# Houses made of wood. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 29, 2013, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houses-made-of-wood/662193 "2013-06-29T11:05:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2013, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houses-made-of-wood/662193/21 "2013-06-29T17:57:56Z")
Wood rots from staying wet. Properly constructed with enough air space for drying wood can get soaked over and over again as long as it dries out in between. Houses, barns, and other wooden structures over 100 years old are common, some are a lot older than that. There’s a Quaker Meeting House nearby made of rough hewn timbers that’s over 200 years old, and several timber frame homes older than that. Some woods like cedar and cypress are much more rot and insect resistant than others. Modern composite materials aren’t expected to last that long. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2013, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houses-made-of-wood/662193/22 "2013-06-29T20:01:41Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > … some are a lot older than that. Some wooden buildings in Japan are well over 1000 years old. If you can keep fire away and a good roof on it, there’s no reason a well-constructed wooden building can’t last indefinitely. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houses-made-of-wood/662193/23 "2013-06-29T21:12:03Z")
Its mostly brick in the U.K. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2013, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houses-made-of-wood/662193/24 "2013-06-29T21:29:39Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > As far as I know, which may not be that far, the earliest human built shelters were made of wood, probably covered with animal skins. The available materials were earth, stone, wood, foliage, and animal bones and skins. It would be a long time after wood was used before earth or stone could be used to make walls and/or roofs. Digging out earthen caves may have preceded everything else, don’t know. Digged-out “troglodyte villages” are still in use in Spain, although nowadays it’s mostly as summer homes (there’s even [hotels](http://www.lasbardenas.com/); the village where that hotel is didn’t have any “built” buildings except the church until the 1960s). Some of them are in zones where less-diggable villages had “one-room-on-top-of-another” adobe houses in pre-Roman times. ---
**Author:** ![KermitTheFrig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/47e85d/32.png) [@KermitTheFrig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KermitTheFrig)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houses-made-of-wood/662193/25 "2013-06-30T00:48:18Z")
Many perfectly habitable homes here in New England that were built before the American Revolution. There are more than 80 homes older than 200 years in my hometown right now. And virtually all of the new ones being built today are wood frame. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houses-made-of-wood/662193/26 "2013-07-01T13:20:28Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > Any chance you could rephrase the question? Because as it stands, I don’t think it’s answerable. > > Houses have been made of “other products” since prehistory. I am well aware that houses were built of stone and other products, and never heard of earlier buildings made of wood. I imagine there may have been some, but it would seem wood may have come before the other products, after humans left caves, they may have (like American Indians used wood for a base for the teepees ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houses-made-of-wood/662193/27 "2013-07-01T13:22:22Z")
One would think so. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houses-made-of-wood/662193.md?page=1)