15 ms·
They didn't even try to imagine it though. According to the linked article[1] there's about 1.1 Tt of concrete on the planet. At a density of 2.4t/m³ that's 45
by ginko 5y ago
They didn't even try to imagine it though.
According to the linked article[1] there's about 1.1 Tt of concrete on the planet. At a density of 2.4t/m³ that's 458 billion m³ or 458km³. That'd be a cube of with a side length of 7.71km or about the height of Mount Jannu[2] from ocean level.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-3010-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-3010-5
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumbhakarna_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumbhakarna_Mountain
- phreeza 5y agoFor contrast, all human beings probably fit into a cube of 1km side length.
- koolba 5y agoThis is a classic xkcd “what if” topic: https://what-if.xkcd.com/8/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/8/
- baybal2 5y agoAnd with most of it being poured in the last 20 years in Asia. In China, people don't believe me that Americans live in wooden houses like they see in movies. Some think it's some kind of a set, or super-conspiracy by the party to render America in a bad light.
- capitainenemo 5y agoWhat's wrong with wooden houses? Easy to build, easy to insulate, in normal circumstances cheap. Far far better for the environment than concrete...
- lotsofpulp 5y agoIt is comical how so many seem to think wood and drywall is always inferior to concrete. I would even say it is the opposite, you are lucky to have access to cheap enough wood.
- yawaworht1978 5y agoI think the only advantage wood has it that it can be burned for heating. No seriously, i do not see a single advantage of a wooden house. But I am eager to hear.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoEasy to work with is the main one. I can do almost everything myself with less time, less equipment, and less chance of injury. Cheaper (where I am). Let’s WiFi signals through easier, so I need fewer access points. I’ve worked with both, and the main advantage of concrete would be the sound insulation. But I feel like a quality wood + drywall + insulation installation can come close enough for residential purposes.
- echelon 5y agoThey don't waste energy to heat or cool. They sequester carbon rather than produce it. They're easy to modify and expand. They're durable and last forever if you take care of them.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- capitainenemo 5y agoEasy to insulate, easy to build with, durable, easier on the environment.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- stronglikedan 5y agoThe can stand up better to an earthquake.
- jazzyjackson 5y agoYou can change your mind, knock out a wall there, put in a new wall here. Basically easier to remodel. Plus the carbon sequestration And in the case of craftsman style homes the use of wood is very beautiful but of course you could throw a few planks of wood onto a concrete shell. It’s softer too, I lived in a condo that was all concrete and granite, anytime you bumped into a corner or fell down it just hurt more than wood.
- ars 5y agoYou don't want to live in a multi-family wooden house - the noise from above you will drive you wild. With a concrete house you don't hear your neighbors.
- capitainenemo 5y agoHm. The only multi-family building I've ever lived in was an apartment complex and it was steel and concrete. I don't think they are typically built out of wood even here, although I've read about some experiments with wooden office buildings as more environmentally friendly. I guess if I was really curious I could look and see if they'd added extra sound damping to deal with that. In any case, the typical American wooden home is not going to have a family above you. :)
- quickthrowman 5y agoThere is a ton of 4 story stick-built multi family housing in the US
- lotsofpulp 5y agoThat specific type of construction started in 2009 after the building code was changed to allow it. They are known as a “1+4” or “1+5”, with the first floor being concrete and then 4 or 5 wood floors above. Very economical, and hence why almost all new multi unit construction has been that style for the past decade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-plus-five https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-plus-five
- jhallenworld 5y agoThree deck homes are common in New England, here are some examples (I think these are five family homes, the upper floors are two families each): https://www.google.com/maps/@42.2662623,-71.8167462,3a,75y,193.51h,101.09t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sBETCiUnDooy9N2BH13ojEg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@42.2662623,-71.8167462,3a,75y,1...
- brandonhorst 5y ago
- FridayoLeary 5y agoIt does sound a bit weird. How long do they last? In UK you would expect a house to remain standing for 80-150 years. Maybe more.
- echelon 5y agoWooden homes last just as long. There are many wooden homes of that age, and they have a ton of character and command steep prices.
- capitainenemo 5y agoMy current home is a dirt cheap one built during the explosion in housing post world war II. It's wood on top of poured concrete slabs for a foundation (yes, ok, some concrete - maybe something else could have been used? brick?). It has no structural issues. (it has issues due to stupid design decisions from stamping out homes at that time, but none related to the wood). It is now 60 years old. I imagine it will be standing for a long time to come.
- calvinmorrison 5y agoCinderblock foundations aren't uncommon, brick or stone and mortar. And lots of basements were packed eaeth, a whole nother level of 'unfinished'
- RosanaAnaDana 5y agoI live in a 100 year old wooden house. Its got some character due to modifications and its era (1920's). But its been well maintained and there is no apparent reason it wouldn't survive another 100 years.
