> If you have used finger jointed wood, you see the effects of new vs. old wood. Starting in the 1970’s lumber manufacturers began using finger-jointed wood to compensate for poor wood quality; the warping, twisting, and knots in their new growth wood. They took a board of wood, cut out the defects and then rejoined the pieces with finger joints. Finger joining wood in doors windows, moldings, and framing lumber is necessary because the new growth wood quality isn’t as good. Old growth timber is generally free of knots while plantation grown wood is riddled with them.<p>For normal construction tasks, I don't care one bit about this one bit. And you shouldn't either.<p>We've found more sustainable ways to quickly grow trees and use machines to turn them into usable construction lumber. This is amazing! Basic construction doesn't need to have the finest, densest, knot-free lumber. It just needs to work and hold up for a useful lifetime. We don't use this lumber for windows or weather-exposed areas. It's placed neatly inside of your dry home and protected from the elements.<p>Combining multiple boards into a single, more stable board isn't unique to cheap new growth lumber. It's a technique that is even used with more expensive woods to produce a hybrid board that has better properties than could be easily achieved with a single board. Modern adhesives can be stronger than the wood itself, so the existence of a joint shouldn't scare people.<p>If you're doing a high end woodworking project, you're generally not using this type of wood anyway. You're picking a hardwood or one of the fancier softwoods.<p>I love old growth lumber and its properties, but modern construction lumber and the processes that produce it are a great accomplishment. Regardless, it doesn't matter because old growth lumber is a very finite resource and it's not repeatable to reproduce forever anyway.
In my opinion, living old grown trees >> old growth wood > new growth wood.<p>Modern 'new growth' forestry is very sustainable, but old growth poaching still happens quite often in the US. I have friends on the regulatory side of logging and I've see illegal activity first hand.<p>I know that this article is not advocating for the logging of old growth trees, but focusing on the idea that 'old growth is better' can cause customers to value it enough that the extra profit incentivizes illegal harvesting.<p>Personally, I would like to see densified wood become a viable option. Even lightly densified new growth meets or exceeds the qualities of old growth wood.<p><a href="https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/new-densified-wood-is-as-strong-as-steel/" rel="nofollow">https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/new-densified-wood-...</a><p><a href="https://jwoodscience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s10086-022-02028-3" rel="nofollow">https://jwoodscience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s1008...</a>
It's interesting to point out that the wood has tighter rings and is more durable not necessarily because it came from old trees, but because the old growth trees grew in mature forests where they were in the shade of other trees, and thus grew more slowly and had tighter rings.<p>Trees growing in full sunlight grow quickly and have more widely spaced rings. Balsa wood for example, which is very light and soft, comes from balsa trees that have evolved to grow very quickly in sunny gaps caused by fallen trees in tropical forests.
> The value of old growth lumber is the reason we should NOT throw out old windows.<p>Your 100 year old window probably has single paned glass, lead paint (which is an unmitigated disaster on a double hung window, possibly exceeding the degree of hazard from every other lead painted part of a house combined), and is likely installed in an uninsulated wall without a proper sill flashing.<p>That last point is worth some consideration. Essentially every window ever made either leaks or will leak. A small leak from a protected window [0] into an uninsulated wall cavity may not be terribly damaging. Add insulation and it’s a different story. Fortunately (per code! although many contractors completely ignore it for residential construction), newly installed windows are installed over a sill pan or other flashing that collects the water that leaks through the visible sill and directs it toward the outside.<p>So, sure, <i>maybe</i> it’s worth the money to remove a double hung window, carefully and safely remove all the paint, retrofit an insulated glass unit into it, and reinstall it with proper flashings. Or you can buy a new window and trash the old one.<p>[0] Old architecture was generally much better than new architecture at having little details that direct rain away from walls, windows and doors.
Here's a story about Old Growth forests in New England that I shot for Smithsonian Magazine. The most interesting part was seeing archive photos of New England when it was basically clear cut for firewood and pasture. Today we think of it as wooded, but that is relatively recent:
<a href="https://www.daviddegner.com/photography/discovering-old-growth-forests-in-new-england/" rel="nofollow">https://www.daviddegner.com/photography/discovering-old-grow...</a>
There's a wonderful podcast, Shannon's Lumber Industry update that discusses this topic in detail, I can't track down exactly which episode. The point he makes is, yes, sure they are "better" lumber, but lumber can also be a sustainable resource. We've done a MUCH better job producing construction lumber (what those two-by material is used for in the vast majority of cases) in a sustainable manner. That old framing lumber came from just demolishing old growth trees. You can still find comparable lumber, this is what fine furniture makers do.<p><a href="https://www.lumberupdate.com/about/" rel="nofollow">https://www.lumberupdate.com/about/</a>
I live in a 100 year old home in the PNW and I've broken dozens of 'wood' rated drill bits trying to drill. It can take upwards of 10 minutes to drill through a single 2x4 stud in my house. It's honestly insane that they're considered the same material.<p>I do a lot of hobby wood working and the old growth pine seems to have more in common with ipe wood and the like rather than the stuff you buy in the stores. I'm holding on to all that old wood like it's gold.
