How come most homes here are built with wood than using cement or conrete esp. places prone to natural disas?

Question

I noticed that most homes are built with wood and some others are built with mixture of wood and bricks. The buildings that are built with steel, concrete or cement are usually offices or goverment buildings or some homes. I ask this because most of the buildings taken down by hurricane Katrina and the tornedo that hit Alabama were made using wood. Is using cement and/or conrete not more cost-effective and won't more lives be protected?

Answer 1

A good question. Economics determines what people build homes from. Wood is plentiful in most places in the US. Although cement and steel make better homes they are also 2x to 5x more expensive as a building material.

Most homes have adequate insurance relative to the risk exposed. A majority of homes in the flood plane of New Orleans did not have flood insurance of any kind. Home owners are struggling with who to pay for their loss when no flood insurance was purchased. Hurricane damage did not damage their homes as thoroughly as the following flood.

The moral here is to either build the home for the dangers appropriate or/and insure appropriate to the risks possible.

Answer 2

Concrete is a terrific building material that has great insulating properties. Building concrete structures is what I do for a living. It's no simple matter to build your own however. Layering concrete over a wood framed house would be impracal as concrete,obviously, is extremely heavy. You would need an engineer to calculate the load and design footings to support the structure. Concrete needs to be reinforced with steel. Specalized forms must be built around the steel and the concrete is cast in place using pumps. For cost and reliability, nothing beats a good old fashioned wood framed structure. When clad in plywood to provide sheer resistance, it can take nearly anything nature can dish out and your options for insulating are practicaly limitless.

Answer 3

My guess is that it based on the age of the home. Most of the homes I know about were years and years old. I have a friend who if 48 who grew up in one of them...building structures and processes have changed a lot in 50 years. I think most of the houses built there today would be on stilts, probably with hurricane bands, hardiplank,build to new standards etc, etc. Next time around I would not expect the same damage.

Answer 4

Wood is alot more cheaper and easier to work with......but just because a building is made of concrete, doesn't mean that it'll stand up to a tornado or a hurricane. There were many, many brick homes and concrete buildings that were destroyed as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Louisiana. Best of luck to you.

Answer 5

Good question nathan i live in australia and have often thought this when we see homes devasted by the tornadoes on the news, the devastated areas always seem to show wooden buildings torn to pieces. I also wondered if building the home underground might be an option for protection from tornadoes?

Answer 6

i believe that if mother nature wants to move something , she will. biggest reason is cost .