Horgan Wants to Allow 12 Story Wood Bldgs?

[hobbyguy]

I am suspicious of the concept of tall wood buildings. Yes, the manufacturer can say "this and that make it safe".

But then they said that about the aluminum cladding panels on high rises... and there is a huge fire safety problem with them.

[Urban Cowboy]

I am suspicious of the concept of tall wood buildings. Yes, the manufacturer can say "this and that make it safe".

But then they said that about the aluminum cladding panels on high rises... and there is a huge fire safety problem with them.

Precisely, and that's but another example of claims made, that later on proved problematic. A few don't get why I mentioned the Titanic in this topic, well it was because that too had engineers, and other purported experts involved in its construction, yet despite all the fanfare, and claims in regards to how great and unsinkable she was, she didn't even finish her maiden voyage.

I've spent a lifetime, hearing all manner of claims from various manufacturers, only to find out later that much of it was BS.

I don't claim to have any expertise, in building the type of wood structures discussed here, but do have plenty of examples, of advancements that were proclaimed to be better than sliced bread, only to find out later it wasn't true. Remember aluminum wiring?

How many of these buildings are out there? How old are they? Have any of them had a major fire event? Have any of them survived an earthquake relatively unscathed? Point being it takes time to prove claims true or false, so if there's a few such structures out there, and they aren't more than say ten years old, then it's still too early to come to conclusions.


ETA: Though it could have been worded much better, the poll asking if people would live in such a building, indicates that almost 80% would not, and if I remember correctly I believe only around 11% said they would.

As far as I'm aware there's only one such structure at UBC 18 stories high, so is one building, that's practically new, really enough data to go changing the whole provinces building code?

[Omnitheo]

I keep seeing this “there is a fire problem with them” statement, but no evidence of such has been provided. In fact repeatedly throughout this thread videos and references have been provided explaining exactly why fire isn’t the problem people assume it to be.

[Omnitheo]

I am suspicious of the concept of tall wood buildings. Yes, the manufacturer can say "this and that make it safe".

But then they said that about the aluminum cladding panels on high rises... and there is a huge fire safety problem with them.

Precisely, and that's but another example of claims made, that later on proved problematic. A few don't get why I mentioned the Titanic in this topic, well it was because that too had engineers, and other purported experts involved in its construction, yet despite all the fanfare, and claims in regards to how great and unsinkable she was, she didn't even finish her maiden voyage.

Did you know the Titanic was one of a trio of ships though? Both did fine until another was sunk during WW1 by a Naval mine. Aside from that, the other ships had actually been involved in multiple other accidents where they did not sink. The engineers had in fact built some impressive ships, however they still weren’t designed around bombs meant to sink warships or scraping at full speed into an iceberg the ships shouldn’t have expected to be near had they stuck to their routes.

And sure enough, while these buildings are made of wood, intentionally designed to withstand fire better than some traditional construction material buildings. They probably won’t do any better against unexpected things like cruise missiles or meteorites.

[hobbyguy]

^^ yup. And if you do a search for cladding problems in Australia, you find that thousands of people are now living in firetraps...and repairs may just get foisted off on condo owners.

That isn't to say that tall wood buildings could not be made safe, as my understanding is that external fire spreading is the biggest problem. However I wonder if flame retardent treatments might be involved and I have some suspicions about those.

The devil is in the details.

A fire a couple of years ago in a 4 story wood condo near us spread pretty quickly, despite "being up to code".

Nothing is ever 100% safe. I remain skeptical of large and tall wood buildings. Yup, my house is made of wood, but I am very careful about fire safety and can escape easily - not so much if 10 stories up.

[seewood]

Sprinkle the building. It works folks.

A number of years ago it was explained to me that if the sprinklers were part of the design and built into the initial construction, costs are reasonable and the insurance rates are reflected positively because of the sprinklers.
Add sprinklers retro actively, costs are expensive.

[twobits]

I read the first two pages of this thread and was stunned by the presumption of flawed product and ignorance displayed about mass timber construction. Much of it unfortunately seemed to be a partisan bias because Mr Potato Head Horgan announced it.
So I skip to the last page hoping that some actual credible facts have tamped down the fear mongering, and as Trump would put it...."fake news".

Truth is all of you that have a concern over tall mass timber structures need to take a few minutes and actually get informed. I have read some stuff here from people whom I always read because they are reliable as being honest and give fact based opinions. Even they have failed here.

Mass timber is what it says it is. Big mass. Cross laminated SPF lumber in panels up to 10ft by 40ft long and up to 10 inches thick. Glued together in multi million dollar presses with millimeter tolerances and glue that will not melt and fail in fire. This is not MDF furniture being built. Fire is sighted as a concern. The best simplton analygy I can give to the structural safety of mass timber construction is when you have a campfire and throw a 1/4 split piece of a 12 in. round on the fire as well as a full 12 in round on the same fire.......which one will burn to the core first?

I have some experience with this building technology and personally, I would rather live on the 12th floor of a mass timber building with double drywall coated interior walls (and how they are built.....triple coated in stairwells) than in a steel stud and concrete pancake floor structure. Why? Because when a lower floor catches fire, and all of the combustibles in the living space that are very incendiary, the temperature rises very quickly. Steel studs heat up and lose their structural integrity on a logarithmic scale and by 800 deg F, they will bend like spagetti instead of holding up all of the building above them.
Mass timber on the other hand, is unaffected structurally by heat for a very long time. And if it does catch fire under two or three layers of gypsum, it will char on the outside and self insulate itself to last hours before it will actually fail. Hours after everyone could safely evacuate.

I could go on here but ya'll need to educate yourselves here and applaud this wood technology. Horgan didn't create it. He is just doing a sad photo op and trying to claim credit. It started about 7 years ago with grants from the Provincial Liberals and the Federal Conservatives to Structurlam here in the Okanagan to do the R and D on and prove a technology not just to the gov't for code, but also to get on board the structural engineers, General Contractors, Architects, ect. And they did. Fun fact, Europe had already embraced this wood technology a decide prior. Concrete and steel manufacturers are very powerful lobbyists in North America.

[WalterWhite]

As they say - a picture's worth a thousand words: