Fur on porch joists

[Mike Lamb]

I see this fur on floor joists beneath 100+ year old front porches often. I’m sure it’s wood fibers from years of water and oxidation but it’s peculiar. The wood is not rotting. Maybe someone has a scientific explanation?

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[hspinnler]

I don't know Mike. Decades of dogs or cattle using them as a back scratcher?

[John Kogel]

I don't know what it is, Mike, but if you can get that to grow on a human skull, I'll buy shares in your company. []

[kurt]

I see it all the time too. I have no idea what it is.

[Jim Katen]

Definitely not something I see around here, but Hank has a point. I see something like that on rough fence rails where cattle rub against them.

[kurt]

No, nothing rubbing on them. They're always under mildly dank porches, sometimes in crawlspaces.

It's moisture related, but I don't know what it is.

Probably mold.......yeah, that's it; it's mold.

[Jim Morrison]

No, nothing rubbing on them. They're always under mildly dank porches, sometimes in crawlspaces.

It's moisture related, but I don't know what it is.

Agreed. I see it every so often, but never quite that bad.

[kurt]

Some of the ones I see are almost as hairy as Jimmie's back.

[Jim Morrison]

I see our personal relationship has progressed to the stage where we feel comfortable commenting on each other's personal appearance. How nice. I've been looking for a way to gently tell you that short sleeves aren't flattering on men with little girl arms for at least the past ten years, but until today, I've been letting good manners hold me back.

[Bain]

Under what circumstances did Kurt see Jimmy's back? Or do we even want to know?

[gtblum]

Under what circumstances did Kurt see Jimmy's back? Or do we even want to know?

Why would ya? EEEEWWWW!

[kurt]

Hey, it's how we show each other the love........

On that note, how'd he know about my loincloth?

[Jim Morrison]

We kid. We kid because we love. Jeez, guys, we've got to toss a few bombs at each other every so often just to keep things light, don't we?

Admittedly, the loincloth was a guess, but an educated guess. Kurt IS the undisputed Dean of the University of Sexual Perversity, after all.

Your brother from another mother,

Jimmy

[Jim Baird]

I crawled under a porch of a 100+yr old farmhouse where two women and about five big dogs lived. The porch flooring was gapped for ventilation I guess, but the perimeter was latticed tight. Anyway the dog hair had been gently falling for several years and did not accrete onto the sides of the framing, but due to my belly crawl did waft up to fill the air and gag me.

[Angus]

I have seen this before, and everytime there has been a dog involved, including yellow lab hair under my own deck.

[gtblum]

It's shag bark pine. Very popular in the seventy's.

[Bill Kibbel]

It's not any type of animal hair and yes, it is quite common under very old porches.

It's called wood defibration and it's from the breakdown of the lignin between the fibers on the surface of the wood. It's usually from very slow, gradual decay. It can also be caused by salty air or salt used for melting ice.

It's also been called defibrosis, delignification and "hairy timber" rot.