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Thread: Green wood

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Location
    Maryland, DC, and Northern Virginia, electrical only
    Posts
    444

    Default Green wood

    Just finished a lovely book, Hand Hewn, by Jack Sobon. He talks about using hand tools, traditional wood joinery, and often, local harvesting and maintenance of organic shapes. I don't mean non-silicacious; using tree crotches and branchings in the lumber as part of the structure.

    What he doesn't talk about to any extent is seasoning. Many of his photos show beams that may have twisted a bit, that developed cracks as they shrunk . . . This is more a memoir than a coffee-table book, and certainly not a how-to, so I can't fault him too much for not showing "and here's how it can go wrong." Still . . .

    What I'm wondering is this: when you inspect non-trad houses, lets even say ones that have passed AHJ inspection, how do you evaluate these eccentricities? Okay, the IBC says that for this span, you need at least 2X10 lumber; this house has about a 4x 12 member there, with some longitudinal cracking, not near the edges. Hmmm.

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  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Fletcher, NC
    Posts
    28,032

    Default Re: Green wood

    Combine that with the fact that span tables are being/will be/have begun being changed to reflect that younger growth wood is not as strong as thr older growth wood of years/decades past.

    I haven't kept up to date on it but I keep hearing/reading about the span tables changing.

    Jerry Peck
    Construction/Litigation/Code Consultant - Retired
    www.AskCodeMan.com

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