Posted on 04/30/2017 5:08:52 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It's rare that a governor shows up to celebrate a new condo tower.
But this one's made of wood, and that's a bigger deal than it seems.
Gov. Kate Brown was on hand the day Carbon12 in North Portland reached its full eight stories and became the nation's tallest wood building. The feat was made possible by cross-laminated timber, wood engineered to have the strength of steel.
The distinction won't last long. Another Portland development, an 11–story high-rise made of the same wood product, is expected to secure a building permit within weeks and start construction this summer.
For Oregon, cross-laminated timber represents a chance to revive the moribund wood products industry, restoring logging and manufacturing jobs in rural communities — where the state's natural resources give it a clear advantage over foreign competitors.
The state is investing hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to promote CLT. Right now, only a handful of buildings in the U.S. have been built with it, and most are in Oregon....
(Excerpt) Read more at oregonlive.com ...
BS. Wood cost just over half to use compared to other materials.
Use concrete? OK, Lets see. Got to mine the sand, screen it, wash it, then mix it with cement that has to be mined, baked and trucked. Then mold the blocks, then cure them, then truck them to the building site, lay them, reinforce them...
Steel? Got to mine it, make pellets out of it, then ship the pellets by train, then by ship, smelt it, roll it, ship it to the supplier, then erect it...
Wood? Log it, ship the logs to a mill, saw it, plane it, ship it to the lumber yards and then to the builder who erects it.
It costs just abt 10 dollars a ton to produce 2.3 thousand bd feet of roundwood for milling. Abt 10 bucks a ton to truck it to the mill. Go ahead and compare that to iron ore pellets from the mine to the mill. Those pellets have to be baked and rolled at the pellet mill also.
An 11 story matchstick, what could go wrong?
Not so. There's been a lot of wood skyscrapers built in Europe, using modern techniques. Just as safe as metal and concrete skyscrapers, both of which had the same interiors and furnishings as the wood skyscrapers.
AFAIK, Steel framed buildings are required to have insulation sprayed onto the steel to prevent softening & warping during a fire.
This insulation is often a mix of clay or Portland cement and wood fibers.
"Today’s engineered timber develops a protective charring layer that maintains structural integrity and burns very predictably – unlike steel, which warps under the intense heat."
No thanks, if I were renting office space, it would not be an 8 story fire trap.
Portland's theme song:
Love is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring.
Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of fire.
I fell into a burning ring of fire,
I went down, down, down and the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns,
The ring of fire, the ring of fire.
No. I know a good number of framing contractors through my job. None are liberals. Serious engineering goes in to these buildings and safety is priority one.
I had a carpentry book that showed a building after a fire. A steel beam was melted and wrapped over a charred timber which was holding it up like it was wet noodle.
glue does melt however. Just ask firefighters about what happens to OSB sheathing. Not sure if these glue laminated beams have the same problem but it’s a very significant question.
I grew up in a Timber town and my Dad lost everything when the plywood mill closed down. The fake science used to blame logging for the decline of the spotted owl was pushed by the exact same people pushing “climate change”.
The Tillamook and Clatsop forests are at prime logging age right now and would pump hundreds of millions into the devastated coastal communities.
Trump could get it done, if he knows the issue, and shuts out the giant private forest owning timber corporations.
Why shut out the private corporations?
Because corps. like Louisiana Pacific, Georgia Pacific etc... were actually giving money to groups like sierra club that helped fund the protesters blocking logging in national forests in Oregon.
Those corporations have huge private forests and they wanted to kill off competition from pesky private mills that used the timber from public lands. Back then they were doing a double whammy of flooding the market to drive down prices, and lobbying for restricting logging in national forests.
As in everything, follow the money.
I think london and Atlanta could weigh in on this as well.
I’ve never seen lvl’s that were treated
They’re wood. Treat it however you want, it’s flamible
My husband corrects me...the laminating deters bugs...not necessary to treat
Safer in a fire? What?
lol.........
Termites.
Building less likely to collapse on you. Steel buildings have lots of flammables, but steel melts and collapses. See other poster’s post.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.