Since plastic doesn’t biodegrade, why aren’t more houses built with plastic instead of wood parts?

Question

Since plastic doesn’t biodegrade, why aren’t more houses built with plastic instead of wood parts?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Plastic degrades when exposed to UV light, which a building would be. Plastic also doesn’t like to hold up to consistent loading; even a slight weight, applied for a long time, will cause plastic to sag. That said, a lot of a building is plastic: the vinyl siding and flooring, the moisture barriers, the glues inside engineered lumber, the insulation; just not the structural elements.