Reply to Flimsy new builds?

Forum Index » Home Improvement, Design, and Decorating

Reply to "Flimsy new builds?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There is a massive new build going up in our neighborhood, a size that sells in the $2-3 million range.  It looks so flimsy!  Entire above ground framing is just boards and particle board.  Do people not worry about how solid these new builds are?  We are a bit shocked and wonder what we are not understanding.[/quote]

Modern wood framing is not just the cheap version of brick or concrete. It is a different engineering system.

Wood has a very high strength-to-weight ratio. Structural lumber can have tensile strength in the range of roughly 7,000-15,000 psi, while normal concrete may handle 3,000-5,000 psi in compression but is very weak in tension unless reinforced. That matters because houses do not just sit there under vertical weight. They also move, flex, expand, contract, and resist wind loads.

A wood-framed house works because the whole structure is tied together: studs, engineered beams, roof trusses, plywood or OSB sheathing, nails, straps, anchors, and shear walls. The sheathing is not just decorative "particle board." It helps stop the house from racking side to side, almost like a structural skin.

Wood also has advantages because it is lighter and more flexible. Heavy masonry can feel more solid, but heavy is not automatically better. In earthquakes, settlement, wind, and thermal movement, a lighter flexible structure can perform very well because it can absorb movement instead of simply cracking. Concrete and brick are excellent materials, but they need steel, reinforcement, drainage, and careful design to handle tension, movement, and moisture.

So the reason modern homes use engineered wood systems is not simply cost. It is because they are strong, efficient, lightweight, flexible, easier to insulate, and can be precisely engineered as a complete load-bearing system. Brick and concrete are not automatically superior. They are just different materials with different strengths and weaknesses.
[/quote]

To add on to this, modern buildings are engineered, older houses weren't. [/quote]

This simply is false.

PEs who are civil engineers have been involved in building code specification for many decades. And building blueprints also have needed PE / Architect approvals for many years. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics