Los Angeles is gearing up to ban wood-frame construction

https://www.pacificresearch.org/los-angeles-is-gearing-up-to-ban-wood-frame-construction-renters-will-soon-pay-the-price/

by dmitriy_ko • 5 years ago

126 151 5 years ago

pacificresearch.org

Grakel• 5 years ago

So they're banning structures made of 100% biodegradable material that offsets carbon as it grows and is planted exclusively for this purpose, in favor of concrete and steel? Interesting.

mrfusion2• 5 years ago

That’s a shame. From a climate perspective you can’t beat building with wood.

Stuff like this makes the whole movement hard to take seriously.

Avshalom• 5 years ago

What movement, the concrete industry lobbying movement?

jefftk6• 5 years ago

This is funded by the concrete industry and the arguments are about fire safety. I'm not seeing any climate arguments?

Grismar• 5 years ago

"The movement" isn't exactly driven by Big Concrete to begin with though. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that there are a lot of people and businesses in the world that don't give a damn about climate change. If there weren't, we wouldn't be in this mess. "The movement" is trying to counter them.

notjesse• 5 years ago

The other thing is earthquake safety. Wood frame is often far more resilient to sheer stress than concrete/brick. Concrete can be reinforced to mitigate that, but I wonder how viable that is for buildings on the scale of SFH, not major developments.

roody15• 5 years ago

Can confirm lived on tbe Big Island of Hawaii for three years. Almost all homes are made of wood with the houses literally standing on top of the volcanic rock or cement pilings. With frequent earthquakes (largest when I lived there was 6.8) the houses literally move, shake and flex.

Concrete just cracks and then crumbles.

throwawaysea• 5 years ago

It’s not just about reinforcement (like rebar or steel frames) but the concrete mix used. Even though it might not look it, most concrete used in buildings is flexible. The most earthquake proof building in SF is probably the Salesforce tower, which has a concrete core, not a low height timber framed house. Concrete has other great properties as well - it is waterproof, doesn’t rot, and is fireproof. On the emissions side, you can get flexibility and lower emissions by using newer air-crete mixes: https://www.infrastructurist.com/what-is-flexible-concrete/

userbinator• 5 years ago

I still remember when the primary environmentalist movement was "save the trees"; doesn't more wood use imply more deforestation? The wood that's in buildings won't be capturing CO2, it's the live trees that do.

frosted-flakes3• 5 years ago

No, because all or nearly all building lumber in the US and Canada is sourced from sustainably-managed timber lots. In other words, trees are re-planted, and clear-cutting is no longer a common practice.

rp1• 5 years ago

Wood results from captured carbon. Live trees are captured carbon, as is lumber. Dead trees decompose and release the stored carbon back into the atmosphere. Wood used for lumber, unless it’s some exotic wood from the Amazon, is usually sustainably harvested.

spfzero• 5 years ago

They don't seem to be weighing any factors at all, other than fire safety. Wood is renewable, cheap, cheaper to construct with, much more environmentally benign than concrete, very fire-safe (though not as safe as some), etc., etc.

As was mentioned by other commenters, affordable housing has a value that can be balanced against fire safety. Carbon contribution as well.

Everything has trade-offs. "Safe Enough" needs to be an allowable state.

oconnore• 5 years ago

the motion would significantly increase the cost of constructing housing in Los Angeles

NIMBYs at it again.

kayodelycaon• 5 years ago

Worse. It’s to sell more concrete and steel buildings.

epistasis2• 5 years ago

It's a combination of both. NIMBYs love anything that makes construction more expensive because it limits construction, and also ensures that only the wealthiest can have housing, further driving up the price of their primary asset: land.

jayd16• 5 years ago

Increase for constructing single story housing, right? Do they normally construct denser housing with wood? Seems silly to mention NIMBYism when it pushes land use to more denser options, no?

advisedwang2• 5 years ago

It's pretty common these days to build "five over one" construction. This is typically a 3-6 floors of wood frame construction (Type 5 in some codes) over 1 or two floors of concrete (Type 1)[1]. It's a cheap way to build mid-rise buildings which would be banned by this proposal.

[1] Sometimes this is explained as the "five over one" meaning five floors of wood over one floor of concrete, rather than a reference to building codes. Either way the concept is the same.

mrfusion2• 5 years ago

Isn’t wood the best material for earthquakes?

shiftpgdn• 5 years ago

From my understanding it is significantly easier to have a wood frame house meet earthquake based code requirements in California than anything else.

worker7674242• 5 years ago

Dunno about the "best," but it's a very good material because it flexes under load. Unreinforced masonry is probably the worst.

ummonk2• 5 years ago

Metal is better, but it's an expensive building material. Wood is the best of the reasonably affordable building materials.

kevin_b_er2• 5 years ago

This is published by an organization known for deceit. Thus, everything they write should be taken with a grain of salt with the full knowledge they engage in deceitful misinformation practices for the purpose of political action.

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Pacific_Research_Insti...

car2• 5 years ago

Yeah, empty about page is a red flag. And then this: “It’s a relief that Americans oppose Congress’s drug pricing proposals once voters learn the true consequences of these misguided reforms,” said Sally C. Pipes, the brief’s co-author and PRI president, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy.”

jefftk6• 5 years ago

It looks like they've gotten the facts right in this case; https://urbanize.city/la/post/los-angeles-wildfire-wood-cons... has similar coverage from several months ago.

That this would make new housing more expensive, isn't generally viewed as necessary for fire safety, and is funded by the concrete industry, don't seem to be disputed?

wpietri3• 5 years ago

How do we know that this source is better? I can't find anything on their site about ownership.

yuliyp2• 5 years ago

Is there something that you actually believe is deceitful here? Is it the analysis of the impact of expanding the Fire District? Is it the data about the impact on building costs? Is it the claims about whether wood-framed buildings are safe enough?

Refusing to read and consider arguments from people you disagree with isn't a particularly useful strategy for gaining knowledge about a topic.

JumpCrisscross3• 5 years ago

Is it the claims about whether wood-framed buildings are safe enough?

This one, for me. I know nothing about it. Without further information, I wouldn’t want to conclude anything from a biased source (other than noting that the issue exists).

wpietri3• 5 years ago

This isn't about disagreement. If somebody sincerely, honestly, and without conflict of interest has something to say on a topic, I'm interested. Especially if they have done some hard work around understanding and acknowledging other perspectives.

On the other hand, there are a lot of people out their paid to create and push propaganda. As a general rule, one shouldn't engage with it. If even the writer may not believe something, one isn't obliged to take it seriously. Indeed, I think it's a frequently exploited mistake to bring more credulity and good faith to something than the source itself does.

Much better to spend one's time finding reasonably sincere sources and reading those.

kevin_b_er2• 5 years ago

When an organization is known for deceit for political purposes, it means I must expend extra effort to determine what information they have twisted, what information they have intentionally left out, and what the angle is. It requires extra effort to attempt to discover where the deceit rests.

Why should I expend that much effort from an organization who's got an agenda and isn't known for their honesty? How much knowledge can be gained from looking through misinformation? Why should I poison myself with potential propaganda? What does it gain me then but an attempt to bait me?

ladberg• 5 years ago

There's a similar article by a more trustworthy source, so I'd definitely believe it:

http://www.betterinstitutions.com/blog/2021/6/13/dont-expand...

You can also just read the proposal yourself and draw your own conclusions:

https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2019/19-0603_mot_06-05-...

JoshTko• 5 years ago

Cali is progressive unless it's about real estate.

colechristensen• 5 years ago

"Progressive" but not necessarily based on reason.

ajsnigrutin2• 5 years ago

I live in a small eu country... wood-framed housing is practically non-existant here. Not sure why, but we always joke about american houses, that are made out of "cardboard", where you hammer a nail to hang a picture, and break through the wall.

akvadrako2• 5 years ago

Huh? You can't hammer a nail to hang a picture at all into a concrete wall. And it's pretty shitty with masonry too.

ajsnigrutin2• 5 years ago

Yeah, you drill a hole, and put one of those plastic achoors inside, and screw a scew in, and hand a photo on the screw.

Our old-school socialist apartment buildings even have internal walls built out of reinforced concrete... drilling a whole to pull an ethernet cable through, means hoping for luck not to hit rebar

advisedwang2• 5 years ago

As someone who has lived in the US and Europe, I have made similar jokes. That said I've come to realize there's many advantages to the US way and in some respects the house I grew up in was massively overbuild:

Advantages of timber frame:

* Safer in earthquake * Easier to do remodeling tasks like changing layouts, plumbing, wiring * Easier to DIY * Cheaper

Most of the apparent disadvantages can be offset:

* I've never seen it happen, but you are right drywall is easily damaged. It's also easily replaced though. * Noise and thermal insulation can be added * Flammability is mitigated with firestops, fire resistant drywall and codes that require multiple points of egress. Larger wood buildings have sprinklers.

At this point I mostly have aesthetic complaints.

lotsofpulp2• 5 years ago

Drywall+wood also lets wireless signals through easier.

jccalhoun• 5 years ago

I found an article from June with more specifics: https://urbanize.city/la/post/los-angeles-wildfire-wood-cons...

