3M products are great because they always do what they say they're going to do. They usually even overperform by a large margin. They're one of my suppliers of choice for industrial applications or anything R&D where we don't quite know how good it has to be yet.
3M toxic chemical waste is also a core 3M product, and overperforms too. Some of their Superfund sites, particularly the C8/PFOA/fluorinated crud ones, are among the worst around. (I grew up on the other side of the city from their worst one! Yay!)
And, like any company in the fluorinated chemicals business, 3M has overperformed at ozone depletion and greenhouse forcing. I can give them a pass on that particular one, since society as a whole didn't care much about that stuff until recently. I can't, however, give them a pass for how nasty Scotchgard was/is and how much of it was sprayed on/near me as a child. If you remember Scotchgard, don't look up what it really was or you might regret your parents' life choices.
I recall once researching superfund distribution on some sort of thesis that the West Coast is Better, only to discover that Washington State is top ten for a superfund sites, and in large part because of all of the nasty ways we’ve come up with to preserve lumber over the years. Well, shit.
It’s no PFOAs but it’s a class of chemicals specifically selected for preventing decay so it’s up there. We really should know better by now.
One can go down a pretty nasty toxic waste rabbit hole if you research all the attempts at chemical treatment for wood utility poles (for electrical grid and telecom, historically). Particularly a place like WA, OR, ID, BC having plenty of trees also has a mostly aerial electrical and telecom distribution last mile. And of course the companies that own and must maintain these poles have an interest in them lasting as long as possible...
My understanding right now is they've gone back to more traditional tar/creosote impregnated and coatings.
I met someone whose ancestors lived in Missouri clearing the swamps. Those swamp trees made good railroad ties. And then creosote was introduced and the ties lasted ten times as long, so demand crashed over the next few years as the old ties were swapped out one last time.
As near as I can tell the economy never recovered. They grew cotton but that’s mostly overseas now too, and at any rate means arsenic accumulation.
Some people were trying to engineer a strain of rice that absorbs less arsenic. Apparently cotton and rice growing conditions overlap enough that this is a potential option.
> How many houses, without preservatives in the wood, would rot and be rebuilt, compared to 100% concrete/rock housing?
This isn't a great comparison, as unreinforced concrete is not used for structures. If you're speaking about steel reinforced concrete, they usually have a lifespan in the 100 year range for something protected from the elements like structural walls (assuming the aggregate is well chosen to avoid sulphate attack). For comparison, much of the housing stock in my area is stick framed and is of a similar age - ~70 years.
You’re not wrong, but there are also any number of rules about building code that try to prevent water infiltration, which makes the wood last many times longer.
For instance, wood laid horizontally in water doesn’t wick water as far as wood standing vertically in water. If you look at deck and house designs you see a lot of horizontal pieces. Especially in new construction.
That said, letting water pool at the corner of your house can eat your foundation too. Water is bad. Get rid of it.
German maker Laura Kampf is doing a video series on restoring a a 140 year old house. It turned into a much bigger project due to water damage that destroyed large parts of the wood frame and stone work. It’s interesting to watch if you’re into that sort of thing. She’s more of a maker type than a home renovation type so she comes at it from a different perspective.
When I was a kid, finding water damage on This Old House projects would increase the budget by 50%. The owners always looked like they wanted to puke during the wrap up episode.
Preservatives aren't to prevent rot, but instead, to prevent insect, mould, fungus, etc from eating/rotting the wood.
Moisture can come from the air, and damaged/poor air separation. Insects are, well, they're insects.
And of course, there are mice, ground squirrels, and other critters which chew on wood relentlessly. If I didn't kill 100+ mice a year, and a few ground squirrels, I'd be up to my elbows in critters, not to mention, dead from the hantavirus, and my house burned down from wire damage.
This reminds me of the "designing a house to last 1000 years" article discussed on here earlier in the year, and the many factors that the author considered there.
Old formula Scotchguard had PFOS in it from the 1950’s until sometime in the last decades. People sprayed it on their furniture, indoors. We’re worried about off gassing from pans, and here was a can of the stuff in aerosol form.
3M toxic chemical waste is also a core 3M product, and overperforms too. Some of their Superfund sites, particularly the C8/PFOA/fluorinated crud ones, are among the worst around. (I grew up on the other side of the city from their worst one! Yay!)
And, like any company in the fluorinated chemicals business, 3M has overperformed at ozone depletion and greenhouse forcing. I can give them a pass on that particular one, since society as a whole didn't care much about that stuff until recently. I can't, however, give them a pass for how nasty Scotchgard was/is and how much of it was sprayed on/near me as a child. If you remember Scotchgard, don't look up what it really was or you might regret your parents' life choices.