- Wood is inexpensive; the United States has a lot of it. Not only forests that can be logged, but tree farms where lumber-grade species (“southern yellow pine”) are grown and harvested like other crops. Concrete, as cheap as it is, is still far more expensive than wood in the U.S. - and masonry brick is even more so.
- Wood is easy to work with. It’s more forgiving than concrete or masonry, it’s easier to and faster to put up a wood-framed wall, and that all means a more affordable house.
- Wood is flexible. Masonry and concrete doesn’t do well in seismic areas, such as the West Coast of the U.S. And while a strong earthquake is certainly able to damage a wood-framed house, they don’t typically collapse altogether like more rigid materials do.
- It’s a standard in the construction industry. This means that banks are comfortable loaning on wood-framed houses, and insurance underwriters are used to writing insurance policies on wood-framed houses. Not that they don’t for other construction methods as well, but it’s easier for them to deal with wood-framed houses.
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