[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's around the house, you know, there's engineering tables where they say, okay, I'm gonna calculate the strength of a being for instance, right. Or a floor joist. They'll give you that wood species. They don't give you whether it's old growth or new growth. They just say, what's the size. What's the species.

[00:00:27] Eric Goranson: Here's the length you can work with. So I think it's, it's a waste of energy. To get hung up on the old growth, new growth, because really you're not seeing in lumber out there, old growth forest stuff showing up in the lumber yard. It's just nonexistent. So really what you wanna be looking at. If you want that tighter grained wood, you want to be getting, you know, the fur hardwood versus the hemlock, which is a little softer.

[00:00:55] Eric Goranson: When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to [00:01:00] know, believe that you could, this is around the house. Welcome to around the house with Eric G and Caroline B, where we help you become that great caretaker or that house that you're living in, or that one that you wanna be living in.

[00:01:15] Eric Goranson: Hey, Caroline, how are you today?

[00:01:17] Caroline Blazovsky: Hi. Hello everyone. Welcome.

[00:01:21] Eric Goranson: We're gonna talk about a hotly debated subject this hour lumber. Let's talk about what issues have you had, cuz you're in the middle of some, uh, remodeling projects around your place. What issues have you had with lumber?

[00:01:36] Caroline Blazovsky: Well, let's start off like carpenters and every time I hire a carpenter and I have a couple of 'em that I really like, they complain that the lumber is different from today versus let's say 30 years ago, houses are built.

[00:01:49] Caroline Blazovsky: Let they use the word less quality lumber.

[00:01:52] Eric Goranson: Is it true? So there's a, there's a bunch of facets to this. So we'll break this down. You know, you will [00:02:00] walk into a lumber yard and see many times lower quality lumber or you'll walk into a home center. So there's multiple reasons for that. First off is the greater lumber that, that lumber yard is buying many times.

[00:02:15] Eric Goranson: If you walk into a lumber yard, That is designed around that spec home builder. That's building, you know, it's a, it's a, they're cranking out lumber to all the spec home builders out there, the big developments they're carrying either finger joint, or the cheapest lumber they can cuz it's all about price, which means you are getting from a mill that has lower quality lumber or they're buying a grade that is much lower.

[00:02:45] Eric Goranson: Does that make sense? Yeah.

[00:02:47] Caroline Blazovsky: So, so when I go through mm-hmm so like, if I pull into a lumber yard, I always pick my own lumber. Like I go through and look at all the different pieces and pick what I want, but see, a lot of people rely on their contractor to bring their own stuff. And I don't recommend [00:03:00] that cuz you don't know what you're getting,

[00:03:01] Eric Goranson: but see here's the problem you are now being part of the problem.

[00:03:06] Eric Goranson: here's why. So if you walk into a home center, If you show up, right? When that associate is pulling that bunk of lumber down outta the overhead and putting it in the rack, they're cutting the bands. They're pulling the covering off, off you go into it. You'll probably have a higher quality lumber than what many of the lumber yards have.

[00:03:30] Eric Goranson: But here's the problem because they're storing that lumber indoors in a very dry environment because there's air conditioning and things like that. That lumber tends to warp more. And then the first five homeowners that walk in are picking the best lumber out of that. They're going, oh, this is perfect.

[00:03:51] Eric Goranson: This is perfect. This is perfect. This has no knots. So by the time you show up a couple hours later, somebody's already [00:04:00] hydrated the lumber that you've picked HighEd. So now you got the crap stuff, right? So now you've got the junk that was left. So that's the challenge is if you walk into a lumber yard, most of the time, the homeowners haven't gone in there, the contractors gone in they've picked the stuff up.

[00:04:19] Eric Goranson: I know, see you're part of the problem. Now you've gone in there and hydrated it. So the next contractor comes in and goes, ah, man, look at this lumber quality. It's horrible. And some of this has gotten worse over the year because of the price of lumber. So we've had over the last couple years, a very volatile lumber futures price, right?

[00:04:42] Eric Goranson: It's all over the place. That's why lumber prices have been up. They've been down. They've been all over the place. The problem is, is when the prices are high, lumber yards are buying as little as they can because they think the numbers are gonna go down so they don't wanna buy. [00:05:00] Let's say they buy a, a two by four.

[00:05:03] Eric Goranson: $6 a piece, but they think next month they're gonna get it at $3. They're not ordering a bunch of material. They're ordering just enough to keep it on the shelf. Yeah.

[00:05:13] Caroline Blazovsky: It's like the stock market.

[00:05:14] Eric Goranson: Lumber's like the stock market. It is. So now when you see the price go lower, they start getting under it. But one of the problems you have too, is that lumber yards, like we were talking about, you get that different, greater of lumber.

