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The author fails to connect the dots: 1) Nails were expensive. Timber framing does not require any nails -- it uses dowels which can be made cheaply with a dr

The author fails to connect the dots: 1) Nails were expensive. Timber framing does not require any nails -- it uses dowels which can be made cheaply with a drawknife. 2) Unlike @simonsarris' wood, most wood available to post and beam constructors was not particularly straight. Post and beam is very tolerant of faults in lumber. 3) With post and beam, you don't need to square all four sides of a beam. You can get away with squaring off one(the external one) plus the spots where any corner braces go. If you are hewing with a broad axe and an adze, this is a huge time saver. 4) In rural post and beam construction, the beams do not all need to be the same size. You can use whatever tree you have lying around, as long as it is big enough. This is an advantage, as you can use a local tree and save the extremely laborious trip to the sawmill So to summarize, you can have a bunch of low-skill farmers harvesting and preparing trees for beams. Then you need a high-skill carpenter to put the mortises in and assemble the whole thing.

bigmattystyles 4y ago
Shouldn't the author have also mentioned cheap drywall? To me that led to worse yet much faster and cheaper construction. It's also so easy to work with that even I learned how to do most things (slowly but well). My expensive bay-area wall feels like a carton box and I think it's because i grew up in a masoned house. (I know masoned buildings are not viable in CA due to earthquakes, but man does my house feel like it could just get blown away by a mild gust here)
- csours 4y ago
  They have talked about drywall in a previous post.
- maherbeg 4y ago
  They actually wrote a whole article on dry-wall and theorizing on what the next iteration of it could look like https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/comparing-process-improvement-in https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/comparing-process...
  - hammock 4y ago
    I read the whole thing and didn’t really see what the next iteration of wall materials (for general household use) would look like. I saw a discussion of mostly plastic alternatives, and some kind of robot drywall finisher.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  In what ways does drywall make a house worse?
  - peatmoss 4y ago
    The article linked in this thread mentions the strengths of plaster—the tech that preceded drywall. Plaster has some nice aesthetic properties, good fire resistance, good sound isolation, can be shaped into organic contours. All those things make it great, though I hate the mess of working with old work.
    - frosted-flakes 4y ago
      Plaster and gypsum board (drywall) can be used together. The author's own house uses plastered gypboard, and from what I understand plastered gypboard is still extremely common in Europe and around the world.
      - sgerenser 4y ago
        It’s also pretty common in New England (Boston area especially) although almost unheard of outside that area in the U.S.
        asmithmd1 4y ago
        We had rehab work done when we moved to a Boston area house and they skim coated everything with plaster as standard of practice. That is definitely not the standard anywhere else I have lived. Another regional difference is they put the powder room light switch next to the door on the outside, why? Has anyone seen this in any other area?
        dsr_ 4y ago
        It's a Massachusetts standard, explained to me as an early safety procedure before GFCI was invented -- and probably dating back to early exposed wiring. Separation of water and voltage.
- danans 4y ago
  > Shouldn't the author have also mentioned cheap drywall? To me that led to worse yet much faster and cheaper construction. It's also so easy to work with that even I learned how to do most things (slowly but well). My expensive bay-area wall feels like a carton box and I think it's because i grew up in a masoned house If it's a production builder built house, it might have 3/8 inch drywall. 1/2 or 5/8 inch drywall makes a big difference to how solid a wall feels but that usually only happens in custom high end builds.
  - jeffrallen 4y ago
    In Europe we use Fermacell, which is like drywall but much more substantial. It is made from recycled paper and cement.
- dmtroyer 4y ago
  I think balloon framing preceded drywall by quite a long time.
crazygringo 4y ago
Huh? There are on entire sections on each of these -- 1) how nails fell in price due to steam power manufacturing, and 2-4) how standardized lumber from across the country was available cheaply when local wood was scarce, due to steam power sawmills and railroads. The whole point is that you don't need local wood, or high-skill anybody at all. I have no idea how you think the author doesn't "connect the dots".
- aeturnum 4y ago
  > I have no idea how you think the author doesn't "connect the dots". You are pointing to a different set of dots than gbronner. They are talking about the advantages of post-and-beam construction - extremely tolerant of heterogeneous and uneven lumber, can avoid using nails, etc. This article gives the impression that post-and-beam construction needed tons of expensive materials and skilled laborers - but they are saying it's not the case, it just was less amenable to economies of scale. You can't ship in hearty lads to hew logs the way you can ship in boards and nails.
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    You can contract with "the little guys" to supply artisanal lumber, it can be cost effective. We ordered wood for a deck and it is hung up at the local sawmill. We see the winter coming in and think "should we just go to Home Depot and finished the job?" Of course, in the past two years the Home Depot has been out of stock sometimes as well.
    - brudgers 4y ago
      One night, I fell into a YouTube rabbit hole of saw mill videos…which is to say making one’s own lumber is just another DIY woodworking project, because Harbor Freight sells sawmills. https://www.harborfreight.com/saw-mill-with-301cc-gas-engine-62366.html https://www.harborfreight.com/saw-mill-with-301cc-gas-engine...
      - theGnuMe 4y ago

