Editing Wood (section)

===Construction===

[[File:Saitta House Dyker Heights.JPG|thumb|left|upright|The [[Saitta House]], [[Dyker Heights]], [[Brooklyn]], New York built in 1899 is made of and decorated in wood.<ref>"[http://www.dykerheightscivicassociation.com/saittareport.pdf Saitta House&nbsp;– Report Part 1] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081216233832/http://www.dykerheightscivicassociation.com/saittareport.pdf |date=December 16, 2008 }}",''DykerHeightsCivicAssociation.com''</ref>]]
[[File:Importers And Exporters Of Forest Products (2021).svg|thumb|220x220px|Map of importers and exporters of forest products including wood in 2021]]
Wood has been an important construction material since humans began building shelters, houses and boats. Nearly all boats were made out of wood until the late 19th century, and wood remains in common use today in boat construction. [[Elm]] in particular was used for this purpose as it resisted decay as long as it was kept wet (it also served for water pipe before the advent of more modern plumbing).

Wood to be used for construction work is commonly known as ''[[lumber]]'' in North America. Elsewhere, ''lumber'' usually refers to felled trees, and the word for sawn planks ready for use is ''timber''.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jSiRAAAAQBAJ&q=%C2%A0Wood+to+be+used+for+construction+work+is+commonly+known+as+lumber+in+North+America&pg=SA7-PA15|title=Materials for Interior Environments|last=Binggeli|first=Corky|year=2013|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-118-42160-4|language=en|df=mdy-all|access-date=October 6, 2020|archive-date=December 30, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231230132013/https://books.google.com/books?id=jSiRAAAAQBAJ&q=%C2%A0Wood+to+be+used+for+construction+work+is+commonly+known+as+lumber+in+North+America&pg=SA7-PA15#v=snippet&q=%C2%A0Wood%20to%20be%20used%20for%20construction%20work%20is%20commonly%20known%20as%20lumber%20in%20North%20America&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> In medieval Europe [[oak]] was the wood of choice for all wood construction, including beams, walls, doors, and floors. Today a wider variety of woods is used: solid wood doors are often made from [[Populus|poplar]], small-knotted [[pine]], and [[Douglas fir]].

[[File:Преображенская церковь (деревянная) (1714 г.) 01.JPG|thumb|right|The churches of [[Kizhi]], Russia are among a handful of [[World Heritage Site]]s built entirely of wood, without metal joints. See [[Kizhi Pogost]] for more details.]]
New domestic housing in many parts of the world today is commonly made from timber-framed construction. [[Engineered wood]] products are becoming a bigger part of the construction industry. They may be used in both residential and commercial buildings as structural and aesthetic materials.

In buildings made of other materials, wood will still be found as a supporting material, especially in roof construction, in interior doors and their frames, and as exterior cladding.

Wood is also commonly used as shuttering material to form the mold into which concrete is poured during [[reinforced concrete]] construction.

====Flooring====
[[File:LightningVolt Wood Floor.jpg|thumb|right|Wood can be cut into straight planks and made into a [[wood flooring]].]]
{{Main |Wood flooring}}A solid wood floor is a floor laid with planks or battens created from a single piece of timber, usually a hardwood. Since wood is hydroscopic (it acquires and loses moisture from the ambient conditions around it) this potential instability effectively limits the length and width of the boards.

Solid hardwood flooring is usually cheaper than engineered timbers and damaged areas can be sanded down and refinished repeatedly, the number of times being limited only by the thickness of wood above the tongue.

Solid hardwood floors were originally used for structural purposes, being installed perpendicular to the wooden support beams of a building (the joists or bearers) and solid construction timber is still often used for sports floors as well as most traditional wood blocks, [[mosaic]]s and [[parquetry]].

====Engineered products====
{{main |Engineered wood}}

Engineered wood products, glued building products "engineered" for application-specific performance requirements, are often used in construction and industrial applications. Glued engineered wood products are manufactured by bonding together wood strands, veneers, lumber or other forms of wood fiber with glue to form a larger, more efficient composite structural unit.<ref name="apawood">{{cite web|url=http://www.apawood.org/pdfs/download_pdf.cfm?PDFFilename=managed/E30.pdf|title=APA – The Engineered Wood Association|work=apawood.org|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060627045932/http://www.apawood.org/pdfs/download_pdf.cfm?PDFFilename=managed%2FE30.pdf|archive-date=June 27, 2006|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

These products include [[glued laminated timber]] (glulam), wood structural panels (including [[plywood]], [[oriented strand board]] and composite panels), [[laminated veneer lumber]] (LVL) and other structural composite lumber (SCL) products, [[parallel strand lumber]], and I-joists.<ref name="apawood" /> Approximately 100 million cubic meters of wood was consumed for this purpose in 1991.<ref name="Horst-2005"/> The trends suggest that particle board and fiber board will overtake plywood.

Wood unsuitable for construction in its native form may be broken down mechanically (into fibers or chips) or chemically (into cellulose) and used as a raw material for other building materials, such as engineered wood, as well as [[particle board|chipboard]], [[hardboard]], and [[medium-density fiberboard]] (MDF). Such wood derivatives are widely used: wood fibers are an important component of most paper, and cellulose is used as a component of some [[Organic compound#Synthetic compounds|synthetic materials]]. Wood derivatives can be used for kinds of flooring, for example [[laminate flooring]].