Carpentry In Building

The Different Ways Around The World Carpentry In Building

About Carpentry In Building.  One thing that has always interested me was the different way building , especially home buildings , are done around the world. For instance in the USA it seems most homes are built out of wood , whereas the country of South Africa it is the absolute exception .

Possible Reasons :

The reason might be the availability of the main material , The USA as well as Canada have large indigenous forest . In South Africa there are a few indigenous forest and these are protected so that very little lumber may be taken from them , and the lumber that can be used for building and homes is to precious and can only used for furniture .

South Africa has planted many new forest in the wetter parts of there country . Mainly in the eastern part were the rainfall is higher . These are single species of lumber that can be used for home building and it come mainly from pine trees . The species are Pinus Patula , a native of Mexico and Pinus Radiata , mainly a native of California . These trees grow very quickly , due to the heat in both country’s , so the growth rings are far apart when compare to the lumber in the USA . This results in lumber that is not high quality and is very soft for build houses . It also tends to warp badly , so care has to taken when it is dried .  The lumber is harvested within only 20 to 30 years in contrast to 45 years in the USA .

Carpentry Methods in Building

The houses and home built from lumber in the USA have wooden frames with wooden cladding and sometimes even have a wood roof shingles , on the roof . This would be unthinkable in South Africa as the sun would damage these in a short time if made out of these soft woods . Another factor is the plague of termites which would attack any wooden structure unless unless it was specially treated . Call Abacus Construction For a free in-house inspection at 619-850-4794

Houses built in South Africa are built built with brick . either burnt clay brick or cement and crushed  sand hollow bricks . The last name is used for the poor . For the roof structure lumber is mainly used , with clay or cement tiles for for the most up- scale homes , and for the most part galvanized iron sheeting  , which is by far the most common . sometimes wood shingles made of slate are used but are not very popular . Pressed metal tiles such as Harvey Tiles are also used , though these are quite costly to use on your home . The floors are concrete with a variety of covering to chose from , such as tile , laminated wooden floor , carpeting or even color cement floated screed depending on the weather it is and up scale building or not .

Carpentry in Building Roofs

Thatched roofs are used sometimes but they are risky because of the danger of fire and lightning . They have a much higher insurance cost . In San Diego we sometimes see a wood single roof , and they a great to look at , but a big fire hazard . In the coastal areas in South Africa  this risk is much less then the inland valleys . Thus more homes have these roofs there , especially in the cape where the old gabled cape-dutch homes originated .

Other Carpentry Building Methods

In South Africa high rise building are made out of concrete frames , with brick walls and concrete roofs are very common there . They use metal studs on the walls and tile on the outside walls . Sometime the building is made out of glass , but that is mostly in the bigger city’s .The native population in traditional areas use natural wood framing from the branches and small trees cut in the bush and combined with mud daub and thatched roofs . You might have seen them in t.v. or in a movie about South Africa . These huts are very high maintenance intensive and it is a task of the women to regularly smear them with mud clay .  The Floor are made out of a mixture of clay mun and concrete . This makes it easier to sweep out the dust and dirt .

Other country’s have very different building methods , but this article concentrates on the carpentry building differences between South Africa and the USA and demonstrates how the availability of wood can affect the building methods of a country . Not mention other factors and natural resources a country has for  Carpentry in building.

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