Out of pure curiosity does anyone know where “new growth fir” lumber is the typical building material? In the US most homes are built using Pine but that can’t be true everywhere.
Framing material in the US is called SPF, which means spruce pine fir. Any of those species may be used and they have similar enough engineering characteristics that they are interchangeable. Occasionally a building will be designed to use a specific species (southern yellow pine etc). But mostly we engineer stick built structures for SPF framing.
I’ve been out of homebuilding for a while but we’re I was we largely used SYP and our SPF was all pine. Perhaps that was just the region I was in though.
I was in the rough carpentry game 20+ yrs ago so it’s been a while for me also. For the most part I think if you buy SPF you’re getting some sort of pine species. But it wasn’t super uncommon for us to find a couple dozen fir studs in a bundle.
Fir is used in the US (most commonly in the pacific northwest), it’s just typically used for outdoor construction because it doesn’t warp as easily and holds up far better outdoors than pine. So you will frequently see it used as decking, fences, or siding (although wood siding is getting pretty uncommon).
Fir is also sometimes used for framing like pine is but pine is usually cheaper. The only advantage fir has over pine for framing is that it tends to be a bit stronger. But there are very few places where you need that extra material strength and can’t just use slightly more reinforced pine construction to acheive the same result.
The “new growth” part is because the trees are harvested from farms as soon as they’re big enough. This is as opposed to “old growth” where the trees are more mature and stronger.
The maturity of a tree does not affect wood density. Density is determined by the stand density the year the ring is added along with factors such as soil moisture, temp etc. the inner rings will have the same density, whether the tree is harvested after a few years or after 200 years provided the tree stayed healthy.
Out of pure curiosity does anyone know where “new growth fir” lumber is the typical building material? In the US most homes are built using Pine but that can’t be true everywhere.
Framing material in the US is called SPF, which means spruce pine fir. Any of those species may be used and they have similar enough engineering characteristics that they are interchangeable. Occasionally a building will be designed to use a specific species (southern yellow pine etc). But mostly we engineer stick built structures for SPF framing.
I’ve been out of homebuilding for a while but we’re I was we largely used SYP and our SPF was all pine. Perhaps that was just the region I was in though.
I was in the rough carpentry game 20+ yrs ago so it’s been a while for me also. For the most part I think if you buy SPF you’re getting some sort of pine species. But it wasn’t super uncommon for us to find a couple dozen fir studs in a bundle.
Fir is used in the US (most commonly in the pacific northwest), it’s just typically used for outdoor construction because it doesn’t warp as easily and holds up far better outdoors than pine. So you will frequently see it used as decking, fences, or siding (although wood siding is getting pretty uncommon).
Fir is also sometimes used for framing like pine is but pine is usually cheaper. The only advantage fir has over pine for framing is that it tends to be a bit stronger. But there are very few places where you need that extra material strength and can’t just use slightly more reinforced pine construction to acheive the same result.
That makes sense, we used pine where I was on the east coast but the company I wad working for would definitely have gone for thebcheaper option.
The “new growth” part is because the trees are harvested from farms as soon as they’re big enough. This is as opposed to “old growth” where the trees are more mature and stronger.
Think veal versus beef in terms of texture
The maturity of a tree does not affect wood density. Density is determined by the stand density the year the ring is added along with factors such as soil moisture, temp etc. the inner rings will have the same density, whether the tree is harvested after a few years or after 200 years provided the tree stayed healthy.
Also the density they’re planted at. Tree farms have the spacing down to a science for maximum growth per year per acre.