Markup View

Author: Fanra

Mar 17th 2011 at 8:47:13 PM

->Particle board gets used for things like desks and dressers and walls because it's cheaper to produce, not necessarily because wood is expensive.

->Hardwood, the cool-looking wood used to make furniture is rare, but softwood, used to make 2x members, is cheap and plentiful (not to mention renewable).

This is exactly my point.  Hardwood is rare and expensive now, otherwise Particle board would not be used so often.  As for softwood, it is much cheaper but compared to the past, it is much more expensive then it used to be.  Just ask someone who is remodeling their house if wood is cheap...

In England, they switched to coal from wood because they had logged so much wood there wasn't much left you could use.  It is also true that coal has more energy per mass.  However, the huge cost of converting everything from wood burning to coal burning meant that they would have never done so if wood was cheap.

I own Particle board furniture.  Believe me, if hardwood wasn't so expensive I would never have this crap.  Wood is much better then Particle board.