[00:05:27] Eric Goranson: They're buying it as cheap as they can to get the cheapest. So you'll see different grades of lumber, but generally the home centers are trying to beat that quality of lumber, like home Depot, lows, those big guys, they're trying to bring in better quality of lumber, but it's the homeowners picking through the pile is the problem.

[00:05:49] Caroline Blazovsky: Well, and Eric and I were just having this discussion is I was very disappointed in the lumber quality at. A couple of the lumber yards that I went to. And I was saying that I went to the [00:06:00] big box stores and I found that their quality was better, which used to not be the case. Yeah. It used to not be. And so there's this right?

[00:06:06] Caroline Blazovsky: And now it seems like you can get better stuff at a local box store. Now, I don't know what's going on. If, if it's the pricing that's affected how much the lumber yard's getting and you know that they can get a better price when you go through a big box store, I'm sure they can negoti. You know, with the lumber sure.

[00:06:22] Caroline Blazovsky: Uh, manufacturers,

[00:06:23] Eric Goranson: but it's not just that. It's the individual lumber yards of who they're buying the mill, the lumber from of the quality of lumber. They're getting, if you're working and I've worked in lumber yards where you've ordered materials and you've ordered stuff, you know, which mills are kicking out the best quality lumber, you might be paying a little more for it.

[00:06:42] Eric Goranson: And so lumber yards that, that tend to focus more on the remodel. Homeowners tend to have a little better quality than the lumber yards that go after the spec builders. So those are huge ones. And I think that's an important one. And let's just,

[00:06:57] Caroline Blazovsky: let's just talk really briefly about like, if [00:07:00] someone's gonna grab a piece of lumber, you know, what is a good piece of lumber?

[00:07:03] Caroline Blazovsky: Like not go off rails on it, but just to kind of talk about like things I look for, like, you don't want it laminating, you don't want knots.

[00:07:10] Eric Goranson: You don't want, that's fine. If you're buying framing lumber, lot knots are not a big deal. It don't matter. Really depends on what you're doing, right? Yeah. I mean, if you're just framing up a wall, unless the knot has a split in it, or it's not tight, doesn't matter.

[00:07:25] Eric Goranson: You're really grabbing it. Is it straight enough to work with, can I move it into place? Is it gonna stay there? Good enough. That's what you're looking for. It doesn't really matter if you're looking on the edge and it's got a little bit of twist to it just a little bit. Ah, you'll be. Especially when you're framing up a wall.

[00:07:44] Eric Goranson: Now, the difference is here is that if you wanna go, we're gonna talk about this a little later. That's maybe where engineered lumber might be a better fit for you. And we'll talk about that later in the show, but the, you know, when you're picking stuff, don't worry about a [00:08:00] nod in it, especially with stuff.

[00:08:01] Eric Goranson: And we'll talk about this later as well. You know, we're getting trees now. That are newer growth. You know, they're not waiting for these trees to be a hundred years old before they harvest them. Maybe they're 25. So they're harvesting them a little early, which means you have more knots because you think about it.

[00:08:18] Eric Goranson: You've got a smaller log that still has branches. Trees gotta have branches to live mm-hmm so it's gonna have more knots in it because those knots are still there. It's a smaller tree. So you're working with more lumber to the exterior than a big, huge, a hundred year old, old, old growth. How

[00:08:36] Caroline Blazovsky: about the rings too, like I've noticed.

[00:08:38] Caroline Blazovsky: Um, my contractor always asks me to go with a try to see if it has a bigger ring. So I guess that means it's an older piece of wood versus no smaller

[00:08:46] Eric Goranson: rings. The ring size depends on how much water it had and how fast it was growing. So if you look at a tree and it's got a really tight ring pattern on it, that is because it probably didn't either have sunlight or water [00:09:00] and it grew really slow.

[00:09:02] Eric Goranson: Where, if you have a tree that was maybe they clear cutted that area, and this tree was growing fast. Those rings are gonna be wider because they maybe got more water or they grew faster. So it's a, a fast of growth and a lot of the memes that you see, and we're gonna go out to break here or does he,

[00:09:19] Caroline Blazovsky: so why does he like the ring?

[00:09:21] Caroline Blazovsky: So he's saying, is it, I forget it's either tighter or bigger. He looks tighter, like

[00:09:25] Eric Goranson: tighter, but it really doesn't make. That much difference. And let's, let's actually talk about that when we come back, cuz that's an important one, cuz there's a huge myth out there that you see on social media. That's completely wrong.

[00:09:36] Eric Goranson: Let's talk about that. Just as soon as around the house returns,

[00:09:44] Eric Goranson: what's up this stick hand sat from steel Panther and you are listening to around the house with Eric G. Yeah. We love Eric G and you should too.[00:10:00]

[00:10:00] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the round, the house show Caroline and I have been talking about, well, we've been talking about lumber today and right when we were jumping out to break there, we were talking about kind of the, the, the debate of the rings around wood. You had a contractor that was saying, Hey, I want to get really tight wood with just a little tight rings to it versus the, the bigger space between the rings.

