Why wood sucks (especially building with it)
Let me name the ways: 1. labor costs 2. managing framers and building crew is a headache on a good day 3. builders are resistant to new ideas 3. Alcohol, drugs, and personal issues are rampant in construction crews 4. Long building times, delays are common. 5. Mold, termites, rot, moisture 6. Air quality 7. Cost now higher especially since COVID. 8. Poor thermal efficiency and overall poor performance of the house overall. Great for HVAC and power companies, but bad for your pocketbook! 9. More expensive to build a Net Zero or Passive house with wood because of its poor performance energy-wise. 10. Thermal bridging is wood's downfall
Dan
11/1/20231 min read
This picture is what money leaving your wallet looks like...from an energy performance perspective. See those dark lines? That's wood you can see from the outside using an infrared camera, capturing the difference in temperature across a wall. It looks like an x-ray...and it shouldn't! (You can download an app on your phone that can take the same type pictures) Those dark lines, the wood studs, are carrying the heat out of your house to the outside in winter. And it works the same in the summer when you're trying to keep the heat OUT of your house. The wood carries that heat into your house, making for a much bigger electric bill for air conditioning. This is a textbook example of "thermal bridging"