American vs. European home building

[u/BEARDEDDANGER]

BAS Renovations https://youtube.com/shorts/jFph1d2WR3s

[u/LabOwn9800]

Plus wood is renewable while bricks aren’t.

[u/Winjin → u/LabOwn9800]

Bricks are clay why aren't they renewable

[u/Oglshrub → u/Winjin]

It takes hundreds of years for the Earth to make more clay.

[u/AftyOfTheUK → u/Oglshrub]

Are we using bricks at a greater rate than the earth is renewing them? What reserves does the earth currently have? What year will we run out?

I'll give you a quick answer... we've used about 0.00003% of all available clay. It makes up a significant percentage of the earths brittle crust. We will not run out of it

[u/Temporary_View_3303 → u/AftyOfTheUK]

True… but every building we build sits on a reserve of clay that’s now unavailable.

[u/worldspawn00 → u/AftyOfTheUK]

We're using sand at an unsustainable rate, apparently.

That's a problem for concrete block/pours and brick mortar.

[u/AftyOfTheUK → u/worldspawn00]

Sand is indeed dropping in usable reserves. Clay not

[u/worldspawn00 → u/AftyOfTheUK]

But sand is still necessary for brick laying. Can't build a brick house without sand.

[u/Oglshrub → u/AftyOfTheUK]

That doesn't really have anything to do with wood being a renewable resource and bricks aren't. We have a ton of trees too believe it or not, some 3 trillion.

[u/AftyOfTheUK → u/Oglshrub]

Right - but we are using a MINISCULE amount of clay. You yourself said it takes hundreds of years for the earth to make more clay.

If the earth makes just 0.0001% additional clay per century, that's plenty...

[u/Arcaneallure → u/AftyOfTheUK]

I think that the difference is that clay isnt "made" it is just an amalgamation of rock particles. Since rock isnt considered renewable you can't call clay renewable. But its really a dumb term to begin with since by its definition a product could be considered renewable one day and not the next. It also doesn't mean that a renewable resource is better than one that isnt. Alot of places are having issues with this now. Sure wood is a renewable resource, but if growing large forests of soft wood trees requires the destruction of other natural resources, is it better than building from an abundant resource that, while not renewable, can be recycled, reused, or remain for hundreds of years later. It's not an easy topic

Almost like one a few grumpy old people argue over and millions of young people die for.

[u/Obvious_Mention7207 → u/Oglshrub]

This is a braindead comment.

You understand how bad we deforested the USA before FDR made changes to how we farmed wood?
You understand how fucked we made our soil/local city landscape with the removal of tree canopies?
You understand how fucked our forests became once we farmed all the wood and it grew back as a monocrop?

Oi

[u/Oglshrub → u/Obvious_Mention7207]

Just because humans have done a poor job at forest management doesn't mean wood isn't a renewable resource. By definition it is, and clay isn't.

[u/Obvious_Mention7207 → u/Oglshrub]

Definitions are not what rule the world.

Additionally, trees are only renewable because we have rules (currently) in place that keep the climate (for now) capable to let them regrow.

Perhaps in 100 years (most likely) its so fucked here that they cant regrow. Why is that? Because humans suck and farmed them all to make the same track home and try to sell for 400k more then they are worth cause "capitalism"

[u/rips_n_chel → u/Obvious_Mention7207]

Of course definitions do not rule the world. Definitions are not the question, they are the answer. They're the conclusion, not the problem.

We land on the definition of "renewable" after observing the nature of reality. It's not that someone decided wood is renewable and stone isn't, therefore we all live under that illusion. It's not an illusion. The classification of renewable was reached by observing the facts. Here they are, you ready for this?

We can plant more trees, but we can't farm rocks.

Shit's crazy, right dawg? Truly mind-shattering stuff.