[00:10:24] Eric Goranson: Correct.

[00:10:24] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah. He was making me get pieces that were, he felt, and now he comes from, like, I was explained to Eric, he's like three generations of being a carpenter. So for some reason, the quality of the wood is very important to him.

[00:10:36] Eric Goranson: Well, here's the thing. If you look at the old growth wood, which tends to have those tighter rings in it, just because the way they've grown, they've grown up.

[00:10:43] Eric Goranson: It's more stressful environment. Yes. That is slightly harder wood than the stuff that's grown a little quicker. Is there a difference? Not really. I mean, it is a little bit, but engineering wise, if you pull up an engineering table and say, okay, I'm [00:11:00] using this species of wood, there is no engineering table that says, oh, that's old growth wood.

[00:11:07] Eric Goranson: So it's this strong and new growth wood. Is this strong? No, there's no difference there. So it's really, you know, is the, the tighter, old grow stuff, a little more dimensionally stable. Sure. It's. A little tighter, but when it's all been kill and drying, it's all been the water dried out of it. It doesn't make that big, a difference.

[00:11:28] Eric Goranson: And out of the forest being harvested out there, the last number I saw, there's only 7% left. Forests that are able to be harvest that have old growth lumber in them. So it's just really something that's non-existent out there. Existent mm-hmm so you'll see a tree or two that'll come through. That's got that.

[00:11:49] Eric Goranson: Maybe they're in the canyon where there's shade or it's in an area where it didn't get a lot of water or it was really hard ground. The tree came out of. So you'll see that. But I wanna address before we talk about this [00:12:00] next one here within the lumber category, there's a meme that you see out there in social media, where they've got the one that's the really ring.

[00:12:07] Eric Goranson: Really tight rings and one with the really wide rings. And they're like, oh, that new growth stuff is junk and all that. Here's the problem that meme has two different wood species that grow at two completely different rates. One of them is more of a soft wood. One of 'em is more of a hardwood, so it's completely false.

[00:12:29] Eric Goranson: It keeps getting debunked. It shows up in woodworking and, and construction stuff. And. That should be kind of, I mean, if you wanna get a hardwood lumber, go get a hardwood lumber, you'll get that. But don't go looking through the, the, the kiln dried cheapy studs at the lumber yard expecting to get that if you wanna order in a Hemper or something like that, order it in.

[00:12:55] Eric Goranson: You know, versus a Doug. Yeah. I'm a Doug

[00:12:58] Caroline Blazovsky: fir. Oh, and just, [00:13:00] there's a couple things too. I've got a lot of questions for Eric. So the thing I was looking at, Doug fir, right. And what we're noticing now is that a lot of the wood is more sugary, which creates the mold growth. So when you're looking at the lumber yard, you could see a lot of moldy wood if it was exposed to the elements, but also that sugar causes the molds even grow.

[00:13:18] Caroline Blazovsky: And that seems to be a problem. They say from all this quick growth, too, that the wood is sugar.

[00:13:22] Eric Goranson: No, not really what the, what the difference is, is many times as you've got lumber there that might not have been kiln dry. And what you see is that kiln dry is they actually take the wood. And here's the difference, like out on the, on a coast, if you're too close to a coast, they might not kill dry that wood and that lumber yard, it could just be green lumber that shows up mm-hmm

[00:13:44] Eric Goranson: So when they kill dry, they take it in, they stack it up with air going between it and they put it in an oven. And bake the humidity out of it. So they force dry it. So they'll get it up in there to [00:14:00] 140, 150 degrees. If there's any mold or mildew on it. At that point, it's dead. It's killed it. So it's come through it, kil drys it and makes it so it's more dimensionally stable, it's all stacked.

[00:14:13] Eric Goranson: And that's where you get that. You'll see the KD on it. That's K and dry. And so that's where it is now in coastal areas. What can happen is if you're in a very humid, moist area, they won't kill and dry it. They won't do that, Katie, because that will now suck moisture up when you put it out there in a high humid area.

[00:14:30] Eric Goranson: But now the problem is, is when you build a house. Let's say you build a two or three story house. You could see up to an inch of shrinkage as that house. Dries out. So there's some of the issues you have to be careful with. For instance, in Florida, they run into that, where you build a house, they have to go back and retension those cable ties or rod ties that hold the house down because they'll tighten it up.

[00:14:55] Eric Goranson: But once they get everything loaded up, it compresses down and they've got maybe an inch where they've [00:15:00] lost an inch in there, just from framing. We

[00:15:02] Caroline Blazovsky: see a lot of moldy wood at the lumberyard here. I don't know why that happens. Like, I'm not sure if it's not, you know, it's, it's TA the K N on. Um, but it always

[00:15:12] Eric Goranson: was my, that means it's been sitting out for a long time in a moist area.

