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Scott is our Timber Engineering Manger. He joined Carpenter Oak & Woodland in 2004 primarily because of his love of working with wood, and having managed both our framing yards, he took up the challenge of developing our rapidly growing Timber Engineering business in 2006. Scott, (being much older than he actualy looks!) has many years experience in the construction industry as a Quantity Surveyor and Contracts Manager, and brings us a great depth of knowledge from having managed a number of different construction businesses.
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I don’t know about you, but I absolutely hate spending my precious free time hacking out rotten wood, scraping peeling paint, and trying to preserve my biggest ever investment. Any time I see fancy painted wood fascias I don’t think that looks nice, I think I’d hate to own that house.
I’m still reading Stuart Brand’s book “How Buildings Work” which kinda sums the issue up for me:
“As for wood, redolent with tradition, it is the best of materials from the standpoint of adaptability and one of the worst in terms of maintenance. It is fairly cheap, made of a renewable resource, easy to work, and it can be extortionately beautiful. But it wants to absorb moisture, and wherever the water content gets over 21 per cent, the wood turns into habitat and food for fungus, termites, ants, beetles, bees, borers and other wildlife. “What holds up that house?” one cynical carpenter asked me rhetorically, gesturing at a nearby standard stick build home. “Faith, habit, and the dead bodies of termites, same as all the houses around here.” Who builds in wood builds a shack, adaptable now, gone soon.
The exception is timber framed buildings, because the wood structure is protected from the weather, it is massive, and it is exposed. Air and eyeballs can get at it to keep it dry and inspected. “According to government statistics,“ reports Gene Logsdon, “the average life of a conventionally built stud house is about 75 years. The life of a timber frame house is at least 300 years, and some over 1000 years survive.”
The principals for longevity are very simple:
1. design, design, design – the best Architects understand the materials they are using
2. material selection – fast grown softwood is a very cheap building material, but not in the long term
3. whatever you use, keeping it dry or allowing it to dry out easily is the key
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