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Balloon framing is worse-is-better (2021)

218 点作者 chiffre01超过 2 年前

28 条评论

gbronner超过 2 年前
The author fails to connect the dots:<p>1) Nails were expensive. Timber framing does not require any nails -- it uses dowels which can be made cheaply with a drawknife.<p>2) Unlike @simonsarris&#x27; wood, most wood available to post and beam constructors was not particularly straight. Post and beam is very tolerant of faults in lumber.<p>3) With post and beam, you don&#x27;t need to square all four sides of a beam. You can get away with squaring off one(the external one) plus the spots where any corner braces go. If you are hewing with a broad axe and an adze, this is a huge time saver.<p>4) In rural post and beam construction, the beams do not all need to be the same size. You can use whatever tree you have lying around, as long as it is big enough. This is an advantage, as you can use a local tree and save the extremely laborious trip to the sawmill<p>So to summarize, you can have a bunch of low-skill farmers harvesting and preparing trees for beams. Then you need a high-skill carpenter to put the mortises in and assemble the whole thing.
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dbrueck超过 2 年前
I recently built a largish shed in my back yard and although it&#x27;s obviously far simpler than an actual house, it has many of the same core elements (including balloon framing), and it really struck me that someone like me could go from idea to a reasonably well done shed with only a little past experience plus some Googling. The traditional mortise-and-tenons approach would have far exceeded my time budget and probably been too far beyond my skill level.<p>The most eye opening bit of learning for me was also mentioned in the article:<p><i>&quot;The skin of the building, which previously only served as a barrier to keep the elements out, now also braces the wood stud walls, increasing their load bearing capacity.&quot;</i><p>Prior to sheathing, the framing is downright rickety!
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legitster超过 2 年前
This... isn&#x27;t quite right. Balloon framing as traditionally defined is all but non-existent anymore. The author is smooshing concepts together.<p>Balloon framing was purely a method of convenience back when consumers were able to get their hands on 30-40 foot framing timber. As such, it was only popular during a limited window when sawmills were popping up across the West and virgin old-growth forests were being clear cut.<p>The author is using &quot;balloon framing&quot; to describe the entire concept of modern framing. But if you start throwing around &quot;balloon framing&quot; to describe modern houses you will at best get weird looks from contractors and at worse draw the eye of fire inspectors.
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PaulDavisThe1st超过 2 年前
I find the terminology here odd. I&#x27;ve always been told that it&#x27;s<p>* timber frame construction<p>vs<p>* stud frame construction<p>and that stud framing is divided into ballon framing (now rarely used, because of fire hazards, as noted by the article) and platform framing.<p>I&#x27;ve never come across &quot;balloon framing&quot; as the generic term for &quot;build a house with lots of small wooden vertical pieces, plus sheathing&quot;.
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londons_explore超过 2 年前
It isn&#x27;t easy to build a thermally efficient building with balloon framing. That&#x27;s because you have solid wood between the inner and outer skin in hundreds of places. And wood has a thermal conductivity of 0.2 W&#x2F;mK, which is pretty bad compared to say PIR foam insulation at 0.02 W&#x2F;mK.<p>Anywhere with high energy prices, hot&#x2F;cold climates, or environmentally conscious buyers, thats a no-go!
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londons_explore超过 2 年前
It&#x27;s notable how building construction is very regional.<p>For example, balloon framing is very rare in most of Europe - where people generally prefer brick, stone, blocks or even cast concrete. Something that won&#x27;t rot away or creak in the wind.
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mikeg8超过 2 年前
As a builder, I really don&#x27;t get the point of this piece arguing that stick framing is &quot;worse&quot;. The author makes very weak arguments for the &quot;worse&quot; category to make a connection to tech engineering&#x2F; software development.<p>&gt; Balloon frame has a few disadvantages. One major one is that the exterior wall studs all the way to the roof, which provides an unbroken path for fire to travel.<p>Fire blocking is a very simple and well-known practice that avoids this pitfall completely. the failure to mention fire blocking makes me question the authors overall construction competence.<p>It feels as if they are arguing that stick framing is worse than timber frame construction because it&#x27;s &quot;more difficult to engineer many more smaller connection points&quot;. which may have been the case in the early days of stick framing, but like in software development, builders have developed codes, standards, conventions etc. that make modern framing very much a straightforward process. As well as all the fasteners and metal hardware has been exhaustively engineered.<p>&gt; And beyond that, as a structural system, it lacks any sort of aesthetic elegance or simplicity. It’s made up of lots of flimsy-looking members.<p>Yea, thats the point! Structural elements do not <i>need</i> to have any aesthetic appeal as they are hidden by finishes and cladding. Its a feature, not a bug. As long as it is structurally sound, that is all that matters.<p>&gt; It’s undesirable from an architectural perspective as well. Balloon framing has largely been used for simple residential structures (or worse, mobile homes) that have historically had little architectural involvement. The size and strength of dimensional lumber makes it difficult to use it to create large or architecturally impressive spaces... The architecturally influential residential buildings are more often built from more flexible materials such as concrete or steel.<p>I disagree with this as I&#x27;ve seen some incredibly beautiful &quot;architectural&quot; homes that used wood framing but that&#x27;s subjective and not my primary objection. Where i have more of an issue that now the author is comparing wood stud framing to concrete and steel which is an apples to oranges comparison. It&#x27;s an inconsistency it what the main subject is being compared to that makes the overall thesis of this fall very flat for me.<p>The &quot;worse is better&quot; paradigm may make sense for many software applications, but the connection here to residential construction and framing practices is such a strecth.