[00:15:17] Eric Goranson: Right. You know, that's why you don't see that in the lumber yards, because it literally leaves the kiln dry it's usually wrapped up in plastic and it goes right indoors in the lumber yard. So my secret is, is I like to see lumber yards at least have the lumber. In a covered area, like indoor a, a roof area or covered.

[00:15:38] Eric Goranson: Right. And, uh, usually that'll eliminate the mold. Yeah,

[00:15:42] Caroline Blazovsky: I think, I think too, have so much humidity here that it's very different. Right? I think they put this stuff up, they stack it up. And if, even if you get some back spray that like comes in, you know, so you get a real bad storm. That's coming sideways.

[00:15:54] Caroline Blazovsky: All these lumber yards are open except they have a roof. Right. but stuff gets in and I think they get moldy. [00:16:00] So that is a problem that we have, I think yeah. In the Northeast particular, because of our humid

[00:16:04] Eric Goranson: conditions. Well, I wanna talk about on this segment here next about OSB and plywood. Mm. I favor because there's some interesting stuff there, you know, I'm seeing now with water intrusion and we're not talking like, you know, zip system is all OSB.

[00:16:18] Eric Goranson: For instance, they use an oriented strand board for theirs. They've got the weather resistant barrier built on the outside. So getting water into it is not an issue. It's not coming from the outside. Mm-hmm so that's not an issue, but some of the issues I'm seeing with plywood now is that the glues they're using, which are very similar to the OSB by the time the plywood gets wet, that plywood starts to delaminate a little bit quicker.

[00:16:42] Eric Goranson: Because they're using greener glues.

[00:16:45] Caroline Blazovsky: Oh, I saw that with, um, the contractor was working on a job and before they even got the roof up, I think they had one day of bad weather and the plywood just started to laminate right

[00:16:54] Eric Goranson: away. Yep. So you're seeing that. So you gotta be careful. That's why I kind of, [00:17:00] you know, the zip systems and some of this other stuff you don't worry about that.

[00:17:04] Eric Goranson: That hard already has that barrier on it. So it's not gonna ever de laminate or come off because you've got that, you know, they put the roof on, they get the, the sheathing up there, they get it taped other than a flood where you're gonna get the backside wet. It's really not gonna be an issue. So you gotta be careful with your wood selections on that.

[00:17:24] Eric Goranson: Um, you don't want to get it where that thing's getting wet. We have that in Portland here where we're in the wintertime that you know, in Seattle as well, it's a west coast. Coastal issue where we get the rain we'll have houses that are being built. And all of a sudden the outside is black of the she goods because of the rain and the mold and the moisture.

[00:17:44] Eric Goranson: And

[00:17:44] Caroline Blazovsky: this can also happen in basement. So if your basement's unfinished and you have exposure to all your studs and flooring above it, that can, I've see, I've walked into so many houses for inspection, and I've seen all the lamination that takes place, especially. On the quiet floor systems. And I [00:18:00] know people like them and that's where we go, but I've seen a lot of it.

[00:18:05] Caroline Blazovsky: So that

[00:18:05] Eric Goranson: takes us back to, so like anything in that situation, you gotta control the humidity, right? A hundred percent. There you go. So that's one of the keys to this and we come back here. I wanna talk about another big subject. And this is a big one. There's a lot of different debates out there with wood and genetically modified wood.

[00:18:25] Eric Goranson: Let's talk about that when around the house returns.

[00:18:41] Eric Goranson: Hey, this is Ron keel, the middle cowboy from keel, the Ron keel band and Steeler. We are. Around the house with Eric G. Ray is your best

[00:18:54] Eric Goranson: for family. Welcome back to the round, the house. She make sure that you, if you're just tuning in [00:19:00] and catching us for the first time that you've caught the podcast, make sure you like subscribe. Love to hear some comments. And if you wanna send us comments, you can go over to around the house, online.com and, uh, we'd love to see some great reviews of the podcast as well.

[00:19:13] Eric Goranson: If we've helped you on something, we'd love to see those reviews up there on the podcast. Well, Caroline, we've been debating the big lumber debate what's going on with lumber out there

[00:19:24] Caroline Blazovsky: so much to know, right? So much to know so many different types

[00:19:28] Eric Goranson: of lumber there is. And I wanted to jump into something that I've seen.

[00:19:34] Eric Goranson: A lot of myths online. That aren't really true. So let's, let's debate this right now, but I want to hit before we get into that debate, I want to talk about some differences. There's genetically modified woods, which are a debate in two engineered woods. And I

[00:19:56] Caroline Blazovsky: always thought the two were the same.

[00:19:58] Eric Goranson: They're nuts.

