Time to get out of the rut

I just finished my August newsletter, which goes out to about 350 people every month. In this issue I did an article about steel framed houses. Last month I did one on concrete houses and last year I did one on timber framed houses. All of these building techniques are ones that we don't see much around Michigan. we get a fair number of timber framed, post and beam houses, but few, if any, concrete or steel framed houses. That's got to change fairly soon, because we're fast running out of wood in the United States. In fact quite a bit of the wood in our homes now likely comes from South America. That's one reason why steel framed houses cost less to build than wood framed houses.

So why aren't people switching to steel framed houses or concrete or any of the other alternative building materials. I suspect it's mainly just momentum with in the builder community. They've all grown up with wood framed, stick-built houses and that's really all they know, so that's all they build. Until the wood runs out or their customers start asking for something different that's what they'll build. What gets me is that both articles on concrete and steel-framed houses has many, many points about how superior both are to wood framed houses in terms of energy efficiency, safety, longevity and more. True, concrete homes did appear to cost a little more, but the steel framed houses actually cost less.

So why are consumers asking for them? they don't know about them and the builders sure aren't going to tell them and upset the current apple cart. Builders out west and down south have embraced these new building techniques and materials as a way to overcome pressing issues in those areas - storms and earthquakes and termite problems to name a few. Steel and concrete building withstand the hurricanes and earthquakes in those areas better than wood buildings. We don have those issues. We do have termites, but not to the extent that they do down south, where that is a major problem in some areas. even so, if someone can build you a stronger house that will last longer, be less impacted by fire and cost less to build, why would you not buy it? Well then inquire about a steel framed house when it comes time to build. Get our of the wood house rut!