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insaneirish超过 2 年前
This is a funny article.<p>Others have mentioned that it&#x27;s a little murky if the author is critical specifically of balloon framing or of stick built construction in general.<p>The irony is that balloon framing is more feasible today than ever. Balloon framing downsides:<p>1. Really long dimensional lumber<p>2. Fire risk of continuous cavities<p>3. Ledger&#x2F;joist connection to balloon studs<p>The solutions?:<p>1. Engineered lumber. Dead straight and incredibly strong LSL (laminated strand lumber) and LVL (laminated veneer lumber) come in basically whatever length you reasonably need them.<p>2. Fire blocking is well understood. Insulation materials like mineral wool can further drive fire risk inside a stud cavity to near zero.<p>3. An innumerable number of well engineered and reasonably priced structural fasteners and metal connectors with well understood properties make it straight forward to build a second story floor off of balloon framed studs.<p>2022 is a great time to be balloon framing. In fact, you&#x27;ll see it in large great rooms for floor to vaulted ceiling walls. Some framers who like to preassemble as much as possible on the ground and then lift the wall for efficiency and safety will balloon frame as well.
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Zardoz84超过 2 年前
Interesting... In Europe, we simply build the houses using bricks, cement&#x2F;concrete and beans of steel or concrete. We not waste wood, and the houses are more solid and not have problems with insects or moisture damaging the wood structure. I think that it&#x27;s the usual since the 60&#x27;s .<p>However, I saw older structures using wood beans, mixed with stone, bricks, and&#x2F;or adobe.
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ltbarcly3超过 2 年前
This is a very good article about balloon framing and how houses are built. However, balloon framing is NOT an example of worse-is-better. Post-and-beam, the technique that balloon and platform framing have replaced, is just worse-is-worse. It requires more effort, more expensive materials, more skilled labor, and is less sophisticated in how it uses materials and so for the same amount of materials produces a weaker and less stable, less efficient structure.<p>Worse-is-better is about how a faster to market, good enough solution that people can use is better than the &#x27;better&#x27; solution that comes later. The solution that is simple will be used again and again, the elegant solution that is more efficient or more general but harder to apply will be neglected since users have high skill with the simpler tool and will prefer it as a result. Balloon framing (and then platform framing) is simpler AND more elegant AND far cheaper AND produces a superior result, so it&#x27;s simply not a case of worse-is-better.
adolph超过 2 年前
This video is worth watching on the topic: The Genius of 2x4 Framing by Stewart Hicks<p>It covers similar ground and has a thesis that “what allowed the hamburger to take over as the quintessential American cuisine and get exported everywhere are the same historical, cultural and economic confluences that contribute to the proliferation of the light wood frame for construction. . . . Light wood framing is the hamburger of the building industry”<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=S6mUFrXexAk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=S6mUFrXexAk</a>
baremetal超过 2 年前
It is interesting to note that post and beam construction is still fairly common in the US. Just not for residential buildings. It is used extensively for agricultural barns and commercial and light industrial buildings particularly in rural areas.<p>Often buildings that have sheet metal exteriors are &quot;post framed&quot;. Post framing is quite similar to post and beam. A &quot;mortise and tenon&quot; connection is implemented for securing the roof trusses to the posts. On site laminated 2x material is used or a notch is cut in post.
komali2超过 2 年前
&gt; Something as simple as installing a lightswitch all of a sudden becomes a major piece of coordination if your building is made of concrete.<p>It seems most buildings in Taiwan are simply made of concrete. IDK too much about construction but when I watch them build it&#x27;s like, frames of metal into which they pour wet concrete. It&#x27;s crazy how fast buildings get put up this way, they tore down an entire building down the street from me, started construction about maybe 3 weeks ago tops, and today there is a fully formed building with fixtures, windows, the works, sitting there. Quite pretty, actually.<p>But this quote is for me one of the huge downsides. It&#x27;s a NIGHTMARE to hang anything on my walls, first off. If I try to put a pin in for a poster, it bends. A nail could end up taking out chunks of the wall if I&#x27;m not careful, if I can even penetrate. And, once the fixtures are in, that&#x27;s it. To run more wire, you&#x27;ve got to get out the (I think?) jackhammer. It seems every day all I hear is the sound of concrete being banged away at with some kind of power tool. If it&#x27;s happening in my building, it&#x27;s reverberating through the whole structures. It&#x27;s horrible lol.<p>There&#x27;s upsides though! Normal sounds stop HARD at the boundaries of an apartment. If you&#x27;re outside someone&#x27;s apartment door, maybe you&#x27;ll hear something, but we don&#x27;t hear shit from the neighbors, and I&#x27;ve checked, they can&#x27;t even hear when I&#x27;m producing bass heavy music. I like that. Gotta make sure to get some stuff up on the walls though to prevent echo.