[00:19:58] Eric Goranson: Now in engineered [00:20:00] wood is. for instance, like timber strand by a Warehouser is an engineered wood. That is actually a two by four or two by six. That's made that looks like OSB. It's a stranded wood that is put and glued together. So

[00:20:23] Caroline Blazovsky: kind of like an OSB board, but it's made into two by two by four, two by six.

[00:20:27] Eric Goranson: So like the timber strand LSL framing is a good one. I have used this stuff. I love it. And I'll tell you why. The reason why I love that product is it is always straight. It doesn't warp and it is stronger because there's no knots and bends and stuff in it. So in today's framing, When you frame up a wall, you can do 24 inches on center and fill that whole cavity up with insulation [00:21:00] and have a stronger wall that if you had 16 on center, because every time that you have a stud, that is a place where energy easily go through the wall, cuz wood let's heat.

[00:21:11] Eric Goranson: Go through it. So the bigger insulation bays, you can have the more energy efficient that house

[00:21:18] Caroline Blazovsky: is, but the problem comes down to, from my perspective, it's the same with the O SB. We've got no moisture penetration, which helps with your energy recovery costs. However, we've gotta get rid of the moisture in the home, cuz if you put this stuff up and it's not breathable, doesn't allow vapor through.

[00:21:35] Caroline Blazovsky: Yep. We

[00:21:35] Eric Goranson: got mold. Exactly. So, I mean, that's why you have your same issues, your weather resistant barrier on the outside, you know, that kind of stuff to keep that mm-hmm, going through there, but this gives you a much better insulation from that. Now a genetically modified or an engineered genetically engineered would is where they're taking science is taking and trying to create new, faster growing species of.[00:22:00]

[00:22:01] Eric Goranson: Now is that available for sale in the United States for lumber? Not at all. You can't buy it here, so it's not where do they have it? Is it, or they're just trying to do it. They're trying to do it. Um, but there's just been too many, too many fights from environmental people to be putting in new, made species out there in the forest that I don't think it's gonna happen anytime soon, you might see it out where they're, where they're planting it.

[00:22:27] Eric Goranson: And, and doing that now, there are some woods where they've done hybrids, like any other plant or any other where they combine two species together, you know, like how they could create to make a strong, right. Yeah. Make a, of course a new hybrid wood. Like, um, one that I used to use in cabinets was a tu, which is a eucalyptus hybrid where it's almost like a eucalyptus wood and a mahogany.

[00:22:52] Eric Goranson: And that was really cool for cabinetry. They would grow so quickly and so hard, you'd get this really great [00:23:00] hardwood and that wood would grow up. You could cut it off and harvest it off the trunk and it would grow right back up again. Well, that was

[00:23:08] Caroline Blazovsky: like, we were talking about the fur. They're mixing the fur with no, the,

[00:23:14] Eric Goranson: no they've got, they have not really been doing that with the fur.

[00:23:18] Eric Goranson: That those are just regular hemlock fur trees that are out there. So they're not hybrid those. Those are just regular forest wood that they're grabbing.

[00:23:28] Caroline Blazovsky: There was a different type. Um, my contractor was telling me that they were mixing two types of woods together. And it was, I think it started with an L it was fur and, and it has a specific marking on it, but it wasn't have maybe

[00:23:40] Eric Goranson: that it, well, it's a mixture it's that's alar or something like that probably is what it is.

[00:23:45] Eric Goranson: Yes, yes, yes. But that's just a fur and a large that's. Yeah, that's just the, that's just the species of wood that, that is. So that's just a different species. Oh, also it's not, yeah, it's not a, it's not a genetically modified blended wood from that point of view. Gotcha. That's just a different wood species or a subspecies [00:24:00] of that.

[00:24:01] Eric Goranson: And it really just depends on what type of what they planted. In the, in the forest the last time they take it down. And that's one of the things that we see out there is that, you know, um, when you go out and harvest an area for lumber, they go back and it's federal law. They have to go back and plant that area.

[00:24:19] Eric Goranson: So, uh, it makes it that they ask to get planted. And then of course, that. That timber company that owns the land or the landowner will in 20 to 40 years have lumber that they can reharvest again, and then it'll produce. And so you're seeing more and more of that, but that's kind of the difference between those two, the genetically modified wood, which doesn't exist.

[00:24:42] Eric Goranson: And then you have the, the engineered wood, which I think, and it's a great, it's a great place to use it in certain places. If I'm gonna be doing a bathroom or a kitchen, an interior wall, I love using that timber strand framing because it is dead, straight, never an issue. You can lay that in there. [00:25:00] It's gonna be solid.

[00:25:01] Eric Goranson: It's not gonna move it. Doesn't shrink and expand like a, like a lumber does, uh, it also doesn't absorb moisture and water. Like a regular two by four does. So I like that as well. Yeah. I try to

[00:25:16] Caroline Blazovsky: explain it to my clients that when you use a real wood, it has the ability to take on moisture and release it back into the air.

