[crazygringo]

Huh?

There are on entire sections on each of these -- 1) how nails fell in price due to steam power manufacturing, and 2-4) how standardized lumber from across the country was available cheaply when local wood was scarce, due to steam power sawmills and railroads.

The whole point is that you don't need local wood, or high-skill anybody at all.

I have no idea how you think the author doesn't "connect the dots".

[aeturnum]

> I have no idea how you think the author doesn't "connect the dots".

You are pointing to a different set of dots than gbronner.

They are talking about the advantages of post-and-beam construction - extremely tolerant of heterogeneous and uneven lumber, can avoid using nails, etc. This article gives the impression that post-and-beam construction needed tons of expensive materials and skilled laborers - but they are saying it's not the case, it just was less amenable to economies of scale. You can't ship in hearty lads to hew logs the way you can ship in boards and nails.

[PaulHoule]

You can contract with "the little guys" to supply artisanal lumber, it can be cost effective. We ordered wood for a deck and it is hung up at the local sawmill. We see the winter coming in and think "should we just go to Home Depot and finished the job?"

Of course, in the past two years the Home Depot has been out of stock sometimes as well.

[brudgers]

One night, I fell into a YouTube rabbit hole of saw mill videos…which is to say making one’s own lumber is just another DIY woodworking project, because Harbor Freight sells sawmills.

https://www.harborfreight.com/saw-mill-with-301cc-gas-engine...

[hbarka]

Once more down the rabbit hole: Chainsaw mill https://youtu.be/cfBKPz9nrvE

[CydeWeys]

I love how it's just a horizontal bandsaw that runs on tracks. What more do you really need?

[gbronner]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hagvGTyEMUA

An axe and a broadaxe and a chalk line (though people originally just used charcoal).

Making beams is not that hard, especially if you have lots of wood and not a lot to do in the winter.

[theGnuMe]

That’s amazing.

Whenever someone says, I want to write X program from scratch. I’m going to send them this link.

[gbronner]

If you happen to have a bunch of high-quality logs on-site, you can get a portable sawmill to come to you. My estimate was that about $1500 worth of rental and labor yielded $5000 worth of rough-sawn custom timber, and the economics got slightly better if you had the mill there for multiple days.

This allows you to produce post and beam beams for personal use quite cost effectively -- they don't take that much time to saw, and the transportation cost is basically nil because you are going to use them on-site, and you don't pay the monster weight penalty to put them on a truck. You can't kiln dry everything, but you can air dry it, and it tends to be extremely good for construction. The waste can be burned in a wood boiler.

[ohthatsnotright]

Most code will require it to be graded, however, to use in a building which incurs additional costs and time since proper grading has to be done at a specified or lower percent moisture content. There are ways to get certified as a grader but it's not super easy so most people either associate with a mill who has a grader or hire one of the traveling graders to go on site.

[SkipperCat]

Agreed. I worked as a framer between semesters in college and some of the lumber was incredibly heavy, especially when wet (and the sites were commonly soggy). Trying to heave up a 10' 6x6 hurts my back just thinking about it.

[gbronner]

Balloon framing requires: chop tree -> haul log to sawmill -> cut logs extensively -> haul dimensional timber to warehouse -> haul to customer. That's great if you have a train and good roads, but if you are in the middle of the forest,

chop tree -> hew it on-site -> haul to building area is very cost effective.

If you have infinite wood (remember, clearing land requires removing the trees anyway, and people would often burn them just for the potash), it is both cheaper and better to use post and beam.

[kelnos]

Right, but the entire point of the article is to talk about how construction evolved, in part as a response to the need to build many houses, quickly, and not require highly-skilled and specialized labor to do it.

What you are saying is also true, but is not pertinent to the article.

[jeffrallen]

Balloon framing also either generates a waste stream of sawdust and offcuts, or requires a complementary industry to use that material profitably. Which today is engineered wood products and wood pellets for heating.