[NGTM-1R]

I wonder if it's more about demolishing and less harmful debris from severe storms like a hurricane? Not that a 6' x 6' x 8' beam of wood traveling at 120mph isn't dangerous...

It's actually less safe against earthquakes. Brick or masonry will essentially explode at the first story.

[MP-Ryan]

I wonder how much of the "wood is plentiful and inexpensive" reason is due to it being the primary building material. Of course it's cheap - there's a tremendous amount of infrastructure dedicated towards making sure that it is cheap to harvest, process, and transport.

While it's true there's a large lumber industry in North America for processing, part of what I suspect you and the Europeans are missing is the sheer size of the landmass and forest here.  Canada and the US are the second and third, respectively, largest countries in terms of landmass.  The boreal forest in northern Alberta alone (i.e. 1/3 to 1/2 of one province) is roughly twice the size of the UK, and somewhere between 50 and 100 times the size of the country of Israel. And we harvest but a tiny fraction of it in the lumber industry.  Neighboring British Columbia has an even larger industry, and the states to the south (Washington, Idaho, Montana) all have sizeable lumber industries as well.  This is but a small corner of the continent, ignoring the huge lumber industries on the eastern side.

While there is a lot of rock here too, there's no question that the massive forests - and rivers on which to transport the lumber - made far more sense than other building materials, and the timber industry has been a key resource since the continent was settled by Europeans.

On the issue of building codes and durability, there's also the matter of location.  Homes built in the southern US are much less sturdy in build quality than their comparators as you move north.  Part of the reason why many of those areas are devastated by natural disasters is that the structures themselves are less solidly built because they rarely need to withstand serious elements.  That said, central America uses a lot of masonry/block construction, and storms hit them way harder than the southern US; the structures are built of solid materials, but they're flimsily constructed.

[swashmebuckle]

Next time God or climate change floods the planet everyone in a wooden house will have a nice boat while everyone in a brick house will have a nice reef. Brick houses do have a cool theme song though.

[karajorma]

I'm more worried about the big bad wolf than the possibility of my house not turning into a boat.

[Sandwich]

Ok, so I can get the whole "wood is plentiful" argument, but seriously? Stone is just as plentiful, somewhat less useful than wood is in its pre-harvested state (bedrock vs trees), and vastly more fire-resistant. That's what this thread is about, remember - the fire susceptibility of wooden houses and the hundreds of thousands of deaths they have caused.

[WeatherOp]

On the issue of building codes and durability, there's also the matter of location.  Homes built in the southern US are much less sturdy in build quality than their comparators as you move north.  Part of the reason why many of those areas are devastated by natural disasters is that the structures themselves are less solidly built because they rarely need to withstand serious elements.  That said, central America uses a lot of masonry/block construction, and storms hit them way harder than the southern US; the structures are built of solid materials, but they're flimsily constructed.

I don't know if that is completely true. Not that I believe that southern buildings codes are good, but more or US codes in general are lacking. For instance in Joplin, MO after the tornado they found that something like 80% of the houses would have been destroyed by 100mph winds. Then in Moore, OK '13, only a couple of houses were strong enough to receive the EF5 rating and I think the elementary school collapse was only awarded EF2 damage from bad construction.

Houses in the US in general are poor. I watched them build a big house last year and while it had anchor bolting, it still looked cheaply built.  The reason why the southern states have more issues is they just generally have more natural disasters.

[Mongoose]

Ok, so I can get the whole "wood is plentiful" argument, but seriously? Stone is just as plentiful, somewhat less useful than wood is in its pre-harvested state (bedrock vs trees), and vastly more fire-resistant. That's what this thread is about, remember - the fire susceptibility of wooden houses and the hundreds of thousands of deaths they have caused.

