymod
New Member
Posts:4
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| 31 Jan 2009 10:12 AM |
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A couple of observations:
1) Real Estate Market: In the US it has been fundamental since WWII that home ownership was a desirable investment for the masses. Most of the wealth in savings in this country comes from home ownership - we have made it affordable for most people to get into a home. Unfortunately many of the borrowers could not afford the home's mortgage due to rise in interest as well as many over borrowed for cars, tvs and lifestyles - not to mention failed government interest policies which never seemed to get addressed in this economic environment.
Europe: I recently toured Italy and Greece - there the predominate single family home is poured in place concrete post and beam. They lace 12 x 12 clay block for the walls - Most homes under construction had cranes to lift materials. Homes seemed very solid - but NO insulation value. Even the roofs were poured in place or were trussed with tile roofs - good long term materials. Cost = about twice the average home in US - not counting land. Financing more difficult to obtain. Observed many homes finished only 1 floor and it may stay that way for years until the family can afford to finish the 2nd floor or vice versa. Methods of construction extremely labor intensive.
Question:
Have any of you devised a way to create a panelized version using the best of ICF along with maybe a light weight concrete ( sandwich ? ) along with the ability to install systems easier such as wiring , plumbing vents, etc. ?
A great efficiency we have achieved as a small builder is to go Modular in our controlled environment. Our labor is trained better for quality , less waste, and have been able to reduce building cycle time greatly.
Many thanks for any observations
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Kyanisunrise
New Member
Posts:4
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| 31 Jan 2009 12:38 PM |
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Posted By aardvarcus on 01/13/2009 7:28 PM
About the green factor-
99.99% of the wood you buy today isn't from slashed old growth forests. Using lots of wood from managed forests is actually eco-friendly. Undisturbed forests are carbon neutral, because as trees die they fall, rot, and re-release all the carbon they previously absorbed, with a net effect of nothing. However, if you keep the wood from rotting and replant a new tree, you will have a net carbon absorption. And what better way to keep the wood from rotting than to build a house with it?
Also, just do a search on concrete and the environment. It is one of the WORST materials we use today. I am not saying we shouldn't use it, as I plan on using quite a bit of it in my next house, but don't act like it is eco-friendly.
About structural strength- I admit a high quality properly installed concrete wall will be stronger than a high quality properly installed wood wall. But any old slapped together concrete wall will not stand up to a high quality wood wall.
What is concrete's biggest downfall? Tensile strength. The forces on a wall in a storm are very complex as the wind swirls in and around the house in different ways, making the walls attempt to twist, bend, and contort. You have to treat the wall like it is a beam, and for a concrete beam to handle the tensile forces, it must be reinforced with rebar. The rebar also needs to go where the forces are, which means outer and inner bars all throughout the walls, not just one slapped in the middle. If you do not put adequate rebar in the wall, it will crack or worse shear off.
Everyone has seen how stick framed houses today are. It's not the fault of the building material, it is the contractors who don't care. Every single corner that can be cut has, and some that can't be cut have been anyway. What do you think contractors will do when they start using ICFs? You won't be able to find a stick of rebar in the whole wall. You will also probably finding some quick set chemicals mixed in too. Any properly vibrated? Forget it.
Also, in any storm situation, the roof or roof attachment is going to be the first point of failure, not the wall. It doesn't matter if your wall can stand up to 100,000,000 MPH winds if your roof isn't strong enough to withstand it.
So how can anyone say that any old house built with ICF's is going to be stronger than my house just because my house uses wood in the walls? My rafters are 2*12's , and they are screwed into my 8*16 timbers and my load bearing ridge beam which is set into my solid masonry fireplace on one side and with solid wood down to the bond beam in the top of my basement wall on the other. Even though they aren't up to reinforced concrete standards, my double diaphragm 2*6 walls are incredible strong. Just because a house has concrete in the walls doesn't immediately make it structurally superior to every single wood framed house in existence.
What am I getting at? Its not the material, it is the Design and Proper Installation of the material that matters. There is no material that is foolproof, even concrete.
I have to totally agree here. It is not always the material it is the construction and design. I also want to address the mold. Lumbers framed homes are more likely to get mold over concrete. But that is only the case if the moisture is not controlled. Dried lumber, proper ventilation and proper weatherization controls mold. Again back to construction and design.
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