Interesting. When I first heard about modern people living in wooden houses I thought 'are they crazy? Why would someone be invest their life savings in buyin

Interesting. When I first heard about modern people living in wooden houses I thought 'are they crazy? Why would someone be invest their life savings in buying a wooden house? Surely they cannot last very long'. I think it is because the climate is very different. I live in northern England at about 1000' (fairly high by english standards). It rains a lot, and the rain tends to be more horizontal than vertical. Outside, untreated wood rots fast from the damp. Treated wood (e.g. windowframes) need repainting every 2nd year, and even so parts of them rot and need replacing every 25 years or so. The houses near here are mostly 200-400 years old and built of local gritstone from quarries that are a few hundred yards away. The walls are as good as when they are built (the exteriors need re-pointing every ~40 years or so). The roofs (grey(stone) slate) need re-doing maybe every ~40 years when the timbers sag. The buildings I have made (house extension, outbuildings) will still be standing 400 years from now. The comments about shortage of timber might also have some validity - there were/are hardwoods here, but not much - unlike in the US or New Zealand, where you had large forests on your doorsteps.