Just as plentiful (in a sense: again, huge forests are all over the damn place in North America), but far more labor-intensive to actually obtain, substantially heavier and thus more costly to transport, and requiring of much more construction skill to properly build with.  And while fire resistance is a concern, unless you're living in a literal castle or a concrete slab, the interior of your stone house is still going to contain a good deal of wood and drywall and what have you.  Every night on the local news I see video of row home fires in Philadelphia, and those are all primarily brick construction.  Plus, given very basic safety precautions, house fires should not be fatal events I haven't looked up any data on it, but just based on news reports, the vast majority of house fire fatalities seem to occur when there aren't functioning smoke detectors in the residence.

[Polpolion]

I just watched the MythBusters episode where they test if the doorframe is the safest place to be during an earthquake. They concluded that while that was true for old-style masonry buildings which don't adhere to current US Building Code (since the doorframe was usually reinforced with rebar), it actually wasn't the safest place to be in an all-wood house built to code*; instead, the "drop, cover, and hold on" tactic of getting beneath a sturdy desk or table is preferable.

* Their "excuse" about it not being safe was that the mannekin mounted in the doorframe kept on getting "spanked" by the door swinging back and forth, and eventually fell over. Please.

But fine, whatever - the issue I want to bring up is entirely different. I understood from that episode that US Building Code mandates homes be constructed out of wood, not masonry, to... better withstand earthquakes (? Perhaps other reasons as well?), right? Ok, so let's see how many people have died in US earthquakes over the years. Going back to 1812, we have a grand total of 4,032 deaths in 46 quakes over 202 years (mostly in California, too - yikes!).

So wooden homes withstand earthquakes far better than masonry, as MythBusters confirmed beyond any doubt. However, do you see the glaring problem with this concept yet?

Wood catches fire. Masonry doesn't catch fire. Hmm.... how many deaths in the US are due to house fires over the years? Well, the data I found only goes back to 1977, not 1812, so take that into consideration when I reveal that in the mere 36 years the table covers, there have been over 140 THOUSAND deaths from house fires.

Ok, so your turn: please explain to me the logic in mandating that homes be built from flammable wood instead of fire-proof masonry.

Can you post a link to the "US Building Code" you're referring to? I can't find it and I have a hunch that it doesn't exist.

[Scourge of Ages]

Can you post a link to the "US Building Code" you're referring to? I can't find it and I have a hunch that it doesn't exist.

I believe this should do it: https://law.resource.org/pub/us/code/bsc.ca.gov/gov.ca.bsc.2010.02.1.html#p398
2010 California Building Code, section 1126A

I don't think any US building codes require the use of any particular material, just require that whichever material used is used in such a way that the Code is satisfied, ie. that your structure is "safe". That California code does not require that a standard door frame be reinforced to withstand an earthquake (more than the rest of the structure), so most door frames are build to hold doors, and nothing else.

The old-style adobe houses where the door frames are the only things still standing after an earthquake, are probably not up to code, at least the modern building codes (I assume). This article from earthquakecountry.info speaks about that: http://earthquakecountry.info/dropcoverholdon/

RE: fires and building with wood: Modern American buildings are not generally built to last a very long time. Cost is a much larger factor in buying a home than is durability. So as long as a house is up to code, most people are satisfied with their dwellings.

The building codes are designed to ensure a minimum quality of safety. "Safety", in this case means just that you'll probably escape the structure alive. Houses are built like cars here: They do their job, and if there's an accident, the priority is on protecting the occupant at the cost of the thing.

[Polpolion]

And the other 49 states? Obviously building codes exist in the US but there's no reason for the federal government to need to regulate construction like this, and "US Building Code" sounds like some ludicrous straw man made up because you're too lazy to do any real research before you start criticizing.

[Sandwich]

And the other 49 states? Obviously building codes exist in the US but there's no reason for the federal government to need to regulate construction like this, and "US Building Code" sounds like some ludicrous straw man made up because you're too lazy to do any real research before you start criticizing.

I'm sorry, did I (or anyone else, for that matter) attack you personally or something? Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed? What's with the vitriol? Reel it in. I saw an episode of what I gather most people consider to be a fairly reliable, factual source of information, and came to ask my friends here in the community if there was an explanation for the potential flaw I noticed. I didn't start calling people names, nor did I claim that I had done extensive research.