[00:25:22] Caroline Blazovsky: Right. So think about a tree. When a tree gets wet, what does it do? It doesn't get all moldy and decay and fall apart. It basically has the ability to take on that water and then release. But a lot of these engineered products, which are my concern, you know, I look at it from a different perspective than Eric is.

[00:25:37] Caroline Blazovsky: I'm looking from a health perspective. I get worried about them because I don't feel they have the durability when it comes to the moisture control. So we have different opinions

[00:25:46] Eric Goranson: on that. Yeah. See, I look at it. You know, if you look at a, in a basement, for instance, if you look at a two by four, that's been in a moist.

[00:25:55] Eric Goranson: Wall cavity, it's still gonna be gross. It's that two by four breaks down and gets so [00:26:00] nasty that two by four. And I've been in them where they look like gray mush, of

[00:26:04] course.

[00:26:05] Caroline Blazovsky: And we're not saying that you can, where they've just got, you can use lumber and just dump water on it and keep expect to keep coming back.

[00:26:11] Caroline Blazovsky: That's not it, but it does have the ability to last longer when it is exposed. So if you have a, a damp basement that is prone to some dampness in higher humidity, you might wanna stay away from an engineered product. You're gonna have problems.

[00:26:24] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Little bit quicker, depending on the product. Exactly.

[00:26:27] Eric Goranson: Yeah. In those situations, you're almost better using a treated anyway. That's got something in it like copper or something like that to stop the rust, stop the decay. And in most houses that is required to be touching concrete anyway. So if you build a base. Out there that bottom still plate is required to be treated wood.

[00:26:47] Eric Goranson: Anyway, that's up against the concept. So I see a lot of

[00:26:49] Caroline Blazovsky: places down the, have a gone ground content allow down by the ocean where, you know, people wanna refinish basements and they'll use treated lumber. And then they complain because it's very aromatic. Right. It's got a lot of [00:27:00] smell to a pressure treated wood.

[00:27:02] Caroline Blazovsky: So, um, but yeah, and what I do is actually recommend they open up the windows on, you know, especially if you're in a shore area and let that salt water come in, cuz it'll really out. Gass it faster?

[00:27:12] Eric Goranson: Get rid of lot of stuff. Well, and what happens is, and let's talk about this before we go out to break, cuz this is an important one with this.

[00:27:18] Eric Goranson: When you get treated lumber that has been K dry and then what they do is they either soak it or inject it with that treatment. Nice. So when you're working with that, I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's much healthier than it was before. It's not really toxic, like a Turkey. You still gotta be careful. Yeah.

[00:27:36] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So the you'll notice it when you're fasting down, you'll actually be screwing into it. And if this was sitting inside, you know, wrapped up in plastic in a lumberyard, when you're putting the screws into it, it's pushing the water out. You'll see the moisture come out of it. It's that wet. So it's just something you have to take into account that that's gonna, that's gonna dry out in time.

[00:27:56] Eric Goranson: So when you're smelling that, that's just the wood drying out [00:28:00] in a less humid space. So you're getting the moisture out of that. Gotcha. So that's a key. All right. When you come back, let's dive into this one. This is a big one here. We're gonna talk about the debate of old growth in new growth lumber and recycled lumber, which is another key one.

[00:28:15] Eric Goranson: We'll do that just as soon as around the house returns,

[00:28:24] Eric Goranson: right?

[00:28:34] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the round, the house show Caroline and Mike, we've been talking about lumber and all the myths issues and things that we see with lumber coming outta lumber yards. And this segment here, Caroline, I wanna take on the old growth versus new growth debate, and then talk about recycled lumber as well, because that's a new thing.

[00:28:58] Eric Goranson: Mm-hmm what have you seen out there [00:29:00] with the. Have you been running into recycled lumber on job sites that you've seen yet? Is it something that, uh, you're seeing out in your area? No.

[00:29:08] Caroline Blazovsky: No, but I always question like where with lumber originally and are those toxic things that it could have potentially been exposed to like pesticides, herbicides, like you've always told me the story about that pickle.

[00:29:21] Caroline Blazovsky: I always think about a pickle company. Yep. Or the lumber stunk like pickle. I mean, how can you really get that stuff out? And. Does that end up in our wood and now we're, you know, as an environmental per yeah. You know, consultant, what do I have to look for in a house? Am I gonna have to be worried? Yeah.

[00:29:35] Eric Goranson: A couple things.

[00:29:35] Eric Goranson: So, yeah, that was a project that we did. We're using, uh, trying to build a big mantle fireplace mantle and client went and got some reclaimed wood. It came from the N valley pickle factory. You like Nally potato chips. This was Nally valley in Tacoma. This is where they came out with all their Nally pickles.

