Types of wood for building??

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Dan_IN_MN

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Why is it that wood for building is usually from the pine family? What I'm getting at is, why isn't boxelder, cotton wood, and others used? I read somewhere, probably some where on this forum, that cotton wood is used in Semi trailer floors.

I'm also looking for some Gopher wood to build a big boat! :jester: J/K

Dan
 
Several wood species of wood can be used for building purposes. The pioneers built from what ever wood was available. Pine was massed produced and now the majority is from tree farms and dead trees from out west.
I built a house and used white oak, red oak, cedar, black walnut, and Lynn ( basswood) along with red elm. Cotton wood is great for rafters and framing. Just remember to keep it dry, but that is for any lumber that is untreated. Some lumber will split easy, but I used construction screws on everything except trim. A 1 x4 white oak is several times stronger than a 2x4 pine, just can't be nailed too easy after it drys, I have drilled pilot holes to drive nails. Some of the old fancy houses were built from native lumber, it is harder to work with, but the houses that were kept dry are still here and a lot of the pine built houses are junk when they are built today.
If a house is built with green native limber and braced well it will not warp, notice braced well.
If you can mill it, you can build with it.
 
So.....cotton wood is better for building than burning.

So.....cotton wood is better for building than burning.

Thanks for the reply!

Dan
 
For building, when you go to a lumber yard and buy the standard 2x.. they will usually have a designation of SPF on the lumber. This stands for spruce, pine, fir. These are the three species that are used for building.

Hope this helps.

-Kevin
 
For building, when you go to a lumber yard and buy the standard 2x.. they will usually have a designation of SPF on the lumber. This stands for spruce, pine, fir. These are the three species that are used for building.

Hope this helps.

-Kevin

What about my original question?
Why is it that wood for building is usually from the pine family? What I'm getting at is, why isn't boxelder, cotton wood, and others used? I read somewhere, probably some where on this forum, that cotton wood is used in Semi trailer floors.

Thanks

Dan
 
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Dan- simply put, some woods are not up to the rigors that certain other woods can withstand everyday for a lifetime. SPF takes a nail well, is light and strong, and relatively rot resistant. Oak is strong, heavy and when cut on quarter beautiful, Also more than 3x more expensive than pine, so why waste it on framing. Hickory and ash are shock resistant enough to make sledge hammer handles, but if left out in the elements, rot quickly. Each wood has its strengths, and weaknesses, experience or a good book can tell you which wood for which use.
 
I think much of it has to do with SPF growing faster and being cheaper and less desirable where appearance and resistance to abuse is important.

The biggest problem I see building with cottonwood you milled yourself is a picky building inspector asking about the lack of grade stamps.

I liked the one story at the wire and cable company I once worked for. The division manager's church was building a new building. He gave them some ultra tough mining cable to use as service entrance. Normally SE is where you use up all the insulation not good enough for its original intent. The building inspector complained.
 
I think much of it has to do with SPF growing faster and being cheaper and less desirable where appearance and resistance to abuse is important.

The biggest problem I see building with cottonwood you milled yourself is a picky building inspector asking about the lack of grade stamps.

Labman, you're dead on with the first statement. Softwoods can grow to millable size in just a couple decades in the right environment (South-eastern US comes to mind) whereas it can take a couple centuries to grow a nice, big hardwood tree. Another upside is that softwoods can grow a couple hundred feet tall and be poker-straight for the entire length, whereas one is lucky to get more than a couple usable logs before a crotch in an average hardwood. Hardness is also an issue. Even Douglas Fir and Hemlock are hard enough to be undesirable for framing, let alone Oak or Maple. My house has some 50+ year old Douglas Fir joists in the basement, and if I hit a knot in it with the nailgun it just bounces off and leaves half the nail sticking out still. And doing it the old-fashioned way is next to impossible.

This is why there was such a huge logging boom in the PNW from the late 1800s onward - our easy access to these huge trees provided cheap, easy lumber to North America. A similar boom took place in Ontario in the mid-to-late 1800s which almost eradicated the old-growth White Pine there.

Re: using cottonwood for building - it's not even nearly as strong as Spruce-Pine-Fir for building. My lumber grading manual has a strength rating chart for all the common North American woods, and is very similar to an online one I found HERE. Then actual numbers in mine are almost all different, some by a decent margin, but the general trend and differences between woods are very close. My chart has wet and dry numbers as well. At any rate the only structurally weaker woods than Cottonwood are the Cedars more properly from the Juniper family. On the other hand, Cottonwood/Aspen is very split resistant and can be planed to a glass-smooth finish, and can make a nice woodworking wood. My cousin has cottonwood/aspen T&G on the vaulted ceiling of his log house, it looks really nice.

I've often wondered about how an inspector would feel about my using self-milled wood in the house. I'm outside city limits so I can do work without permits at my own risk, but if/when I go to sell the house it'll still need to pass inspection. I am a AA ticketed graderman with 7 years' experience, so I'm not going to use crap wood in my own house, but I don't know if that would make a bit of difference to an inspector if he's wanting to see a grade stamp. But it hardly makes sense for me to pay the lumber association a membership fee to get a stamp number, so screw it.
 
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Interesting. I would have thought cottonwood was stronger than spruce. In the end, testing beats guessing.
 

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