you know what else is pretty amazing about those older houses from “before the 1970s?” No. Engineered. Lumber.
Gonna put my firefighting hat on and lecture for a minute here. Engineered Lumber is that shit made of wood chips that have been laminated together with glues and epoxies to make new boards out of waste material. That’s a good thing, right?
See, there’s other things that “waste material” could go to make or be used as, that do NOT include filling them with toxic chemicals that reduce the burn time of a piece of wood. Also, those pre 70’s boards were real, full, complete boards. So not only do they not off-gas massive quantities of toxic fumes when burning, it takes a lot longer than 2-4 minutes to burn through one. More like 15-20 minutes to burn through one. Also, yeah, there was waste in the way they built those old houses. It was called OVER-ENGINEERING. So when ONE of those boards burned through, you weren’t at risk of losing the entire roofing or flooring or ceiling SYSTEM because the materials to construct a structure have been pared down to the absolute minimum and even less in places.
Roof trusses were nailed together with NAILS, not “gusset plates”. Nails penetrate INCHES into the wood. Gusset plates? ¼ of an inch usually. Know how quick ¼ of an inch can char and cease holding onto the teeth of those gusset plates? I’ll give you a hint: it’s measured in a couple hundred seconds, rather than the tens of minutes a nailed truss gets.
TL;DR? Yeah, there was waste. They used thicker wood and a lot more of it, not even taking into account all the beautiful little embellishments like molded plaster reliefs and tin ceiling panels… But that thicker wood saved lives. It didn’t burn toxic, and it burned for a LOT LONGER before it became unsafe to be in.
Modern house like your typical McMansion? By the time we arrive on a typical structure fire, it’s already too dangerous to enter, because too many of the engineered lumber pieces will have been compromised, thus endangering entire building systems. We’re talking if it’s been burning for 5 minutes or so, 10 at the outside, we KNOW it’s not safe to enter. (If there’s someone in there, we will anyway - risk a lot to save a lot - but we also know to be a thousand times more careful about putting weight anywhere). That 1900 farmhouse that’s been burning for 30 minutes? It’s still plenty strong enough to go in and do what we gotta do. And we don’t have to be paranoid about breathing the smoke in outside, either.
Long story short, not only does minimalism kill the soul, it KILLS REAL PEOPLE’S LIVES.
titsay
ellievsbear
vaporwave
gummygunk
turnnoffyourmind
andulkaphoto