[00:29:54] Eric Goranson: And yes, it was a beautiful piece of Redwood. That was probably a hundred years old. That was, that had pickle [00:30:00] juice soaked in it for a hundred years. So, oh my God, it was not good, but now here's the big thing that we're seeing and there's a trend. And we'll talk about this first, before we get into the old growth versus new growth debate.

[00:30:12] Eric Goranson: But what you're seeing now is that you're seeing. Like in Portland here where we're at. If you're gonna tear down a house built before 1940, it has to be dismantled and recycled period. I can't bring an excavator in there and knock it down. It has to get handed disassembled. So now those lumber that Lumber's coming out in trying to be used in construction projects.

[00:30:35] Eric Goranson: Well, the problem was is you run into code issues where that lumber wasn't stamped. It's reused. Is it what it is. Yeah. I mean, so there's some issues with it. What you're starting to see now of companies here locally is you're starting to see some companies doing it, but what they're doing is they're taking that lumber and they're kill drying it again to kill the stuff in it.

[00:30:57] Eric Goranson: So they're killing wood, they're baking out [00:31:00] chemicals, you know, most of the time in a house, it's not an issue, you know, you're not having it. Like it was a, I'd be more concerned if that lumber came from an industrial site than if it was, you know, a house built 1920.

[00:31:11] Caroline Blazovsky: But you've got, you've got houses. I mean, we have chlorine, we have chemicals that, you know, you think old farm houses are a particular problem because they were exposed to a lot.

[00:31:21] Caroline Blazovsky: What if you had a fire mm-hmm I mean, we test a lot of these things. It makes me nervous. I have to say, because I know what's in a house and I, and I wouldn't wanna see it end up in somebody else's

[00:31:30] Eric Goranson: house. And then like any wood, it gets harder as it ages. Right? So now you run into issues when you're putting that together.

[00:31:38] Eric Goranson: A lot of that wood, that's hard. It's really hard, you know? And so you've got old growth lumber that was cut out of the forest, you know, a hundred years ago. Now it's rock hard because it's had a hundred years of aging to it. And so now it's harder to work with. It's harder to nail. It's harder to work, you know, into the, into the project.

[00:31:58] Eric Goranson: So you're seeing that. [00:32:00] Now you're seeing on a lot of these things, we talked about it earlier, but the old growth versus new growth lumber, you know, and that's kind of why I think what your contractor was talking about with part of what they were con talking about was, you know, trying to find some more old growth, tighter ringed wood, and yes, technically that is a more dense, more, you know, stable wood.

[00:32:25] Eric Goranson: But we talked about a little bit earlier and we were debating it. Really when it comes down to is if you look at the strength and the engineering of what you're doing. So if you, you know, there's engineering tables where they say, okay, I'm gonna calculate the strength of a beam for instance, right. Or a floor joist, they'll give you that wood species.

[00:32:46] Eric Goranson: They don't give you whether it's old growth or new growth. They just say, what's the size. What's the species. Here's the length you can work. So I think it's, it's a waste of energy to, to get hung up on [00:33:00] the old growth new growth, because really you're not seeing in lumber out there, old growth forest stuff showing up in the lumber yard.

[00:33:07] Eric Goranson: It's just nonexistent. So really what you wanna be looking at, if you want that tighter grained wood, you wanna be getting, you know, the fur hardwood versus the hemlock, which is a little softer. You know, you can get some of that stuff that is really kind of a hard one. It's beautiful, but you're gonna pay for it.

[00:33:31] Eric Goranson: So now you're paying 50% more or double for the studs to get that. Does that make

[00:33:39] Caroline Blazovsky: sense? So you don't think that yeah. If you're working well, I mean, you're when you're a hundred percent, right. First off you can't get old wood anyway. Right. That's kind of like the point. Yeah. All you can get is new wood.

[00:33:48] Caroline Blazovsky: So, I mean, is there anything when you're selecting this, that you can do better? And you're saying not really, not

[00:33:57] Eric Goranson: really. And if you're worried about it, you know, if you're worried about getting [00:34:00] something that's straight, perfectly, it's gonna be the most dimensionally stable you should be going over the timber strand or their competitors, because that's gonna be a, a, a stronger, more dimensionally stable at anyone.

[00:34:11] Eric Goranson: Cuz it's engineered. It's not gonna move. And that's the issue there. If you're framing up and you want it. Perfect. You're not looking at lumber anymore. You're looking at the, at the, uh, stranded, the stranded hardwoods where they're put together. Yeah. Good call.

[00:34:23] Caroline Blazovsky: Depends what you're doing. So the job, you know, you gotta, again, planning, making sure that you're getting the right materials for the job is important.

