David Brancaccio

And I'm looking for something that actually sucks in carbon dioxide.

It's called cross-laminated timber.

We're going to rebuild from wood.

That's surprising.

I know, given the fact that all the wood was consumed on my property.

This is big, thick wood pressed together.

It can be harvested from sustainable forests.

You can get the wood from culling smaller trees to allow the bigger trees to thrive and also to reduce the chance of forest fires.

There's a prefab angle to CLT.

and a small crew can frame in your house, including the ceiling, they say in a week.

And she's asking some of the same questions we're asking here.

How do we build homes that are stronger, smarter, and better suited to the next century?

I'm here to learn about this thing called cross-laminated timber, or CLT.

Let me make sure I got this right.

It's basically regular wood stacked and glued together in crisscross layers.

So it acts more like concrete, forming these big, solid panels you could use for walls, floors, and ceilings?

There's a prefab piece of this, not prefab in the sense of standardization, but a prefab in the sense of a lot of the work gets done in the factory setting, and then I guess it shows up on a truck?

Do you think I'm crazy?

for trying to use cross laminated timber to build a small single family home in the fire zone.

Wood burns.