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Myself and friends are using 200-400 year old growth jarrah in our building today - it was sourced from treefall in the 1980's, slabbed and stacked in sheds on farms for retirement.

Jarrah looks like:

https://youtu.be/jdBHtUN5gAE?t=217

and sounds like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGFqvOEL5bw

https://youtu.be/uKxAkfI2pNo?t=39

Jarrah was used to pave high traffic thoroughfares in London at the turn of last century.

Once our state stopped the wholesale clear felling of jarrah by europeans, we turned to harvesting regrowth:

    Jarrah is a sustainable, exclusively sourced from regrowth forests in Western Australia. Strict regulations are in place to ensure jarrah sustainability is managed in a way that balances ecological, economical socio-cultural factors.

    The guidelines and policies outlined in the The Forest Management Plan and the WA Regional Forest Agreement are regularly reviewed to ensure world-class standards are upheld. All native forests that are harvested in Western Australia are regenerated or replanted every year. Jarrah can be recycled and repurposed for other uses.

    Even though Jarrah is very sustainable timber, the West Australian Government has made the decision to ban logging any native timbers by the end of 2023.
So .. still being used, but not for much longer.


Seems like a real waste to use old growth jarrah to frame a house. Paneling sure, but for the frame?


Exposed beams with detailing look great, not to mention the milage you can get using hybrid techniques such as steel I-beams masked with long thin jarrah inserts.

Natural edged shelves, island tops, tables.

South-West W.Australia has a lot of old craft skills kicking about - I was in the midst of a crowd doing glass blowing, cabinet making, solid and ply shell drums when I was writing pre-Google Earth not exactly KeyHole geo spatial processing and display software and we'd often going out to retrieve all manner of wood and rock that was toppled or exposed by storms.

It's not just jarrah stashed away, there's also wandoo, granite slabs, numerous burls extracted .. and a lot put back in terms of replanting, cool burns, 'artifical' hollows, culling ferals, etc.


Jarrah is ludicrously heavy if memory serves. I had to move a load once and it was absolutely brutal. I'm not convinced it would float.

It looks incredible when oiled.


Jarrah is ludicrously heavy - around 75% denser than pine or fir.

I know this first hand, having once hit myself in the head with a 4" x 4" x 8ft piece of it while building a bed.




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