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nine_k超过 2 年前
I don&#x27;t see how is this comparable to &quot;worse is better&quot;.<p>It&#x27;s just &quot;simpler is better for simpler things&quot;, which is hardly controversial. Use two dimensions of wood, simple connectors like nails, simple hand tools, less precision work. Heck, you end up using <i>less wood</i> even if you heavily overprovision and thus tolerate local faults, compared to large-beam construction. It&#x27;s an aerospace-grade win.<p>What &quot;worse is better&quot; means in the software world is that an easy-to-do solution overtakes all, from simplest things where it belongs to the very top. This way PHP, which was a poorly-made thing even according to its creator, not just took over the space of simple dynamic websites, but also ended up powering world&#x27;s largest services, such as Wikipedia and Facebook. (Now PHP looks hip; back when Wikipedia and FB experienced their meteoric growth, it sucked as hard as the legends have it, at everything about programming craft, but was a piece of cake to run and host.) For the author&#x27;s analogy to hold, the Empire State Building would have to be built with balloon frame technology, and somehow stand.
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rr888超过 2 年前
&gt; sprinkler systems have reduced the risk fire poses<p>Not so fast. My 5+1 has loads of sprinklers and its a nightmare. Every few years the sprinklers start leaking, or someone drills a hole or breaks a spinkler pipe. It causes catastrophic damage. Its one of the main reasons my next place will be concrete.
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gregschlom超过 2 年前
The thing about &quot;X is worse-is-better&quot; is that it applies to pretty much anything. Take &quot;X&quot;, observe that it has pros and cons, and you can go on and claim worse (cons) is better (pros).<p>Not a very useful analytical framework.<p>Interesting article otherwise.
swayvil超过 2 年前
I built a shed in my back yard a couple years ago. I got yelled at by the people on a certain carpentry forum for straying from the balloonframe orthodoxy. Nonetheless, my shed is solid as a brick and widely admired for its looks AND engineering.<p>(PIX : <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;4Yr21PR" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;4Yr21PR</a> )<p>Much of what is called proper modern shed engineering (IE the building code) is actually just how to meet the minimum legal requirements for the least amount of cash. So keep that in mind.<p>My next shed is going to be a bag of air sprayed with foam.
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ilyt超过 2 年前
This sounds more like optimizing for different features than &quot;worse&quot;. Being easy to build with easy to access materials is advantage all on its own.
magicbuzz超过 2 年前
In the appendix links at the bottom, there&#x27;s a comment that a large percentage of houses in Japan are still built with post &amp; beam. I&#x27;ve been prompted with a slew of recent &quot;Japanese carpentry videos&quot; that seem to sync with this.<p>I&#x27;m curious why it&#x27;s still prevalent in Japan? Most new Japanese houses are not built in the old machiya style.
notJim超过 2 年前
&gt; Prefabrication of larger components, outside of a few building types optimized for it, remains elusive<p>I thought this was a weird one. Aren&#x27;t roof trusses pretty often made off-site and delivered and craned into place? I also see trucks with framed-out walls driving around that just seem to need to be lifted and nailed into place. Is that not what those are?
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ajuc超过 2 年前
I wonder why people don&#x27;t use this in Europe. It&#x27;s mostly airbrick or brick detached houses and concrete apartment blocks.
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wardedVibe超过 2 年前
A discussion of this and the 2x4 from an architect that I found interesting <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=S6mUFrXexAk&amp;t=657s" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=S6mUFrXexAk&amp;t=657s</a>
blodkorv超过 2 年前
Is this the reason why american houses &quot;feel&quot; cheaper or less sturdy compared to houses in my home country of sweden.<p>It was one of the stranges feelings i had when i visited usa that the houses felt like toy houses or something.
maerF0x0超过 2 年前
And prefab has had it&#x27;s own evolution. For example: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=PNv13fY_3jY" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=PNv13fY_3jY</a>
hoseja超过 2 年前
No, worse is worse but by finding novel ways to defect in the quality&#x2F;quantity prisoner&#x27;s dilemma it dominates while the world becomes more and more terrible.
LarsDu88超过 2 年前
Since this is hacker news, I feel like the direct analogue here is the dominance of Python and Javascript over other (higher activation energy) programming languages.
throwawaaarrgh超过 2 年前
Luckily we are not allowed to build houses like software bros on HN are allowed to build billion dollar companies. A shitty tech stack going down doesn&#x27;t often burn down other companies. But a city full of balloon frames leads to an entire city burning to the ground.<p>If anything, the modern building code is a testament to why the way people on HN build software is at best irresponsible and at worst a threat to society.
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ratstew超过 2 年前
,