We talked to them 2 years ago, great outfit, out of Durango? Mass timber is great, and gets around the regulations forbidding yellow pine for structural use. There are millions of acres of dry pine meant for a packaging market that has been replaced by plastics - leaving us with a crisis of plastic and an epidemic of trees on the dry sid…
We talked to them 2 years ago, great outfit, out of Durango? Mass timber is great, and gets around the regulations forbidding yellow pine for structural use. There are millions of acres of dry pine meant for a packaging market that has been replaced by plastics - leaving us with a crisis of plastic and an epidemic of trees on the dry side of the mountains.
Mass timber is 1/1000th the market size of concrete for construction yet the concrete industry funds google ads spreading fear and doubt around fire safety of mass timber and strength for large buildings. They actively resist zoning updates to support mass timber. While I love mass timber and want to see it succeed, there are a lot of headwinds and I cannot rely on it as a project offtake in the near future. Instead, the piles just sit and decompose after fuels thinning. If the worst happens they become fuel for the next fire, if the second worst happens they decompose into CO₂ and methane.
Ugh. I was sort of afraid that was the answer. I know about the concrete industry push against mass timber and working against zoning and code updates. Mass timber has tried some ways around it, but the headwinds against it in this country are, as you say, really strong. Without use in multifamily I don't think mass timber really could use enough in just single family homes, unless we started exporting that all over the place.
I heard someone built an experimental home out of wood panels using just the thickness to make up the insulation. Walls something like 24 inches thick. Now that'll use some board feet.....
That wall thickness reminds me of a distant relative who built a straw house in Arkansas. It turns out there is more than one way to do that and the European way is... the passivhaus way (they built with raw bales and stucco like a prairie dugout, so not the European way).
We talked to them 2 years ago, great outfit, out of Durango? Mass timber is great, and gets around the regulations forbidding yellow pine for structural use. There are millions of acres of dry pine meant for a packaging market that has been replaced by plastics - leaving us with a crisis of plastic and an epidemic of trees on the dry side of the mountains.
Mass timber is 1/1000th the market size of concrete for construction yet the concrete industry funds google ads spreading fear and doubt around fire safety of mass timber and strength for large buildings. They actively resist zoning updates to support mass timber. While I love mass timber and want to see it succeed, there are a lot of headwinds and I cannot rely on it as a project offtake in the near future. Instead, the piles just sit and decompose after fuels thinning. If the worst happens they become fuel for the next fire, if the second worst happens they decompose into CO₂ and methane.
Ugh. I was sort of afraid that was the answer. I know about the concrete industry push against mass timber and working against zoning and code updates. Mass timber has tried some ways around it, but the headwinds against it in this country are, as you say, really strong. Without use in multifamily I don't think mass timber really could use enough in just single family homes, unless we started exporting that all over the place.
I heard someone built an experimental home out of wood panels using just the thickness to make up the insulation. Walls something like 24 inches thick. Now that'll use some board feet.....
That wall thickness reminds me of a distant relative who built a straw house in Arkansas. It turns out there is more than one way to do that and the European way is... the passivhaus way (they built with raw bales and stucco like a prairie dugout, so not the European way).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtdedAGB-_M
Hard to get windows/parts in the US. Many benefits, not as kooky as the Earth-ship stuff.