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Comment by conchy | Hacker News Reader

Seems like this analysis has vastly under-appreciated wood's tendency to burn. Yes, I see they've mentioned how in one specific type of burn test "modern cross-laminated timber panels perform better in fire tests than steel ones" ... but come on, are they suggesting that any kind of wooden house is safer than a cinderblock house? Storm risk?

It's great that wood is environmentally friendly and all, but does this opinion really consider how many more humans would likely die in house fires or tornados if we all moved into wooden homes?

Vast swaths of this planets are covered in nothing but cinderblock structures, and you know another thing they don't really need to worry about? Fire departments.

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Like all things, it depends. In North America, the vast majority of houses are wood frame. The incidence of deadly house fire remains rare. If you build to code, wood frame houses can be quite safe. As for storm risk, there is a lot you can do to strengthen a wooden house against hurricanes. Cinder block houses lose their roofs just as easily as a wooden house if it is not properly anchored. There are also a lot of places where hurricanes just aren't an issue. Finally, wood generally fares better in an earthquake as it is naturally flexible whereas cinder block houses most assuredly are not.

Over hundreds of years of proximity to nearly limitless natural lumber, North Americans have evolved a highly complex network of water mains, smoke detectors, fire hydrants, and fire fighters to quickly come and put out the fires that inevitably happen before everyone burns because we build nearly everything out of flammable, cheap wood!

Imagine how much money and effort we could save if we build shit of of something that doesn't burn!

What usually burns is inside the house, not house itself. And once a house burns, it must be usually demolished as a whole, because its not stable anymore (concrete doesn't likes fire). In wood house you can teoretically 'cut away' the burned part and build it new ;)

>>concrete doesn't likes fire

I guess depends on the intensity and how long it lasts. Pretty sure a concrete home can survive your sofa burning. A wooden house, it's toast.

I've found small fire test, its not very scientific, but shows what I was talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-J86Ka9MkQ

To correct myself, its the mortar that doesn't likes the fire much more than pure concrete, therefore brick wall has to be usually demolished after fire. But yes, everything depends on intensity of the fire, but I would never say that (properly built) wood house burns easier or faster than brick house, its kind of a myth. It burns differently with different result, and different kind of damages. Where, in the wood house the damages can be _usually_ fixed easier as in brick house.

Cross Laminated Timber is pretty fire resistant - chars on the outside protecting the inner wood

http://www.greenspec.co.uk/building-design/crosslam-timber-f...

They performed tests. What do you offer in your comment outside of "common knowledge". I'm not necessarily saying that you are wrong, but other than hearsay you didn't offer anything.

What kind of test is going to burn a cinderblock?

A test on the capabilities of chlorine truflourude?

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/sa...

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