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Fascinating! Thanks so much for the education.
I’ve wondered about this, and also whether environmental changes have impacted the strength of wood over the centuries. Seems I’ve seen somewhere, old wood compared with new wood, and the old trees tended to have tighter rings, indicating less thickness (and thus growth) per growing season. Presumably this would result in denser, stronger wood?
Also I can imagine all of the know-how that’s been lost in terms of building with wood since your house was built. Some of the knowledge that was built up over the generations would have been lost as technology changed how we build. Other factors have changed how we harvest and what wood is used and we are now depending upon technology to make up the gap. I guess in 100 years we’ll know whether it was sufficient or not?
In my area, there are some 40ish-ft pines that literally snapped in half, like 10-20 ft from the ground during some of the hurricanes and more severe wind storms that we’ve had over the last 20+ years. While I am sure that the type of wind activity is a factor (speed, direction, cadence, tree grouping, etc.), I was surprised that they didn’t simply uproot, since most are growing in relatively shallow topsoil over bedrock. These pines were a good foot and a half thick, yet they snapped off like twigs. Makes me wonder what is going on there, like whether newer softwood is less resilient to bending stresses than the old (100-150 years ago), for whatever reasons.
Typically haven’t seen maples fall in this manner, even though they are in full leaf during hurricane season, but to be fair they are not as tall and thus would be exposed to less severe winds. I have seen some smaller spruce break off as well. Anyhow, a bit of a tangent, but interesting (to me).
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Interesting to me as well!
Yes, I've heard that newer trees grow faster since they are farmed for the purpose of making lumber and are therefore adequately spaced to ensure fast growth. Old lumber comes from real forests with more competition for sunlight, therefore leading to slower growth and tighter rings.
One cool thing about these old houses is that my framing doesn't have a single nail in it anywhere. Back then they would join the framing members with mortise and tenon joinery and wood pegs, like how high-end furniture these days would be made. No nails or spikes, just a big 3D handcrafted puzzle.
Trees can grow quite large before developing the heartwood, probably what happened to those pines. If they were fairly isolated and got full sun all the time they can get really big without getting very dense. Even a 50 year old tree is not that old for a tree, yet it can be larger than a 200 year old tree of the same species depending on its surroundings.
The maple would be stronger than the pine and spruce likely just by virtue of it being a hardwood would be my guess. Not that I'm a tree expert but I certainly find them quite interesting! It's amazing to look around and think of all the things we rely on wood for.
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