That article contains this interesting nugget of information: "the proposal [...] is backed by an organization called Build with Strength. The campaign, led by the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association..."

So it seems this may have more to do with $$$ than actual safety.

clairity• 5 years ago

this is exactly what regulatory capture looks like, deceptive and anti-progressive (expressly without the typical political association). as such, every ballot measure should be a default 'no' unless you thoroughly understand the second- and third-order implications of the measure, not just because it sounds good on the surface.

JumpCrisscross3• 5 years ago

Another HN comment [1] notes this source is biased. Do we have an independent source confirming this move would not improve fire safety in Los Angeles?

Playing devil’s advocate, if I’m in a concrete business’s government relations office and I see a fire safety proposal that would help my company’s sales, I’m going to pitch in to help. That doesn’t necessarily mean the proposal was corruptly originated or advanced. (It does merit closer inspection.)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29299636

atomicUpdate• 5 years ago

It doesn’t matter if it improves fire safety, since wood frame houses are already safe to live in. There is a point of diminishing returns that a change like this clearly goes beyond.

DantesKite• 5 years ago

You also have to factor in the risk of earthquakes.

Los Angeles doesn't have frequent earthquakes, but because it's near a fault-line, that tail risk has to be addressed (the same way one wears a seatbelt, even though car accidents happen only a couple times in an individual's life).

Tade0• 5 years ago

I'm starting to understand why some people go full "sovereign citizen". If I were American I would eventually go crazy from the sheer complexity of every aspect of life - complexity which is only there because there's a profit motive.

Where I'm from organizations which have both "National"(or adjective referring to the nation in question) and "Association" usually settle on being a corrupt clique - without any influence in matters other than their internal ones.

legulere• 5 years ago

Doesn’t building using bricks exist in the US, or why isn’t it mentioned?

In my region in several places it was banned to build houses using wood hundreds of years ago and there a lot of beautiful stone houses still stand today. Avoiding wood in dense areas really makes sense I guess.

TaylorAlexander• 5 years ago

California is prone to earthquakes so we don't really like brick buildings here.

austincheney3• 5 years ago

Earthquakes aside brick is really heavy and extremely brittle, so it is only cost effective if it can be sourced somewhat locally. The only real advantage to brick, aside from aesthetics, is that its a great insulator.

jefftk6• 5 years ago

It's not a good insulator, though? A 4" brick wall is has an R value of 0.8, so you'd need 5ft thick walls to get R13.

It's great for thermal mass, but you still need insulation.

dilyevsky2• 5 years ago

The only real advantage to brick, aside from aesthetics, is that its a great insulator.

No it isn’t, the R value of wood is much higher. Imho the real advantage is longevity (doesn’t apply to earthquake areas tho) also when there isn’t wood available

kevin_thibedeau• 5 years ago

Masonry structures are practically non-existent, especially in new construction. It's only used as decorative veneer or wall infill for self-supporting steel commercial buildings.

car2• 5 years ago

Don’t buy this sight unseen. This organisation has a political agenda, see comment by kevin_b_er.

albertopv• 5 years ago

In Italy and Norway, maybe others, I don't know, wood constructions have been pushed quite a lot because they are more environment friendly than concrete and steel, can this be so different in los angeles?

hollerith• 5 years ago

can this be so different in los angeles?

No. Making the cement requires much energy.

cdot2• 5 years ago

More importantly the chemical reaction that makes cement releases a ton of co2

robocat2• 5 years ago

A friend from Spain visited us in Christchurch New Zealand, and they couldn’t work out why all the housing was “temporary”: most of our homes are built of wood which appeared temporary to her. Solid structures also make sense in hot countries, where thermal mass helps keep your home cool without aircon. Another friend bought a large finca in Spain, that is stone (with rubble infill I think) and is hundreds of years old - very comfortable.

Here, wood makes more sense, because of cost and earthquakes. Many brick buildings and brick facades failed during the Christchurch earthquake. I own a home with a broken ring foundation, but completely lovable (edit: liveable) still, because it is a wooden home from the 30’s. The main issue with wooden homes are that they need a lot of expensive ongoing maintenance or they deteriorate. Not so much of an issue in the inner city where buildings get demolished, and replaced by new apartments or town houses.

jollybean• 5 years ago

They are 'temporary' in the sense they are not quite designed to last for centuries.

In Europe, you have 'Post and Beam' framing which means the underlying structure can last 'a very long time' while the non-weight-bearing walls can be replaced. And there's a lot of stone work which can last 'a very long time' as well.

