Wood Paver Alley, Chicago 

Black Locust

magic

The old-timers say locust ( fence posts) last ten year longer than stone. Amazing wood. Apparantly Chicago has paved alley with wood for decades.

No adhesive or sealant. Sealant would rot the wood

I'll bet it was the "tax payer".

I don't think it would go that high. Most hardwoods around here are about 1.50 a board foot. Thos blocks look like 4x4x 6 or 4 bf each , so $6 each? That's rough sawn though , so yeah , they could be $10 or $12 bucks each. Yikes!

Wood is less slippery and is better for the environment. No engineering or manufacturing to produce a replacement block.

CUM2america It’s a common flooring for factories in Northern Europe too. When areas get stained or ruined somehow, it’s easy to just pull up those blocks and replace them.

@@barrymullets7028 Hessler Court in Cleveland's University Circle neighborhood is paved with wooden blocks.

I saw mr chickadee do a floor like this mortar the edges and sand in the cracks he was also hammering and stepping to tighten the floor up

@@ryanmccue8180 his floor was great! That was so labor intensive, froeing every single piece!

End grain is super durable

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Wrong. Locust wood is incredibly dense.

The trees are grown just for the purpose of being cut. Trees are a renewable resource, calm down.

the trees used here will allow water to percolate through instead of run off into the river and carry pollutants as typical asphalt or concrete does.

Dude, making this alley is more "eco friendly" than making all this Chinese mass produced crap most people use and buy on a daily basis. This kind of floor used to be very popular back in the days. New trees will grow on their place and such floor can stay in a great shape for a very long time, outliving our grandchildren.

@@xRoSkii The lifetime of the pavement can easily be comparable to the time it takes for the trees to grow. So you can sustain the wooden pavement indefinitely without running out of resources. Same cannot be told about asphalt, as you cannot "grow" new crude oil or basalt.

@@vajkfekete2635 Absolutely correct. In my area of northern NY state ,( USA) , locust trees grow like weeds beside the road and are not used commercially for anything. Yet.