bigmattystyles 4y ago

Shouldn't the author have also mentioned cheap drywall? To me that led to worse yet much faster and cheaper construction. It's also so easy to work with that even I learned how to do most things (slowly but well). My expensive bay-area wall feels like a carton box and I think it's because i grew up in a masoned house. (I know masoned buildings are not viable in CA due to earthquakes, but man does my house feel like it could just get blown away by a mild gust here)

csours 4y ago
They have talked about drywall in a previous post.
maherbeg 4y ago
They actually wrote a whole article on dry-wall and theorizing on what the next iteration of it could look like https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/comparing-process-improvement-in https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/comparing-process...
- hammock 4y ago
  I read the whole thing and didn’t really see what the next iteration of wall materials (for general household use) would look like. I saw a discussion of mostly plastic alternatives, and some kind of robot drywall finisher.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
In what ways does drywall make a house worse?
- peatmoss 4y ago
  The article linked in this thread mentions the strengths of plaster—the tech that preceded drywall. Plaster has some nice aesthetic properties, good fire resistance, good sound isolation, can be shaped into organic contours. All those things make it great, though I hate the mess of working with old work.
  - frosted-flakes 4y ago
    Plaster and gypsum board (drywall) can be used together. The author's own house uses plastered gypboard, and from what I understand plastered gypboard is still extremely common in Europe and around the world.
    - sgerenser 4y ago
      It’s also pretty common in New England (Boston area especially) although almost unheard of outside that area in the U.S.
      - asmithmd1 4y ago
        We had rehab work done when we moved to a Boston area house and they skim coated everything with plaster as standard of practice. That is definitely not the standard anywhere else I have lived. Another regional difference is they put the powder room light switch next to the door on the outside, why? Has anyone seen this in any other area?
        dsr_ 4y ago
        It's a Massachusetts standard, explained to me as an early safety procedure before GFCI was invented -- and probably dating back to early exposed wiring. Separation of water and voltage.
danans 4y ago
> Shouldn't the author have also mentioned cheap drywall? To me that led to worse yet much faster and cheaper construction. It's also so easy to work with that even I learned how to do most things (slowly but well). My expensive bay-area wall feels like a carton box and I think it's because i grew up in a masoned house If it's a production builder built house, it might have 3/8 inch drywall. 1/2 or 5/8 inch drywall makes a big difference to how solid a wall feels but that usually only happens in custom high end builds.
- jeffrallen 4y ago
  In Europe we use Fermacell, which is like drywall but much more substantial. It is made from recycled paper and cement.
dmtroyer 4y ago
I think balloon framing preceded drywall by quite a long time.

crazygringo 4y ago

Huh? There are on entire sections on each of these -- 1) how nails fell in price due to steam power manufacturing, and 2-4) how standardized lumber from across the country was available cheaply when local wood was scarce, due to steam power sawmills and railroads. The whole point is that you don't need local wood, or high-skill anybody at all. I have no idea how you think the author doesn't "connect the dots".

aeturnum 4y ago
> I have no idea how you think the author doesn't "connect the dots". You are pointing to a different set of dots than gbronner. They are talking about the advantages of post-and-beam construction - extremely tolerant of heterogeneous and uneven lumber, can avoid using nails, etc. This article gives the impression that post-and-beam construction needed tons of expensive materials and skilled laborers - but they are saying it's not the case, it just was less amenable to economies of scale. You can't ship in hearty lads to hew logs the way you can ship in boards and nails.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  You can contract with "the little guys" to supply artisanal lumber, it can be cost effective. We ordered wood for a deck and it is hung up at the local sawmill. We see the winter coming in and think "should we just go to Home Depot and finished the job?" Of course, in the past two years the Home Depot has been out of stock sometimes as well.
  - brudgers 4y ago
    One night, I fell into a YouTube rabbit hole of saw mill videos…which is to say making one’s own lumber is just another DIY woodworking project, because Harbor Freight sells sawmills. https://www.harborfreight.com/saw-mill-with-301cc-gas-engine-62366.html https://www.harborfreight.com/saw-mill-with-301cc-gas-engine...
    - theGnuMe 4y ago