This is also the case with guitars and other musical instruments (pianos, violins etc.).<p>Old growth not only sounds better, it lasts longer and looks better.<p>Salvaged redwood is one particular place that this really stands out. There is no VG Heart available these days. If you want good straight, heartwood, you have to salvage old lumber or scavenge the forest floor for old felled logs.<p>When I see old houses in CA built from old growth redwood torn down and tossed into the landfill, it breaks me.
I experienced the decrease in wood quality firsthand when I worked for my dad's business building custom wine cellars. I worked in the factory building wine racks for a couple of years after graduating high school in the 1980's, and then infrequently helped install cellars until he retired in the 2010. (It was a great opportunity to travel the world and install cellars in exotic places like Japan, Singapore, & etc.)<p>The early cellars were all constructed using redwood, which was at that time plentiful and inexpensive ($0.20/lineal foot for 1x2). Redwood is easy to work with because it's harder than pine but softer than walnut and oak, so easy to saw and pin. "Clear heart" wood from the center of the tree doesn't warp much if stored well. It's also absorbent and so takes glue well.<p>We particularly liked using redwood for wine cellars because it's resistive to mold due to the high tannin content. Wine cellars are susceptible to mold because the cellar's refrigeration is designed to keep a high humidity level (70-80%) so as to prevent "ullage" (loss of liquid due to evaporation). Corks are semi-permeable, and so wine evaporates through the corks due to osmotic pressure.<p>Because I visited my dad's factory infrequently, I found the changes in wood noticeable -- the same way it's surprising how much my friend's kids have grown since I last saw them, unlike my kids who I see daily!<p>Over time redwood became increasingly expensive, and the quality lower, with more "A grade" wood containing sapwood instead of the clear heart wood we preferred, and fewer tree rings. Wine racks use quite a large number of small pieces -- lengths of 1x1, about 0.75" x 0.75" -- and at that small size the lower quality of the wood meant more pieces were unusable due to issues with the grain. It's important to select for good wood grain so that folks don't stick their hands in a wine rack and pull back a bleeding stump filled with redwood splinters, which are nasty because the tannin in the wood also prevents the body from disolving them easily.<p>Over time we switched to other sustainably-farmed wood like jarrah and mahogany, though those woods were super hard to work with -- they chewed up saw blades and were hard to get pins through.
I absolutely love watching Brent Hull videos and I am kind of shocked to see his page on HackerNews. For those of us who are into aesthetic design and back-to-roots craftsmanship, this is the guy to watch.<p>He had a video a couple of years back on this exact subject.
<a href="https://youtu.be/cWX4PgCFk7c" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/cWX4PgCFk7c</a>
Pretty interesting to see the difference in the grain. I do notice the softness of the wall studs when I hang anything in my newer place. Still "they dont build em like they used to" is a bit... wrong. Nimby's or "old heads" as we call em, badmouth new builds for their quality. I've lived in extremely well-built 18th century homes, and now one that is less than a decade old and I greatly, greatly prefer the latter.<p>Newer features I appreciate are engineered joists (stronger, less creaking floors and noise transmission), doors and double pane windows that seal out air and noise, good insulation, central HVAC, PEX plumbing, neutral wiring, and the fact that if I need to fix or replace anything, it can be easily ordered if not found at a hardware store.<p>Yeah, maybe some of these materials are not as "sturdy" to the touch and maybe they have a shorter life-span, but I am positive they work better and are cheaper/easier to maintain.
>These old windows are structurally superior and can be restored instead of replaced.<p>How do they deal with the superior energy efficiency of new windows? Even basic vinyl windows are better in terms of energy transfer, unless they're replacing the window frame with more modern equipment (factory made vinyl/aluminum) while keeping the original windows.
SF Fire famously still uses old growth for their wooden ladders.<p><a href="https://gizmodo.com/inside-san-francisos-fire-department-where-ladders-are-1552279252" rel="nofollow">https://gizmodo.com/inside-san-francisos-fire-department-whe...</a>
I'm not sure how this applies in softwoods (like the hemlock & fir type stuff usually used in construction), but it is not really so obvious that slow growth (tight rings) is better than fast growth (wide rings) in hardwoods. The fast growth wood is usually much less likely to shatter or split under strain -- which for some purposes (anything delicate, or with staked construction such as Windsor chairs, basically stuff which needs to bend some under use) is preferable.<p>I'd need to break out my [Hoadley](<a href="https://www.tauntonstore.com/understanding-wood-2nd-edition-r-bruce-hoadley-070490" rel="nofollow">https://www.tauntonstore.com/understanding-wood-2nd-edition-...</a>) to confirm, but my belief is that you are trading modulus of elasticity for modulus of rupture.
Any structural engineer or serious lumber person will tell you this is wrong.<p>In fact, if you go over to the Reddit discussion on this post, they all agree.<p>New growth has much fewer knots and issues because they are grown in a way that does not force the trees to compete for sunlight.<p>As such they grow straighter, taller, and with far fewer knots and anomalies.<p>The old stuff is denser but that is the only advantage.<p>It's worth not throwing out but it's not magically better.<p>We don't care about making new growth denser because we created lvl, lsl, psl, clt, etc.
