03/19/2024
Why do we care about preserving old buildings? Well, there are a lot of reasons, but one that often gets overlooked is the irreplaceable superiority of the lumber. Before European settlement, forests covered one billion acres of what is now the United States. We systematically felled all but 7% of those “primary,” sometimes called “old growth,” forests.
Pennsylvania alone was clear cut to the point that it was virtually barren, with what remained at the turn of the last century accounting for little better than scrubland. It took the establishment of the Forestry Commission in 1893, the Pennsylvania State University School of Forest Resources in 1907, and FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corp planting three million saplings in the 1930s to reverse Pennsylvania’s almost total loss of forest. It may look like we have old forests, but the vast majority of Pennsylvania’s trees are less than a century old. And it’s only taken a few generations to forget what we did to them and what it took to make that forgetfulness possible.
The truth is that those old growth forests are gone or that what little remains are protected in national and state parks. Where did they go? Into our buildings. And that wood, which grew more slowly within dense canopies for much longer than modern lumber, is denser, stronger, more stable, and more resistant to rot and insects. The farmed lumber that has replaced it in the building industry is notorious for being weaker and softer and more prone to instability — warping, cupping, and cracking. The span rating for framing lumber continues to decline due to this, requiring more to be used for the same level of support, creating a vicious cycle.
So, what can we do when the forests are gone but demand continues to rise, requiring that we ship faster grown, poorer quality wood? Preserve what we already have and stop heaping the injury of demolition and landfill on the insult of clear cutting an entire continent.
Pictured below are boards stacked for drying in the Pacific Northwest, circa 1919.
