Should we move to metal buildings or stick to traditional wooden structures? 15

[chris_e]

My views are in the favor of metal buildings because metal buildings have many advantages and saves trees. We can use metal sheds because metal doesn't release oxygen.

Share your opinions or other aspect of the coin please.

 

[phamENG]

I agree that clear cutting forests doesn't do much good and it has severe environmental impacts, but as molibden mentioned there are well established and scientifically based best practices for forestry management that reduce these negative impacts. Advances in engineered wood product design and manufacturing has greatly improved the overall usage of the material to the point that almost no part of the tree is wasted.

As for steel - and I'll admit that more steel usage means more money in my pocket in a circuitous sense - it is a fantastic product with a lot of benefits. But it's not suitable for everything. Steel is not a renewable. There is a limited amount of iron ore out there buried in the ground. Steel recycling is awesome and provides a huge benefit, but it isn't the end-all-be-all. Run your scenario out a few decades. What happens to the scrap supply if we abandon wood for the sake of steel? It diminishes, and costs go up. Mini-mills struggle to keep up with the big integrated mills, and we're forced backward into big coke ovens and melting down raw materials that have to be mined - and how environmentally friendly do you think that's going to be? This may be something of a doomsday scenario, but some version of it isn't unlikely if we tried to abandon wood.

The two materials exist in the market place in a balance - each serving an appropriate market based on cost and availability. That balance is ever changing, but it will never tip completely one way or the other.

 

[CARunderscore]

Wood is non renewable and on the other hand steel is the most recycled metal on earth. I guess deforestation has more impact on environment rather than carbon emission due to steel recycling process. Apart from environmental impacts, metal is good at every aspect like durability, strength, pests or rotting, age, etc. as compared to wood.

Steel is actually pretty terrible at thermal insulation, so I don't know how competitive it is with wood for constructing energy-efficient buildings. It is my understanding that thermal break technology for steel connections isn't really mature yet.

Also, a properly-designed wood structure can last a century or two, and the initial embodied energy of steel construction is pretty high compared to wood, so your building needs to stay in service a pretty long time for the "durability" aspect to pay off.

Also also, wood construction requires less-specialized tools and labor.

 

[msquared48]

Stick to wood. Wood is warm. Steel is cold and unfeeling.

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA, HI)

 

[JStephen]

In tank work, the smallest "beam" we normally use is a C4x5.4. When I first heard about them framing houses with steel, I was visualizing something like that instead of 2x4s, and thought "hot dern, that's the way to build a house!". Then when I saw the actual steel studs were about one notch above tin-can material, I was a bit disappointed.

 

[Ron]

If you don't waterproof the structure properly, they will equally fall apart! It's a tie.

 

[chris_e]

molibden: Are we managing our forests right way? I am sure you heard about Amazon Rain Forest Fire.