[00:34:31] Eric Goranson: And if you're framing with this new, like that new LSL framing, you're using less lumber now because. You're going 24 inch on center versus 16. And you're creating actually a, a, a more efficient home by doing it. So if you're paying a little bit more for the lumber, you have no waste. So you really have to start looking at it.

[00:34:51] Eric Goranson: How much lumber did you buy? How much could you not use? Because it was twisted. The lumber yard dropped it off. Right? How much are you [00:35:00] wasting at the end of the day? You're like, oh, that's crap. I'm getting that. Not using that. So you really gotta think about how much you're wasting, and this is pretty efficient because you're using really the waste product of wood from the sawmill, those big chips and strands that they're putting on, depending on the product you get.

[00:35:18] Eric Goranson: That stuff's different in that they've weaved the grain together on the wood correctly to give you that dimensional strength. Interesting.

[00:35:25] Caroline Blazovsky: So it's interesting stuff, pluses and minuses. Yeah. There's pluses and minuses

[00:35:28] Eric Goranson: to both right there is. And so you just kind of have to figure out how you want to battle that and how you wanna work with it.

[00:35:34] Eric Goranson: But. Just like I said, uh, when all of us go into that lumber yard or home center, we start really picking for the pretty stuff we should be probably over in a different bunk of lumber. If it's gonna be appearance grade, we should now be looking over at like the S four S sanded finished, you know, whatever the, the sanded finished side is.

[00:35:53] Eric Goranson: We want to have appearance, grade lumber, not framing lumber. If it's something you're gonna be seeing, cause really framing [00:36:00] lumber is framing lumber. It's gonna get buried behind something. And if you're trimming something out, then you should be over looking at the more decorative woods to finish that project with that way you get the right materials.

[00:36:11] Eric Goranson: Sounds good. I like us using some of these recycled woods. I think there's a great way. I think we still have a long way to go though, to make sure that we're doing it safely because Caroline you're right. Exactly. Um, I wanna make sure that that stuff's coming there and in the I'd love to see some scientific studies on it to see if they'd have to

[00:36:33] Caroline Blazovsky: do they'd have to do some science because a lot of these toxic pesticides and herbicides that we have used over the years have.

[00:36:41] Caroline Blazovsky: Very very long lifespans. We're talking 20 years. Like they could be in the wood and have exposure to the air and still maintain their integrity. So I would be interested to see how they're getting that out of the wood. You know, when they're recycling, cuz I just don't think it's really happening. I would

[00:36:58] Eric Goranson: like to go get some fours and cut 'em [00:37:00] up and send 'em off for his testing and see what we see out there.

[00:37:02] Eric Goranson: That's been, you know what I mean? I'm curious because if you think about it, no, no I'm with you. Uh, you know, and I don't know, I'm not the scientist here. Right? I'm I'm not, I don't play one on TV either. I'd love to see how maybe throwing that in that kiln for kill dry. Does it, does it break that stuff out?

[00:37:19] Eric Goranson: Does it kill it? Does it break it down? Does it make it worse? Does it make it better? I get that you're killing the mold and mildew and pests and things like that. That kiln Dragon's gonna kill those things if you had right.

[00:37:30] Caroline Blazovsky: Some biologicals, right? Yeah. But when you're dealing with pesticides and things that have half life and they break down into other metabolites and you've got other issues, so, you know, you could actually make something worse, you know, you could take a glyphosate and break it down and do an APA, which is.

[00:37:46] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah, could be just as bad or worse. You're right. So that's

[00:37:49] Eric Goranson: my thing. And again, that, and didn't know too much. Yeah. And that, that's the thing, too. If you're out, you know, shopping for re cleaned lumber for that project inside the house, we've talked about it many times, but just make sure you [00:38:00] know, where it came from.

[00:38:00] Eric Goranson: And if you can get that, uh, kill and dry. And there's probably some, like in my area here, I'm, I'm out in lumber country, but. I had a place that I was buying my wood from here that has since closed up during COVID, but they had a place right down the street where all their materials would go in, get kill dry, which would take care of a lot of those issues that were past bugs, mights, mold, mildew.

[00:38:22] Eric Goranson: It would kick kill that. And so it wasn't an issue.

[00:38:24] Caroline Blazovsky: Where do you go for your lumber? See, I go to lumber gardens, but now after looking at what some of the home centers I was in there, looking at the wood, I was kind of impressed. I'm like, wow. I think the Woods's better than what's at my lumber yard. So where do you go?

[00:38:35] Eric Goranson: Traditionally? It. Um, I've got a little lumber yard here. There was a big one in my area that I used, but I, I many times I'd go in there and I'd get my lumber. I'd buy it, go back to the backyard. And the stuff was so junk. I'd go back. And actually I ended up going back and getting my refund twice. And when I hear the music, Caroline, it's time to go.

[00:38:54] Eric Goranson: Hey, I'm Eric G I'm Caroline B. And you have been listening to around the [00:39:00] House