But yes, stone is a problem for earthquakes.

I wish there was more research into modern materials for this kind of stuff.

I would hope that 'wood' would be something we use for decorative things we see, touch or feel, and that something more mundane can go into the framing.

Thlom• 5 years ago

In Norway we have always built our homes with wood, but the last decade or so there have been a few buildings that would normally be built with concrete instead built with timber. Schools, hotels, apartment buildings and so on. Specifically they are using glued laminated timber that is said to to withstand fire better than f.ex steel.

worker7674242• 5 years ago

This is just goofy. Timber-framed structures do well in earthquakes, and while they catch fire often enough during construction, once fire sprinklers are installed and people live there, serious residential apartment fires in modern construction are really rare. The most recent fire that comes to mind is Grenfell Tower, but it's larger than you'd normally use wood for.

vlovich123• 5 years ago

I imagine the concern in LA is the massive fires they’re seeing on an annual basis, not so much home fires…

klyrs• 5 years ago

I could see that if such the rule was "within 100 yards of a forest" or something, but that would only cover a tiny fraction of the city.

djrogers2• 5 years ago

Los Angeles isn’t seeing massive fires on an annual basis - at least, not the parts of LA that would be affected by this.

KineticLensman• 5 years ago

Timber-framed structures do well in earthquakes, and while they catch fire often enough during construction, once fire sprinklers are installed and people live there, serious residential apartment fires in modern construction are really rare. The most recent fire that comes to mind is Grenfell Tower, but it's larger than you'd normally use wood for

Grenfell Tower was constructed using pre-cast concrete blocks, and was not timber framed [0]. The devastating fire [1] was due to flammable aluminium composite cladding.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire

yesenadam• 5 years ago

Thanks, what a horrifying story. Amazingly bad materials/design - "Combustible panels with polyethylene were put up on top of insulation...made from polyisocyanurate, which burns when heated, giving off toxic cyanide fumes. ...the gap between the cladding and the insulation worked like a chimney to spread the fire."

fileeditview• 5 years ago

Also funny if you consider we have "Fachwerkhäuser" (Timber framing houses) here in Germany which are up to about 800 years old. I would be curious if this will hold true for concrete houses in 500-800 years.

ByteJockey• 5 years ago

If you build it right, sure. Some roman concrete structures are still standing, and we've had better concrete than them for at least 50-100 years.

That doesn't necessarily make building everything out of it good, but concrete can definitely last a long time.

ummonk2• 5 years ago

Grenfell tower was a concrete tower, and it was the synthetic cladding that spread the fire.

wayfarer1291• 5 years ago

For earthquake reasons alone this is completely insane, and clearly a blatant attempt at regulatory capture by the concrete association. Just asinine.

For most of LA (apart perhaps from certain canyons and hill areas) the risk of fire is not significantly different from anywhere else. It's a cityscape. Earthquakes however are an omnipresent threat and wood frame buildings in general do far better. For example - many of the concrete buildings built along Wilshire blvd. in the westside may not survive a big quake.

codingdave• 5 years ago

"The motion currently winding its way through City Council"

Original motion is here --> https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2019/19-0603_mot_06-05-...

Full history here --> https://cityclerk.lacity.org/lacityclerkconnect/index.cfm?fa...

Mave83• 5 years ago

In Germany, only a small portion of our houses are wood framed. But we have high standards, so our wood frames are protected and escape routes in special are covered by non burning plates. In addition, building stairs with the right wood can make them more sustainable to fire than concrete.

Overall, that's a very bad decision they made or want to make and there are even more technology available to prevent any form of fire in wood framed houses. Example: circuit breakers with lightning detection.

frosted-flakes3• 5 years ago

Not sure if you're aware, but America also has high fire standards for wood-framed construction, particularly for multi-family dwellings, which have required firewalls and sprinklers for many decades. Today, all U.S. model building codes now include sprinkler requirements for all one- and two-family homes, but this only became a requirement in the last decade, so many homes still do not have sprinklers. Electrical wiring is also subject to quite strict codes for the same reason.

cultofmetatron• 5 years ago

does this apply to CLT as well? last I heard, CLT construction holds up favorably when it comes to fire resistance while having all the benefits of stick build construction.

yholio• 5 years ago

A very detailed write-up of this topic, with extensive research and citations:

https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/wood-construction...

Conclusions:

-> Overall, it seems like wood construction does somewhat increase the potential risk of fire, mostly by allowing fires that do occur to be somewhat deadlier and more destructive. However, this effect is mostly swamped by other factors such as what state and city you live in, or whether you live in a house or an apartment. For a wood apartment in Salt Lake City, the risk of fire is vanishingly small; for a wood single family home in a tiny town in Arkansas, it’s much larger.

