Wood species for hot environments
charlemagne
| Posted in Construction Techniques on
Hello everyone,
It’s my first post here, so forgive me if i use any wrong expressions. And as a double handicap, english is not my native language.
I would like to know if there are wood species more suited for wooden houses than others in a hot and dry environment. Or what techniques can be used to aid wood in such an evironment.
Replies
Are you asking about the wood you would be using for the framing of the structure or the wood you would be using as an exterior finish such as siding and trim materials?
Just where is the hot dry climate you are talking about located?
Which place
I'm from Belgium, but the land is located in Porutgal, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castro_Verde_Municipality
You can see the average yearly weather a little down the page.
Wood to be used for both framing and siding.
As a general rule, most woods do well in a hot, dry environment. Moisture, either in the forrm of rain or just high humidity, promotes the breakdown of the wood, due to both chemical reactions and mold/rot.
The other thing that damages wood, though, is sunlight. Protecting the wood from sunlight with a good paint or opaque stain will lengthen it's life considerably.
And, of course, in many warmer climates you must be concerned about termites.
outside finish
I definitely want to keep the wood grain visible so paint is out of the question. Are there oils out there that block UV ?
I definitely want to keep the wood grain visible so paint is out of the question. Are there oils out there that block UV ?
No. Lots of claims have been made, but the best you can do is a transparent stain that has to be reapplied every 2-3 years, and even that won't prevent the wood from darkening and turning rough in the sunlight.
Specialty semi-transparent stains such as Sikkens in the US are a little better compromise -- they slow the aging of the wood considerably more than a transparent stain and only need reapplication every 3-5 years (after the first two years).
I live in a hot humid climate but I like cypress. Cypress is sap free so it doent bleed making it excellent to stain or paint. The tree has an oil called cypressine that acts as a preservative and is a deterent to insects too.I once worked on a house in Jasper Texas that was sitting on cypress stumps for piers. It was built around 1900. The stumps are still there too.
I live in the desert SW US and recently toured the Frank Lloyd Wright center in Taliesen West near Phoenix, AZ. While there, I learned that redwood was a very poor choice for a hot dry climate ... which is a little counter to my assuming that redwood was good everywhere outdoors. Apparently I was wrong. They started changing their wood to Doug Fir, I believe as the chosen wood for all their outdoor exposed conditions. Frankly I was surprised.
Do some more research on line, though. Your choices may be more in line w/ what might be readily available in Portugal, regardless of what will be ideal.
So far most mention is about softwoods. Are they better suited than hardwoods ?
Oak is very weather-resistant, in my experience. I suspect it's not used much for exterior applications primarily because of the cost.
because hardwoods tend to be very expensive. In a hot dry climate, I wouldn't tend to choose wood siding ... I'd do stucco. Either that or do all masonry construction on the exterior.
Teak is the gold standard, being used on boats for as long as it was available but "gold" is the operative word. It costs about that much money. You will still be sealing it with teak oil at least once a year if you want it to be pretty.
IPE is a close alternative
I also like the idea of stucco, but the problem is i don't want to use any ply or osb coz of health reasons. I'm a complete noob at homebuilding, apart from reading a few books, but it's probably not possible to do stucco on a solid wood covering.
There's 3 small houses on the property, they're tear-dows, but they will be remasoned. But before we start to build those we want to build 3 small wooden cabins, with a fully functional kitchen, bathroom ((bath)-shower-toilet)), living-room, sleeping loft and somekind of wood burning stove for the 'cold' winter evenings.
So far i quite like the idea of using cypress, which grows locally and is probably cheap too. One thing i don't fancy is the seamingly high degree of maintenance but seeing they cabins will be small i might have the wrong idea about that. All the woodwork will be done by myself, as for the rest i'll have to learn as i go.
We wan't to keep the cabins small so people will be forced to spend more time outside, connection with nature and what not.
One thing to note is that what's called "cypress" in the US may not be the same stuff you have there.
Just FYI ... I've seen stucco done w/out any sheathing if I recall correctly.
siding in dry climate
You could use gypsum sheathing under stucco. A common pratice especially before the advent of EIF systems.
Have you considered using metal studs, joist, rafters etc.
You could also go ADOBE as your structure with stucco as your exterior finish. It's a tried and proved method of building in hot dry climates for ages. Also has good insulation properties. I did an adobe (mud bricks/blocks) house in Santa Fe N.M. many years ago.