- waynesonfire 5y agosame. and it was built so long ago that the 2x4s used in it's construction are actually 2"x4", and probably made from old growth.
- 5y ago
- pletnes 5y agoFire safety is not great. (Many other things are. )
- elric 5y agoThat's an over-generalization which is very often wrong. Massive timber (including things like CLT or Brettstapel) are very fire resistant and very safe in a fire. The outer layers tend to char while the rest of the structure is preserved.
- dan-robertson 5y agoTo say more: if a large timber beam is exposed to fire and comes out charred, you can often just scrape off the charred part, but for a steel or concrete beam the damage may be fundamental (introducing cracks or permanently changing the size or material properties) requiring the part to be replaced.
- baybal2 5y agoIn a fire, you will die long before the structure will collapse
- dan-robertson 5y agoIt’s about what happens after a minor fire, not what happens when a building burns down
- rootusrootus 5y agoThat's ironic, since wood construction has a much longer history than reinforced concrete, and I'm not by any means convinced that the latter will be as durable.
- throw1234651234 5y agoReinforced concrete buildings have better thermal and sound isolation. They are obviously more resistant to damage. Proof of this are Khruschev-era Soviet apartment blocks that are standing today. A condo I lived in had brick walls between neighbors - definitely a huge plus compared to drywall in apartments where the neighbors can hear you turning on the tv at whisper sound levels.
- greesil 5y agoThe last building I lived in was reinforced concrete. It was great, I definitely couldn't hear the neighbors, except I could still hear the people upstairs walking around in what sounded like tap shoes at 2am on Saturday nights. Some people just have more fun than me.
- baybal2 5y ago> Khruschev-era Soviet apartment They were terrible, yet better than a wooden house. As somebody who spent few years of my childhood in Russia, I find it bizarre that today construction quality actually went lower than that.
- timeon 5y ago> Reinforced concrete buildings have better thermal and sound isolation. Thermal conductivity of materials are telling different story [1]. Polystyrene or mineral wool are good for insulation because they have low thermal conductivity 0.032 - 0.038 W/mK (these values are not exact obviously, you can also find mineral wool with values 0.033 not 0.038 but that is just detail). Timber here is 0.14 - 0.17 W/mK. We can find also concrete with 0.16 which is pretty low for concrete but unfortunately that is just aerated concrete which is different from more dense - reinforced one. So for example in my home country (in central/eastern Europe) where we have Soviet apartment blocks and decide to insulate them we need to cover them with 30cm thick layer of mineral wool or polystyrene foam in order to meet current standards for thermal resistance. Most of them are already insulated at least decade now (unfortunately with just 10-20cm thin layer). [1] https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Thermal_conductivity https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Thermal_conductivi...
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoThey're largely right. Only 10% of Americans live in single-family homes.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dan-robertson 5y agoThis statement seems wrong to me. According to [1], 43% or residents in rented accommodation live in single family homes. [2] claims that about 80% of owner-occupied dwellings are single-family homes (but the source seems funky: surely there are more than 80k owner-occupied dwellings in the US.) [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/612959/number-of-households-and-residents-renting-usa-by-structure-type/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/612959/number-of-househo... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/377896/owner-occupied-homes-by-units-in-structure/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/377896/owner-occupied-ho...
- dan-robertson 5y agoWood homes is quite an American thing. In many parts of Europe for example, many people live in brick or stone or blockwork or indeed concrete buildings (though raw concrete is mostly unfashionable.)
- teruakohatu 5y agoIn New Zealand we have construction not dissimilar to the USA, from how Americans in HN describe house construction. 100+ year old wooden houses are common here. Construction evolves due to avaliable resources and local conditions. Transplanting a technique from one country to on other won't necessarily work. If you have earthquakes such as in NZ, USA or Japan building concrete houses does not make a lot of sense.
- bradknowles 5y agoIn China, who actually has a house, as opposed to an apartment?
- topspin 5y agoI've done a similar mental experiment with oil. The US consumes about 20 million barrels of oil per day. Here is a useful visualization: imagine a (US) football stadium from the air with a huge black cube floating above like something from a sci-fi movie. The cube is about 50% larger on a side than the distance between goal lines. That cube of oil is about how much the US burns in a day.
- Aerroon 5y agoIt's kind of incredible how even this "too vast to imagine" amount is 'just' a few large mountains.
- julienb_sea 5y agoA cube with 7.71km side length is so totally foreign to us it is unimaginable. Mt Everest by volume is 59.5 km^3, or about 13% of the volume you've quoted. We are probably more accustomed to think about sizes of conical structures, again due to mountains being the only thing we have for scale. It would be interesting to think how much we'd have to scale up Mt Everest in order to get to a volume of 458 km^3.
- jhgb 5y agoBy a factor of (458/59.5)^(1/3), you mean? That seems roughly a factor of two to me.