Ancient houses were decorated with wooden structures. How did the ancients maintain their houses?

Most buildings in ancient China were wooden structures, but as we all know, wood has many disadvantages, which can't be solved well even today under modern industrial production. So how did the ancients manage the wooden houses and tools in ancient times when technology was not so developed?

Speaking of this, we must first talk about the columns and beams used by the ancients to build houses. The "column" we often say now refers to the columns and beams in the building structure. These two parts are the skeleton of the house, so they are the strongest and must not be damaged.

In ancient times, the wood used to make beams and columns was generally a big tree with a tree age of several decades, hundreds or even thousands of years. Therefore, the material of wood itself is very strong and not easy to be damaged. In addition, ancient people regularly brushed tung oil on wood. The function of tung oil is to prevent the wood from infiltrating into the water, which leads to the decay of the wood center, thus making the house dangerous.

Tung oil, like varnish in modern society, can play a maintenance role and is a very important maintenance step of wood structure.

In addition to the maintenance of tung oil, the structure of wood has a very easy problem, that is, insects eat, especially termites. We all know that termites like to nest in wood. Once termites grow on wood, the wood will be chewed up after a long time, which is very dangerous for wooden houses.

Therefore, ancient people would kill and expel termites by smoking. It is dried and ignited with a forage, and the smoke released is used to fumigate termites and kill eggs, thus protecting the wooden structure. It is with the wisdom of these ancient people that so many ancient wooden houses have survived today.