I agree as well (that engineered wood products can be good), but I think I know where Ms. Haertsch is coming from. She's confusing the engineered wood issues with the new lumber vs. old lumber issue.
It's true that new lumber, i.e. trees grown for construction over the past several decades, is an inferior building material than lumber harvested when our houses were built. This is because modern lumber is all "new-growth" lumber--it's raised on a farm, and fertilized and heavily watered for the purpose of creating lumber quickly. The trees grow fast, but the wood cell structure is larger so the lumber isn't as dense or durable, and tends to be more susceptible to cracking and warping.
Anyway, this is all in contrast with "old-growth" lumber, which was taken from mature, "naturally" grown trees from forests. You get strong, clear, large sections from those older trees. Nowadays I don't even think they let trees grow big enough to get a 12x12 out of, since most of their sales are for smaller sections.
So using old lumber or reclaimed lumber _is_ a good building material (unless the wood is rotted, which is less likely in old-growth than in new-growth, since old-growth is more resistant to rot in general).
The engineered wood is a totally different topic, and even though they need to use chemicals to get the wood pieces to bond together, there are other reasons why it's environmentally sound building practice to use this stuff. Instead of going on about that, I found this to explain more for those interested:
http://www.greenbuilder.com/general/articles/AAS.engmat.html
I wonder how much old growth lumber was salvaged from the convention center that was just razed. and its demolished neighbor, the commercial museum. anybody know?
.........
laserbeam�
[aka ray]
and now back to our regularly scheduled program, this old civic house.
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