-> The most important factor for fire risk in a home is whether or not it’s sprinklered. Fire sprinklers reduce the risk of fire by an enormous amount, and sprinklered wood construction seems to perform about as well as sprinklered non-combustible construction. And sprinklers are cheap, costing about $1-2 per square foot (much less than it would cost to say, change a wood house to concrete).

-> For wildfires specifically, we see something similar - construction details such as fire protected eaves and class A roofs, along with things like community density, matter far more than whether your home is wood or steel.

mensetmanusman• 5 years ago

Erase CO2 negative construction and replace with CO2 positive construction. Sounds legit.

m0zg• 5 years ago

Intresting that CA can be for the environment and for concrete (which emits a lot of CO2 during its production [1]) _at the same time_ somehow. Hypocrisy? Incompetence? Corruption? I'll let you decide.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46455844

b200002• 5 years ago

good, now maybe we’ll get decent quality houses instead of garden sheds in CA. maybe something can be done too about all the shitty little craftsman shacks that are being flipped by entitled boomers looking to get a piece of your tech salaries.

defterGoose• 5 years ago

Given that the likely outcome of this is less construction, those "shitty little craftsman shacks" are going to get even more expensive.

b200002• 5 years ago

i think we are already past the breaking point, and people might simply move elsewhere

jweir• 5 years ago

Meanwhile many other cities are exploring mass timber more and more. This allow building larger snd taller buildings out of timber.

I’ve seen a few lovely mass timber buildings built.

These are radically different than the stick frame construction which is of dubious origins.

https://youtu.be/2gWxRVqNI3M

nostrademons• 5 years ago

We know how to make wildfire-resistant homes, and it has nothing to do with framing materials:

https://www.readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/get-re...

There are a lot of relatively low-cost interventions that homeowners can do for hundreds-to-thousands of dollars (rather than the ~50% increase in construction cost of this proposal) that have proven benefits. Keep dry brush and plants more than 5 feet away from the home. Use fire-resistant roofs (which don't have to be expensive; asphalt shingles qualify). Prefer vinyl or stucco siding over wood. Cover attic vents with 1/16" mesh. Clean your gutters.

These are not complicated things, and many are things you should do anyway. They're much cheaper than building out of reinforced concrete, and more effective.

FateOfNations2• 5 years ago

vinyl

Yeah, no. It might not easily catch fire itself, but it definitely melt off and expose whatever is under it. They have cement composite siding that is probably a much better option if want something that looks and installs like vinyl.

joeman10002• 5 years ago

As a structural engineer I almost can’t believe this news. Timber construction is great. Timber is a renewable resource and it has a high elastic modulus-to-density ratio. Steel needs to be transported and smelted down again in order to be re-used, assuming it doesn’t rust away over the years. Properly treated timber can last for hundreds of years.

desertraven• 5 years ago

What kind of treated timber lasts hundreds of years? When I think of treated timber I’m thinking of Bunnings treated pine... what is the industry standard timber for longevity?

dmitriy_ko• 5 years ago

Parent poster meant "properly cared for timber", not chemically-treated timber. Timber doesn't have an expiration date. As long as you keep it dry, it will last indefinitely. In fact, it becomes stronger over time. There are many 100+ years timber buildings in US.

For timber used outdoors, e.g. for making decks pressure-treated timber is used. It's a timber treated with pesticide (chromated copper arsenate). In the past creosote was used to treat things like wooden railroad ties and power poles, but it's no longer used because it's toxic.

joeman10002• 5 years ago

If timber is properly seasoned with appropriate treatments depending on region it can actually last hundreds of years. We have redgum timber at home which was used some time in the late 1800s.

LinuxBender• 5 years ago

There is a lot of debate here with wood vs concrete with merit on both sides. I can see using concrete for the foundation but just me personally, I am going with a steel Quonset hut on a concrete foundation. They are cheap, durable, easy to install. These would probably be ugly in a city I suppose unless someone could find a creative way to make them look nice. I am waiting for steel to come back down in price. Two thirds of it will be a workshop/garage. One third will be insulated with either closed cell foam or aircrete, I haven't decided. It gets cold here. Quonset huts are also much less expensive to move around. I'm honestly surprised Los Angeles has not used Quonset huts for the affordable housing or even homeless shelters.

web2sucks• 5 years ago

Wasn’t the housing situation bad enough?

Los Angeles is gearing up to ban wood-frame construction

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