I live in a 'century home'. Old growth is really neat and something to be cherished. At the same time modern engineered lumber products like LVL's, OSB with insulation and weatherproofing and other innovations should be respected for the purpose they help serve. A lot of older homes in my area are using these new methods and products to keep older structures alive for the next century, with improvements in moisture control and insulation/energy usage along the way.<p>Everything in a good balance.
> The difference between old growth wood and new growth wood is like the difference between granite and paper. Old growth wood has better stability, durability and longevity. New growth wood and the windows they’re made of, begin to rot and warp after only twenty years.<p>To help salvage, recycle or reuse wood products, the American Wood Counsil has a website: <a href="https://reusewood.org/" rel="nofollow">https://reusewood.org/</a>
There was actually a company that specialized in salvaging sunken logs from old lumber operations in Lake Superior.<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/24/us/with-timber-scarce-old-logs-deep-in-a-lake-become-a-sunken-treasure.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/24/us/with-timber-scarce-old...</a><p>Company went out of business (ran out of logs?) in 2015.
I group up in an area where all the houses were built in the 1930s. All old growth lumber. At one point, the University of Delaware was buying up houses on my street, including one directly across the street from mine. A crew came along an took the house apart and loaded the lumber onto a flatbed truck.<p>I'm not sure where the lumber went to, but it was pretty cool to watch.<p>They just left the lot empty with grass and a few trees.
The sad thing is there’s no good reason not to have 100 year wood readily available.<p>Suppose you have 100 acres. Every year you harvest one, replant it, and move on to the next. In a century you’ll have an annual harvest of excellent wood. But what will happen instead is whoever ends up with the land will clear cut it, take the big payday, and plant fast growing junk if they replant at all.
This hints that there is market space for managed forests with slower-growth trees that would yield wood better suited for high-end woodworking. Assuming a 3-to-1 ring density from current fast-growth to this slower variety, one could expect prices similarly higher accounting for the longer growth plus financial cost of the land.
Is this true for wood that’s from the same species of tree? How much of the wider growth rings are attributable to increasing co2 levels? I’m really curious what the mechanism is.<p>Like, I’m half inclined to assume the new growth tree is a pine (they grow really fast ) and the old growth is some hardwood.
A historic home [c1920] in my neighborhood had an elevator installed; I ended up fishing out four 3ft 4x12 segments, and they're absolutely fantastic (color, density, rings, smell).<p>No clue what I'll ever do with these, but they seemed too cool to just garbage.
What about flammability?<p>If "new" wood is somewhat less flammable because sap or something like that, replacing old forests with new ones, moving the operations of wood harvesting from forest to forest in a sustainable way may get a bigger time window for freshness and lower a bit the risks of the captured carbon by trees/forests burning down (something that is getting more probable as the world warms up, a positive feedback loop), while getting better quality wood in the process.<p>Of course, a lot of uses of wood is burning it down for home heating, that won't be in the equation, but is something that may be phased down. And not sure how this goes for other uses of wood like making paper.
One of the many reasons older homes (especially pre WWII) are way better built. Older homes use bigger timber of old growth. Newer homes used smaller diameter timber of new growth. There’s no comparison. Provided it was taken care of I’d take a pre WWII home over something much newer all day long. You can always update cosmetic issues but you can fix the inferior structural construction of newer homes. There’s a reason why “This Old House” is a popular thing in places like the Northeast.
The article isn’t fully accurate. For example old growth is not more knot free. That depended on a lot of factors. Maybe the wood used for windows was more knot free but that is a different matter entirely. Here is a counterpoint article: <a href="https://www.finewoodworking.com/forum/old-growth-vs-second-growth-or-later" rel="nofollow">https://www.finewoodworking.com/forum/old-growth-vs-second-g...</a>
> <i>Sixty years ago, timber companies began to grow Radiata Pine in countries like New Zealand and Chile. Grown for quick production, these trees produce very little heartwood and these trees have fewer growth rings per inch.</i><p>So is the difference between old growth and new growth primarily in the type of trees? Or are there other factors that contribute to speed of growth?
If you do't have old growth wood windows to preserve, but are looking for a long lasting alternative, consider fiberglass framed windows. Fiberglass can be made to look like almost anything, and unlike some other modern materials (i.e. metals), it's a good insulator.
There's a movement to leave new growth trees in the ground longer for additional carbon capture:<p><a href="https://www.sightline.org/forest-long-rotation-harvests/" rel="nofollow">https://www.sightline.org/forest-long-rotation-harvests/</a><p>I wonder what impact this has on the final product.
One of my favorite ads was a lumber company showing how they plant two trees for every one they cut down, and framing it like they were preserving nature.<p>When in fact they were planting future trees they planned to cut down, like a farmer planting corn, just on a longer time line.
Whether wood grows fast or slow depends mainly on the tree species.
Nowadays, you find still good wood for furniture and windows from oak trees for instance. It's just more expensive.