Shirtback

I've always assumed (without doing any research - looks like N2O Covered that) that timber was/is used widely in Canada because of the abundance & (low) cost of the raw material & suitability for the climate.

The higher fire risk is always a concern, brought rather too close to home yesterday as I watched it rip through & destroy 3 businesses & 4 apartments* across the road .

(*No casualties. Very extensive collateral damage to neighbouring buildings from water/preventative action from fire department to stop the whole street going up ).

BristolUK

Hey...your paragraphs are working.How so?

Shirtback

Is that a whoosh?? If not, ????

BristolUK

There have been some glitches - no smilies, no paras and all sorts.

Apparently some edit function has been changed for some people and needs changing back. You may have escaped the sneaky change.

The mystery gets a mention in the multi-quote thread on Feedback.

Shirtback

Ahh, okay . I hadn't noticed... Yet !

not2old

in the following, its worth a read

http://www.cwc.ca/documents/durabili...ameHousing.pdf

A Safe Bet in Earthquakes
Wood-frame construction has proven to be one of
the safest building systems in an earthquake because
it offers some key earthquake advantages compared
to other materials:
1. Wood is strong and lightweight – less mass is
an advantage because it means lower forces
are exerted on a building.
2. Wood-framing has many members and many
nailed connections – there are lots of back-up
load paths to absorb the forces.
3. The nail connections typically used in wood-frame
construction are effective in dissipating the energy
of an earthquake.


CONCLUSION: The house built with wood
had lower environmental impact for energy use,
greenhouse gases, air and water pollution and ecological
resource extraction than the steel or concrete
building. A similar case study for a commercial
office building (comparing wood, steel and concrete
construction) produced similar findings in terms of
wood’s superior environmental performance.

.

Oakvillian

I think most has been said that needs to be said on the process of buying a house: contracts are exchanged much earlier in the process, subject to conditions which, once met in a relatively short time frame, are removed and the contract becomes binding. AC and HG know quite a lot about that of which they speak...

On house construction, there are as usual a whole load of conflicting opinions.

Canadian new-build construction for a single family home is most usually a stick frame stud wall structure, held rigid by ply or OSB sheeting, and veneered in a siding material of choice (that may be brick, vinyl, concrete board, wood, stone, whatever). That siding material is not likely to be structural. In a new-build house, the insulation will be inside the sheeting, within the structure of the stick frame. There's not the same concept of insulating within the cavity between inner and outer wall.

In places where it gets properly cold in winter (i.e. not the lower mainland of BC...) most houses have a basement. Newer houses will likely have a full basement; older construction may have a crawlspace or cellar rather than a full-height basement. This is as much a function of cost economy as anything else - builders need to dig a foundation well below the frost line; for a marginal extra cost they might as well excavate the whole area of a house and make habitable space rather than dig only the wall footings.

Bear in mind, too, before trying to compare Canadian construction methods with those in other places, that houses here have to deal with a much, much wider temperature fluctuation than UK houses. Winters into the -40s, summers touching +40, are quite possible in southern Ontario where you're looking. That 80-degree thermal shift takes a toll on any building material. Even the bricks used for facing/siding are significantly different to those used in the UK (they're more similar to the hard clay "engineering brick" than the traditional frogged London stock.)

For internal walls, my understanding is that most UK new construction uses similar techniques - a stud wall with drywall sheeting, and not much in the way of sound insulation in either walls or ceilings. The advantage, of course, is that it's easier to make changes to partition walls; the disadvantage is that you can hear the bog flush from three rooms away.

For older buildings, all sorts of techniques were used. Lath and plaster in place of drywall (much of it containing asbestos); block built foundation walls that leak when the mortar joints crack (and might all be hidden behind basement finishes); aluminium or knob-and-tube electricals; additions that started as lean-to or three-season rooms that have been incorporated into the main house without proper foundations or insulation.... there are loads of "I screwed up my DIY project"-type shows on TV that cover this sort of money-pit nightmare. I suppose that's the perennial dilemma: buy for character, but get a lot more "character" than you bargained for.

jimf

Shocking news that the Canadian Wood Council promotes wood as a building material.

Wood is used for commercial speculation housebuilding in Canada as it is abundant and cheap and the buyer is used to not getting anything better.

Atlantic Xpat

LOL

I think there is a strong element of truth in your assertions, although wood construction is pretty much the norm across North America isn't it? So not just a Canadian thing.

If I had the money, I'd be interested in looking at different construction methods such as this - BONE Structure: Steel Construction System . They're building one nearby that looks quite funky. Or a Hufhaus but thats a dream that only a lottery win will fulfill.

I think there is a learning curve that you go through as an owner of a house in Canada, coming to terms with wooden construction & finding the flaws in your house as you renovate. For example we are just completing reno's provoked by the need to remove "Kitec" hot water radiation piping that involved cutting chunks of drywall out and replacing. In the basement we discovered that the only insulation was an inch of styrofoam - no batt insulation or vapour barrier. So we had all of the exterior walls taken down and properly insulated before being reinstated.

As a Brit, it's impossible not to look at your Canadian house without feeling "...2x6's, plywood,...at the end of the day it's just a fancy shed really isn't it?"

JonboyE

There seems to be a fantastic business opportunity there.

scrubbedexpat091

Everywhere I have lived in US/Canada wood has been the primary building material for houses and other low rise buildings.




I've seen more then one report that points to wood as being the best material for earthquake prone area's, so there is real benefit to using wood on the west coast especially.

Pulaski

As Shirtback and JimF said, Canada (and the US) has more timber than it knows what to do with, and timber is light and easy to transport, and fairly quick and cheap to build with. The UK has a lot of clay suitable for making bricks.

You can come up with other justifications as to why each country uses timber or brick, but in all honesty you are just layering logic over already long-established practice. Houses have been mostly or entirely brick in the UK for over three centuries, and homes in most of North America have been timber framed since it was first settled by British and Europeans more than four hundred years ago. That's just how things developed.

plasticcanuck

Yeah for common sense

dbd33

A fairly small lottery win: 5 bedroom detached house for sale in 1 Rutherford Gardens, West Linton, EH46 7AP, EH46

Stinkypup

Not my idea of a dream house, there are some way nicer examples of Scottish architecture but there again, near Edinburgh = ££££