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My takeaway was not that we should harvest old-growth (doing so is inherently unsustainable), but that we should not throw out old growth wood when we find it (

My takeaway was not that we should harvest old-growth (doing so is inherently unsustainable), but that we should not throw out old growth wood when we find it (say for example when tearing down a house)

ortusdux 3y ago
I know that was the spirit of the writeup, but I think it's important to be mindful of the big picture. It reminds me of the struggle with the ivory trade. If you want to stop ivory poaching, the logical step is to ban the sale of ivory. Unfortunately, if the demand is still there, this new scarcity will drive up the price and incentivize more aggressive poaching. The solution is to also target the demand. When billiards had a boom in popularity during the 1860's, a firm put out a $10,000 reward for anyone that could make a better alternative to ivory billiard balls. This led to the invention of the first synthetic polymer. The firm was able to corner the growing billiards ball market while undercutting the demand for ivory. The invention, for better or worse, also created the synthetic/polymer/plastic industry. The problem is that old growth wood is better. This is why I would like to large scale densified wood product production take off. In theory, you can take a cheap sustainable product and turn it into a superior, stronger, longer lasting alternative.
- VHRanger 3y ago
  Glulam is rocketing in popularity, though. It's a good product, carbon-negative, strong, fire resistant, etc. Northern Europe already uses it a lot, it's starting to come to North America slowly.
  - amenhotep 3y ago
    I looked up glulam and it was immediately recognisable as the giant wooden structural beams I've noticed in my local Tesco, so yes, can confirm :) very interesting thing to learn, I'd been struck by how massive they were but never really thought any deeper about it.
robocat 3y ago
Recovering the wood from old houses costs a lot - mostly crew time. Demolition crews do recover the most valuable wood (large beams, planks and panels of rarer wood species that are no longer available). Safety and speed also matter. Meanwhile the market for the recovered wood is limited. I've never seen someone use second hand wood for framing commercially (and I would suspect trying to do so would cause code or inspection issues). People building for themselves might - but they also often recover the wood themselves too. Just my observations from watching many houses get demolished (still happening over a decade after earthquake here in Christchurch). Recovered wood of nice old wood (particularly Rimu) does get used in furniture.
- ortusdux 3y ago
  I caught up with an old friend a few weeks ago that just started a new career as a reclaimed wood salesman. Thanks to Pinterest, home improvement shows, etc, demand is at an all time high. According to my friend, the largest seller of reclaimed wood in the US is a subsidiary of a fencing company that happens to have a significant number of government contracts to fence in federal grazing land. They replace their fencing every ~5 years and then sell the wood as reclaimed at a significant markup. It is technically reclaimed, but he said that they have to spend a lot of time removing those stapled on lumber yard price tags. Less reputable operations force age lumber in the sun or use hydrogen peroxide, and then just lie about it being reclaimed. His company mostly sources their wood from the demolition of old barns and warehouses. The senior sales people that trained him said that their job use to be much easier as they could just offer demo companies free removal. Now the DIY crowd is going around offering to buy boards off structures, and owners are starting to view that old eyesore of a barn as a cash cow. They had to bring on more sales people just to do the leg work and negotiate with owners. Anyway, that convo is what was on my mind when I reacted negatively to the main post.
njarboe 3y ago
It is not inherently unsustainable but practically so. You can cut down one thousand year old tree per year for every thousand trees of similar size. I have not done the calculation but maybe a few trees per square mile per year.

ortusdux 3y ago

I know that was the spirit of the writeup, but I think it's important to be mindful of the big picture. It reminds me of the struggle with the ivory trade. If you want to stop ivory poaching, the logical step is to ban the sale of ivory. Unfortunately, if the demand is still there, this new scarcity will drive up the price and incentivize more aggressive poaching. The solution is to also target the demand. When billiards had a boom in popularity during the 1860's, a firm put out a $10,000 reward for anyone that could make a better alternative to ivory billiard balls. This led to the invention of the first synthetic polymer. The firm was able to corner the growing billiards ball market while undercutting the demand for ivory. The invention, for better or worse, also created the synthetic/polymer/plastic industry. The problem is that old growth wood is better. This is why I would like to large scale densified wood product production take off. In theory, you can take a cheap sustainable product and turn it into a superior, stronger, longer lasting alternative.

VHRanger 3y ago
Glulam is rocketing in popularity, though. It's a good product, carbon-negative, strong, fire resistant, etc. Northern Europe already uses it a lot, it's starting to come to North America slowly.
- amenhotep 3y ago
  I looked up glulam and it was immediately recognisable as the giant wooden structural beams I've noticed in my local Tesco, so yes, can confirm :) very interesting thing to learn, I'd been struck by how massive they were but never really thought any deeper about it.

robocat 3y ago

Recovering the wood from old houses costs a lot - mostly crew time. Demolition crews do recover the most valuable wood (large beams, planks and panels of rarer wood species that are no longer available). Safety and speed also matter. Meanwhile the market for the recovered wood is limited. I've never seen someone use second hand wood for framing commercially (and I would suspect trying to do so would cause code or inspection issues). People building for themselves might - but they also often recover the wood themselves too. Just my observations from watching many houses get demolished (still happening over a decade after earthquake here in Christchurch). Recovered wood of nice old wood (particularly Rimu) does get used in furniture.

ortusdux 3y ago
I caught up with an old friend a few weeks ago that just started a new career as a reclaimed wood salesman. Thanks to Pinterest, home improvement shows, etc, demand is at an all time high. According to my friend, the largest seller of reclaimed wood in the US is a subsidiary of a fencing company that happens to have a significant number of government contracts to fence in federal grazing land. They replace their fencing every ~5 years and then sell the wood as reclaimed at a significant markup. It is technically reclaimed, but he said that they have to spend a lot of time removing those stapled on lumber yard price tags. Less reputable operations force age lumber in the sun or use hydrogen peroxide, and then just lie about it being reclaimed. His company mostly sources their wood from the demolition of old barns and warehouses. The senior sales people that trained him said that their job use to be much easier as they could just offer demo companies free removal. Now the DIY crowd is going around offering to buy boards off structures, and owners are starting to view that old eyesore of a barn as a cash cow. They had to bring on more sales people just to do the leg work and negotiate with owners. Anyway, that convo is what was on my mind when I reacted negatively to the main post.

njarboe 3y ago

It is not inherently unsustainable but practically so. You can cut down one thousand year old tree per year for every thousand trees of similar size. I have not done the calculation but maybe a few trees per square mile per year.