wood houses, why?

Rammed Earth houses are all the rage in the southwest right now. I don't know much about that. Watched a show a while back on straw houses (little pig, little pig:)) and they actually seem fairly secure. You build them out of two layers of straw bales, reinforced with rebar, and stucco the outside. I don't remeber the R-value, but it was high. Fairly well windproof as well. I think if I were building a new house, I would seriously consider concrete myself.
 
Luis G said:
most of you probably have no idea what these are.

They are water holders, to insure proper pressure in the house, they are located in the roof.
Click to expand...

Those used to be pretty standard on larger buildings in the US. I've personally seen a few in Panama...mostly because the water authority there tends to shut off domestic water for 3 to 4 hours a day. :shrug:
 
Wood-frame houses can actually be quite resistant to earthquakes as long as you have decent cross-bracing so that they can resist lateral forces. That keeps them from getting knocked over. Some old houses are on raised foundations with just 4x4s going straight up to hold them; those hosues will usually fall to the ground and a foot to either the left or the right during a big earthquake. If the 4x4s were laterally braced, then chances are the house would stay up. Another valuable lesson learned through earthquakes is that you should bolt the house to the foundation.

Wood houses are indeed lighter than bricks or concrete, but that also means less weight to hold up when the ground starts shaking.
 
One of our neighbours has the wood basement thingamy. It's all pressure treated wood, and plywood. He put a lot of work into making sure the soil around the house holds no water at all.
 
This house is typical of what you'll find out here.

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It's a 3-bedroom 2-bath house, 1,671 square feet of interior space on a 7,236 square foot lot. It was built in 1975 and has a composition shingle roof. It has a wood frame bolted to a concrete slab foundation. The exterior walls are stucco with some brick trim (the brick is there for looks only).

The stucco on homes newer than that is finished in a slightly different way, and roofs tend to be made out of flat concrete or red clay Spanish-style tiles now. Otherwise, not that much has changed in construction around here in the 28 years since this house was built.

This type of construction is the norm because it's fairly inexpensive to build (although the asking price for this house is $205,000) and it stands up to earthquakes pretty well. Hurricanes and tornadoes are exceptionally rare out here, especially inland. The main downsides are termites (which is the reason why building codes require the wood and the earth to be separated) and flammability, although fires can be just as destructive and deadly in a brick house.

More pics of the same house:
http://www.fresnomls.com/scripts/mg...MENTS=-N279385380,-N000202875,-ABR,-N0,-N0,-A
 
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