About 87% of the country’s multifamily construction used wood framing in 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Builders used steel framing, wood’s closest competitor, about 4% of the time, with concrete, concrete insulated forms and other framing methods making up the balance.
Therefore, earlier this month, when the city council in Sandy Springs, GA, decided to ban wood construction more than three stories high and larger than 100,000 square feet as of Aug. 16, that curve ball took the industry by surprise, particularly since there has been an uptick in high-rise planning using all wood.
