←back to thread

Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
478 points spking | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
tobyhinloopen ◴[] No.42734903[source]
American, living in area prone to natural disasters: "Is the WHOLE WORLD becoming uninsurable?"

The answer is obviously "no" since there are other parts of the world that don't live on a hurricane highway nor build houses made from firewood in an area prone to wildfires.

replies(22): >>42735049 #>>42735252 #>>42735436 #>>42736011 #>>42736604 #>>42736730 #>>42737082 #>>42737199 #>>42737348 #>>42737687 #>>42738099 #>>42738455 #>>42738961 #>>42740444 #>>42740756 #>>42741668 #>>42741813 #>>42742051 #>>42742463 #>>42743561 #>>42744077 #>>42744352 #
infecto ◴[] No.42737082[source]
Honest question. Why when people describe wood framed homes do they always phrase it like houses made from "firewood", "sticks", "twigs" etc? It at least for me always detracts from the argument at hand. You could just as easily build a wood framed home with an exterior shell that is fire resistant using modern materials or brick.
replies(14): >>42737226 #>>42737735 #>>42737914 #>>42737966 #>>42737981 #>>42738100 #>>42738297 #>>42738497 #>>42739478 #>>42739857 #>>42740828 #>>42741037 #>>42741241 #>>42743464 #
michaelt ◴[] No.42737914[source]
Well, we are commenting on an article specifically about the spread of fire in urban areas, as we've seen in LA this week.

Here in the seismically stable UK, we had problems with fire spreading in urban areas [1] in 1666. So we banned wood exteriors on buildings. It works pretty well if you don't need to worry about earthquakes or hurricanes; brick doesn't burn.

This lesson is taught in history classes to 10 year olds, and they don't tend to go into other countries' construction traditions, or reasons not to use bricks.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_London

replies(2): >>42740038 #>>42744869 #
infecto ◴[] No.42740038[source]
Less about the question (that has been asked so much now its tiring) but more on how when people do ask it, they always ask in such a negative way. Its not why are so many homes built out of timber/wood but rather why are they built out of sticks?
replies(2): >>42740267 #>>42742466 #
1. klodolph ◴[] No.42742466[source]
“Stick-built” is the name for it.

There are two main ways to build a house out of wood. You can go for stick-built construction or timber framing. Homes in the US were mostly timber framed until the early 1900s. Advancements in tools and manufacturing techniques has resulted in stick-built homes becoming dominant in the US since then.

If you search for “stick-built” you’ll see pictures and encyclopedia articles describing it. The basic idea is that you take standard dimensional lumber (like 2x4s), bring it onto the site, and assemble it into the frame for the house. Timber construction uses larger pieces of timber to make the house.

I’m not an expert but it seems to me that stick-built construction took over the country because of advancements in fasteners. If you tried to make a stick-built house in the 1800s it would fall apart, but this is the 2000s, and they make a million of them every year.

replies(1): >>42742732 #
2. duskwuff ◴[] No.42742732[source]
> I’m not an expert but it seems to me that stick-built construction took over the country because of advancements in fasteners.

The availability of engineered wood products like plywood is a big part of it too. Being able to attach what's effectively a solid sheet of wood to a wall adds a ton of shearing strength, for example. (And that's without getting into fancy modern engineered wood products like parallel-strand lumber or glulam, which give you something even better than raw wood.)