A short policy memo recently posted on the Federation of American Scientists’ (FAS) website argues that “mass timber can help solve the housing shortage.” It was posted as part of the Housing Ideas Challenge, a collaboration between FAS, Matt Yglesias and a few other organizations to generate new, innovative ideas for building more housing.
Your main point is absolutely correct, however, considering that mass timber, as well as advanced light timber products can substantially reduce on site labor costs, their potential may lie more in facilitating construction in areas with the most severe housing shortages, since those areas necessarily have higher labor costs. So, as you say, potentially very useful, despite not “unlocking a solution to the house in crisis.”
Lots of v good points. The single most important point on supply and affordability is omitted. The biggest short and long term housing supply constraint, and a growing driver of rising cost is boots on the ground. Demand for construction labour far outstrips demand. This dynamic is part of broader trend impacting many sectors: health care, education, retail… Older workers are retiring. Demand for new workers and additional services outstrips recruitment.
The biggest argument for mass timber mid/high rise is labour productivity. A high-tech manufacturing plant and efficient onsite assembly team can use up to 50% less FTEs than a traditional onsite project. We need to move a big share of all construction into high tech manufacturing plants -- wood frame single family and low rise up to six storey and mass timber 7-18 storey.
Mass Timber is simply a pillar. As Peter mentions, there are compelling reasons to use wood frame. The foundation is fundamentally offsite construction. MT construction inherently is further along the offsite continuum.
ONE of the BIG offsite construction efficiency improvements is the potential for simultaneously manufacturing a building at the same time as excavation/foundation is underway. This, in and of itself, can cut completion schedules as much as 25%. A big challenge is that many local governments don’t allow this, increasing cost and construction time. Permitting innovations are one of many policies and practices that need to be updated to allow the mainstreaming of offsite construction.
First time mass timber or offsite wood frame projects are almost always going to be more costly. Developers who have fine tuned their systems (manufacturers, design professionals, general contractors, procurement processes, innovative local governments…), are delivering projects at lower costs.
The first mass consumer computer – the Apple Lisa – was $10k US in 1983 (about 30k in today’s dollar). When they were first introduced into offices, they slowed us down until we figured out new systems. As manufacturing scaled, costs plummeted.
We have to do the same for offsite MT and wood frame construction.
(The quality and cost control of a high-tech manufacturing plant is also the only way to scale near net zero new construction industry-wide.)
Will any single policy solve the housing crisis? Seems like the answer would be no. Instead there is a huge thicket of barriers that need to be worked through.
For example, I’ve heard the benefits of Europe only requiring 1 staircase apartment buildings in situations where the US uses 2. That is enabled by more use of concrete, which brings fire safety that can then be used in laxer layout requirements. This particular policy wouldn’t enable that, but seems like there are more ways to “spend” mass timber fire safety benefits over soft wood than just taller buildings. The point is these things interact and improvements on one side (materials) can help another (flexible building codes).
As I just learned a week ago, five-over-ones are called that because they're Type V construction over Type I construction. Some of them are six stories over one, or four over one, or sometimes five over two, but they're all still five-over-ones because of the construction type.
Really, the mass timber on concrete podium construction should be called "four-over-one", even though mass timber makes it easier to go more than six stories up.
Why would mass timber be catching on now, rather than ~a hundred years ago when people first started mass producing tall buildings? Has some new technology enabled it?
Hi from a senior lady who worked as a secretary for a statistician and as an office manager in the timber industry in Portland OR in the 1970's. I worked for Pope & Talbot and Fibrex & Shipping. My response has nothing to do with so-called sustainability or climate or carbon. No. Rather, I'm appalled and shocked by this 21st century trend to use timber without a peep of recognition for past harms done to said industry and the people who worked hard there. Lives, livelihoods, were unsustainable, and I can use that term in its original sense. The outrageous behavior by the anarchists, "eco-terrorists," who harassed the industry year in and year out is unforgivable. All for the spotted owl propaganda.
California Fires Analysis: Trees That Burned From THE INSIDE
Are you aware that a California arborist studied fire-damaged forests and discovered that the trees burned from the inside? He has made a few video reports and interviews. Why does this happen? He surmises that the trees are taking up metals FROM THE THE SOIL. He also posits that the cause of these fires that turned homes into dust, were caused by some kind of electromagnetic pulse, a pulse which charged metal, the metal inside the trees. The leaves didn't burn.
Where do those metals in the soil come from? From the nanoparticles sprayed on the entire planet from military jets, that's where. They are aluminum, strontium, graphene, etc. What does that have to do with your "mass timber" topic? Think on it. If housing is constructed with wood that is infused with metals, and the directed energy weapons target those buildings - poof!