If you have an issue with simple questions such as these, I suggest you take your issues elsewhere.

[Polpolion]

I'm sorry, did I (or anyone else, for that matter) attack you personally or something? Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed? What's with the vitriol? Reel it in. I saw an episode of what I gather most people consider to be a fairly reliable, factual source of information, and came to ask my friends here in the community if there was an explanation for the potential flaw I noticed. I didn't start calling people names, nor did I claim that I had done extensive research.

If you have an issue with simple questions such as these, I suggest you take your issues elsewhere.

If we want an accurate, illuminating answer the question isn't as simple as it seems. Building codes written by regional agencies can't be prohibitively burdensome because geographically and economically you can't build the same way everywhere. Think about Rexton MI, San Jose CA, Chicago IL, and Washington DC. Each have their own quirks that make civil engineering quite a different beast. Heck, Paris is an even better example. In the first post the analysis of deaths is kind of glib, honestly. We don't know how Earth quake or fire deaths in the US relate to anything except each other. What would we expect the number of deaths to be if wood weren't the mandated building material? There is no doubt stone doesn't burn as well as wood, but the fact that wood isn't the mandated building material and that there are no US building codes makes explaining the logic somewhat futile.

On a personal note, for some reason this gnawed at me the same way Steam threads do.

[Scourge of Ages]

It's true that building codes vary from place to place. But the fact remains that the codes are there to specify a minimum degree of safety (and other things) to all structures. They don't generally specify that a building must be constructed of this or that, just that they be built in a way that is safe for that area.

The majority of earthquake deaths (in the US and places where building codes exist and are enforced) are actually due to falling objects or people falling and hitting objects, not so much buildings falling on them, except in very extreme quakes.

[Sandwich]

Ok, so basically the reason a flammable material is used (building code or not) more frequently than a non-flammable one is purely economical? Ok, I get that. It sounds utterly idiotic when accompanied by the death tolls due to house fires, but hey, less expensive!

[Phantom Hoover]

Are you sure stone houses are that much less vulnerable to fire? There are enough flammable fittings and furniture that a fire can still completely gut them, even if the structure remains standing.

[Scotty]

Of course he's sure.  He started with an obviously biased viewpoint, stumbled across something that confirmed it while making a little bit of real sense, and taken it to heart as meaning his original impression was correct all along.

[Sandwich]

No, I'm not sure... but I suspect a fire in one room of a stone/concrete house would be unlikely to spread to other rooms... or at the very least, be less likely to than it would in a wooden house.

EDIT: I composed the above before I saw Scotty's post. I composed the below after I saw it:

Dafuq's your problem? How is this even remotely an issue to get worked up about (unless you had a friend or relative die in a house fire or earthquake, I guess)??

[Phantom Hoover]

IDK, maybe because you keep going on about what massive idiots the Americans are for building their houses out of wood and burning to death? It's annoying me, and I love a good American-bashing.

[Sandwich]

I'm American myself, I can bash us anytime I want!

More seriously though, I'm really just trying to find out why the decision was made to make most homes in the US out of flammable wood vs something else, and if anyone had ever officially taken a look at the death tolls from home fires and given serious thought to tossing out wood. Just amazement-fueled curiosity, really.

[NGTM-1R]

I'm American myself, I can bash us anytime I want!

More seriously though, I'm really just trying to find out why the decision was made to make most homes in the US out of flammable wood vs something else, and if anyone had ever officially taken a look at the death tolls from home fires and given serious thought to tossing out wood. Just amazement-fueled curiosity, really.

They have. It doesn't matter in most cases. You're having bizarre visions of the whole house going up in the flames but any fireman from North America can tell you that's not what happens in most house fires. The damage to the building is often extensive if the fire is left unchecked, but it's irrelevant to the death toll; people live or die based on the first two or four minutes of the fire, before the structural materials are involved in any major way.

Flammable carpet glue is more relevant to your survival than whether the house is wood-framed or masonry.