gracet22•2d agoTop Commenter

Reading about the old growth timber in the Pacific Northwest got me thinking

I was looking into some history stuff and found out that a single old growth Douglas fir tree can contain over 14,000 board feet of lumber. That's enough to frame like three whole houses, which just blew my mind. It makes you wonder if the push for engineered lumber is purely about efficiency or if we've lost something with that switch. What's your take on using modern materials versus the real, massive timber from back in the day?

2 comments

2 Comments

charles_green952d ago

Wait, are you sure about that 14,000 board feet number for one tree? That seems really high. I remember reading that a huge old growth fir might yield around 8,000 board feet, and that's already a giant tree. The math for framing three houses with one tree feels off too, since you need different grades and sizes of wood. Modern engineered lumber is definitely different, but it lets us build with smaller, younger trees which we have more of. The old growth had unique qualities, but we just can't build everything that way anymore.

terry_thomas2d ago

Did you see that article about the old growth yields too?