"If Houses Burn But Trees Do Not, Is It Really A Forest Fire?"
"Robert Brame, a forensic arborist, who has analyzed 38 California fires and has come up with hundreds of photographic evidence of IMPOSSIBLE normal fire behavior. "
As someone who lives in Oregon, where long term forestry practices have been environmentally and economically problematic (but always sold as green), I am concerned that the positive environmental impacts of higher harvests may be overstated. This article, https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-mass-timber-takes-off-how-green-is-this-new-building-material, does nothing to quell my concerns.
Land use and building permitting policies and processes must improve, AND they are NOT the biggest constraint on supply. Lots of local governments approve way more housing projects than are ever built. The biggest supply constraint is boots on the ground. Demand for construction labour far outstrips demand. The biggest argument for mass timber mid/high rise is labour productivity. A high tech manufacturing plant and onsite assembly team can use 50% less FTEs than an onsite project. We need to move a big share of all construction into high tech manufacturing plants -- wood frame single family and low rise up to six storey and mass timber 7-18 storey.
Shouldn't the cost comparison with a truss also include the gypsum/insulation/etc. needed to achieve the required fire rating? Or alternatively, it seems like you could introduce some voids into the center of the CLT structure to save on materials (at the risk of negating the fire safety benefits).
Great read - Born in BC I have a deep love for the province and have watched them struggle with affordable housing, old growth, maintain environmental roots.
This wasn't even on my radar - Thanks for enlightening me.
I've have recently become very interested in 3D printed homes and building, but permitting, long standing corruption in real estate/constructions, and outdated thinking might be a huge obstacle.
Canada added about 5 million people just recently without investments in housing.
If my rough calculations are right the lumber in a 12,000 sq ft. house would displace about 60,000 miles driven by the average car. Go up five stories and you've absorbed the carbon emitted by the lifetime of one car (ish---300,000 miles). Wondering if EVs are a better strategy than mass lumber construction (considering goosing lumber construction would send prices through the roof).
*Taps the sign*
"Housing shortages are a function of land use and construction permitting policies, period."
Are termites an issue for mass lumber buildings?
Your main point is absolutely correct, however, considering that mass timber, as well as advanced light timber products can substantially reduce on site labor costs, their potential may lie more in facilitating construction in areas with the most severe housing shortages, since those areas necessarily have higher labor costs. So, as you say, potentially very useful, despite not “unlocking a solution to the house in crisis.”
Does moving to mass timber improve the weak productivity growth problem in the construction sector?
Lots of v good points. The single most important point on supply and affordability is omitted. The biggest short and long term housing supply constraint, and a growing driver of rising cost is boots on the ground. Demand for construction labour far outstrips demand. This dynamic is part of broader trend impacting many sectors: health care, education, retail… Older workers are retiring. Demand for new workers and additional services outstrips recruitment.
The biggest argument for mass timber mid/high rise is labour productivity. A high-tech manufacturing plant and efficient onsite assembly team can use up to 50% less FTEs than a traditional onsite project. We need to move a big share of all construction into high tech manufacturing plants -- wood frame single family and low rise up to six storey and mass timber 7-18 storey.
Mass Timber is simply a pillar. As Peter mentions, there are compelling reasons to use wood frame. The foundation is fundamentally offsite construction. MT construction inherently is further along the offsite continuum.
ONE of the BIG offsite construction efficiency improvements is the potential for simultaneously manufacturing a building at the same time as excavation/foundation is underway. This, in and of itself, can cut completion schedules as much as 25%. A big challenge is that many local governments don’t allow this, increasing cost and construction time. Permitting innovations are one of many policies and practices that need to be updated to allow the mainstreaming of offsite construction.
First time mass timber or offsite wood frame projects are almost always going to be more costly. Developers who have fine tuned their systems (manufacturers, design professionals, general contractors, procurement processes, innovative local governments…), are delivering projects at lower costs.
The first mass consumer computer – the Apple Lisa – was $10k US in 1983 (about 30k in today’s dollar). When they were first introduced into offices, they slowed us down until we figured out new systems. As manufacturing scaled, costs plummeted.
We have to do the same for offsite MT and wood frame construction.
(The quality and cost control of a high-tech manufacturing plant is also the only way to scale near net zero new construction industry-wide.)
Will any single policy solve the housing crisis? Seems like the answer would be no. Instead there is a huge thicket of barriers that need to be worked through.
