Healing Appalachia: Sustainable Living through Appropriate Technology

21. Native Building Materials

We wanted to build this [“Earthship” rammed earth] house to address things like global warming, forest issues, and even some social justice issues. We feel that there are things that are more important than money. Stan and Pattie Jones, Madison County, North Carolina A basic appropriate technology principle is to construct with materials that are close at hand. Importing marble to build a Taj Mahal may be an activity of the superrich, but in some ways, modern American culture imitates this practice by choosing to use imported (nonlocal) plastic, siding, asphalt roofing, and particleboard. Is it any different for those who seek to be environmentally conscious but import building materials from distant places (e.g., straw bales in humid Appalachia from distant, drier regions)? Our efforts should be concentrated on obtaining materials from local sources and processors who use local materials, including wood (see chapters 22 and 23), sand, clay (baked, pressed, or rammed), gravel (crushed or natural), and stone. Cement plants within the region may use local products, as do glassmaking operations. Let’s concentrate on native wood, stone, pressed earth blocks, and clay. WOOD One of the ironies of modern times is that small Appalachian sawmills that could turn out high-quality, rough-cut pine and other CHAPTER 21 Native Building Materials wood products for framing and rough siding are unable to jump through current regulatory hoops. Lumber must be processed, kiln dried, milled, and graded to exact specifications for housing and other buildings—things that some local sawmills cannot do. Thus, local sawmill operators are frozen out of a market they once had to themselves, namely, rural buildings, fencing, railroad ties, utility poles, and even housing materials. All wooden products that must be cut to size, dried, cured, and pressure-treated in a special way are beyond their processing capabilities. The multinational corporations have superseded the local wood processors, and thus communities suffer from loss of jobs and higher costs of imported materials—even in regions brimming over with forests and formerly prized for their high-grade forest products. To make matters even worse, the effects of globalization are reaching into the forested areas of the eastern United States. While furniture factories close in North Carolina, the region’s temperate forests, especially in pine regions of the Southeast, are being cut down limb, stock, and root, and the chips are being shipped to Korea and Japan, to return later as packing materials that find their way to stores within sight of where the chipping originally occurred. Furthermore, harvesting wood with heavy machinery is devastating our forests, and the practice of exporting raw products is devastating local labor markets. In addition, the returning product is higher priced and of a lower grade than what could have been made here from native materials. The local bioregion and the local economy suffer. The chapter on cordwood buildings (chapter 22) tells about one area where local wood can be quickly used for constructing moderate-priced structures. Native wood was used by indigenous cultures prior to the European migrations and, once the Europeans arrived, was used for everything from log cabins and splitrail fencing to barn siding and bridges. Ancient American chestnut-sided barns still standing today testify to the durability of some of the wood materials used. Poplar logs covered with siding still undergird rural homesteads. Barn framing from red oak 12by -12-inch timber can stand for a century or more provided the Native Building Materials ❖ 253 barn roofs are kept intact. Wood is available in many types, is easily worked, has enduring qualities, and has a natural beauty in its grain, color, and texture. Wood Varieties The following list is not exhaustive, but it shows the richness of Appalachian and eastern American woods: Pine (white, Virginia, etc.) is the workhorse wood of the mountains and is much used in rough-cut siding, flooring, pressure-treated fence posts, bordering, and framing. Pine, like poplar, is lightweight and easier to handle than heavier woods like oak and chestnut. Poplar is another traditional wood of Appalachia used for logs, siding, framing, rough flooring, statuary, and lower-priced furnishings and for fashioning a host of farm wood products. It is the wood of choice for utilitarian do-it-yourselfers. Oak (white, red, etc.) is strong and can be used in a wide range of products such as framing, flooring, siding, fencing, implements, and furniture. It is tough and durable...