For example, I’ve heard the benefits of Europe only requiring 1 staircase apartment buildings in situations where the US uses 2. That is enabled by more use of concrete, which brings fire safety that can then be used in laxer layout requirements. This particular policy wouldn’t enable that, but seems like there are more ways to “spend” mass timber fire safety benefits over soft wood than just taller buildings. The point is these things interact and improvements on one side (materials) can help another (flexible building codes).
As I just learned a week ago, five-over-ones are called that because they're Type V construction over Type I construction. Some of them are six stories over one, or four over one, or sometimes five over two, but they're all still five-over-ones because of the construction type.
Really, the mass timber on concrete podium construction should be called "four-over-one", even though mass timber makes it easier to go more than six stories up.
Why would mass timber be catching on now, rather than ~a hundred years ago when people first started mass producing tall buildings? Has some new technology enabled it?
Hi from a senior lady who worked as a secretary for a statistician and as an office manager in the timber industry in Portland OR in the 1970's. I worked for Pope & Talbot and Fibrex & Shipping. My response has nothing to do with so-called sustainability or climate or carbon. No. Rather, I'm appalled and shocked by this 21st century trend to use timber without a peep of recognition for past harms done to said industry and the people who worked hard there. Lives, livelihoods, were unsustainable, and I can use that term in its original sense. The outrageous behavior by the anarchists, "eco-terrorists," who harassed the industry year in and year out is unforgivable. All for the spotted owl propaganda.
California Fires Analysis: Trees That Burned From THE INSIDE
Are you aware that a California arborist studied fire-damaged forests and discovered that the trees burned from the inside? He has made a few video reports and interviews. Why does this happen? He surmises that the trees are taking up metals FROM THE THE SOIL. He also posits that the cause of these fires that turned homes into dust, were caused by some kind of electromagnetic pulse, a pulse which charged metal, the metal inside the trees. The leaves didn't burn.
Where do those metals in the soil come from? From the nanoparticles sprayed on the entire planet from military jets, that's where. They are aluminum, strontium, graphene, etc. What does that have to do with your "mass timber" topic? Think on it. If housing is constructed with wood that is infused with metals, and the directed energy weapons target those buildings - poof!
"If Houses Burn But Trees Do Not, Is It Really A Forest Fire?"
https://rumble.com/v3zvx50-if-houses-burn-but-trees-do-not-is-it-really-a-forest-fire.html
"Robert Brame, a forensic arborist, who has analyzed 38 California fires and has come up with hundreds of photographic evidence of IMPOSSIBLE normal fire behavior. "
As someone who lives in Oregon, where long term forestry practices have been environmentally and economically problematic (but always sold as green), I am concerned that the positive environmental impacts of higher harvests may be overstated. This article, https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-mass-timber-takes-off-how-green-is-this-new-building-material, does nothing to quell my concerns.
Land use and building permitting policies and processes must improve, AND they are NOT the biggest constraint on supply. Lots of local governments approve way more housing projects than are ever built. The biggest supply constraint is boots on the ground. Demand for construction labour far outstrips demand. The biggest argument for mass timber mid/high rise is labour productivity. A high tech manufacturing plant and onsite assembly team can use 50% less FTEs than an onsite project. We need to move a big share of all construction into high tech manufacturing plants -- wood frame single family and low rise up to six storey and mass timber 7-18 storey.
Shouldn't the cost comparison with a truss also include the gypsum/insulation/etc. needed to achieve the required fire rating? Or alternatively, it seems like you could introduce some voids into the center of the CLT structure to save on materials (at the risk of negating the fire safety benefits).
Great read - Born in BC I have a deep love for the province and have watched them struggle with affordable housing, old growth, maintain environmental roots.
This wasn't even on my radar - Thanks for enlightening me.
I've have recently become very interested in 3D printed homes and building, but permitting, long standing corruption in real estate/constructions, and outdated thinking might be a huge obstacle.
Canada added about 5 million people just recently without investments in housing.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/3d-printing-on-earth-and-moon-60-minutes/
https://realestate.usnews.com/real-estate/articles/are-3d-printed-homes-the-future-of-housing
https://www.cnn.com/style/texas-3d-printed-home-icon/index.html
> It sequesters a huge amount of carbon because of the volume of wood it uses, so it's far less carbon-intensive than concrete or steel.
This reads as facially preposterous. Does this take in to account the lifetime of carbon absorption that has been truncated to produce said lumber?
If my rough calculations are right the lumber in a 12,000 sq ft. house would displace about 60,000 miles driven by the average car. Go up five stories and you've absorbed the carbon emitted by the lifetime of one car (ish---300,000 miles). Wondering if EVs are a better strategy than mass lumber construction (considering goosing lumber construction would send prices through the roof).