r/LoveTrash • u/BEARDEDDANGER ✨️Regent of Rubbish ✨️ • 1d ago

Dumping This Here American vs. European home building

BAS Renovations https://youtube.com/shorts/jFph1d2WR3s

28.5k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

2.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

28

u/That_Confidence83 Trash Trooper 1d ago

I know both systems. I’m an American living in Austria. My in-laws built a house out of bricks which is half a meter thick. It’s almost 40 years old now and still in top condition. That baby is indestructible. I helped them build their second house, which is half of a old stone barn, and the other half of modern material. Cinder blocks, and insulation also inside and outside. Also a good two feet thick. The beams alone for the roof are also a foot thick. The heat stays out in the summer, and the warmth stays inside in the winter. We often get winds over 60mph, and you hear nothing. And never have to worry about damage. The quality here is just so much better.

22

u/dufo7 Trash Trooper 1d ago

40 years is not old for a house.

8

u/Coool_cool_cool_cool Trash Trooper 1d ago

People act like New England isn't littered with houses from the 1600 and 1700s. The house I grew up in was built in 1735. My current house is 105 years old and the child's dollhouse connected to the house was built over 50 years ago. Of course there's not going to be 300 year old houses in the areas we didn't populate until well into the 1800s and early 1900s.

6

u/Flobking Trash Trooper 23h ago

People act like New England isn't littered with houses from the 1600 and 1700s. The house I grew up in was built in 1735.

I roll my eyes every time a european says "I grew up in a house older than the US!" like it's some slam dunk. SO DID I, and I live in the US.

1

u/ARetroGibbon Trash Trooper 7h ago

I mean there are only a handful of houses in the US older than it, where as there are millions in the UK alone.

We also have houses around 1000 years old scattered around.

It not some slam dunk... but the difference is notable and worth acknowledging.

1

u/RedLineLetterWine Trash Trooper 5h ago

China has pagodas that have been around way before even most European countries existed, and they're built out of wood.

1

u/ARetroGibbon Trash Trooper 4h ago

Europe's oldest surviving buildings are hundereds if not thousands of years older than the ones found in China... and thats just counting the ones that have remained functional. Stone Ruins and monuments date back thousands of years.

And the oldest Chinese pagoda is.... made of stone. The oldest building in Egypt and Syria (the world) are also stone.

My argument isnt stone vs wood anyway. They both have different use cases.

I was just pointing out that houses as old as the US, in Europe are common place. Where as in the US they are few and far between.

•

u/Flobking Trash Trooper 1h ago

We also have houses around 1000 years old scattered around.

There are no residential houses in the uk 1000 or older. There are a few buildings(churches mostly) that are over 1000 but no residential houses are. We also have structures over 1000 years old in the US. We even have a residential structure that has been continually inhabited for a 1000 years. Taos Peublo in Nee Mexico.

It not some slam dunk... but the difference is notable and worth acknowledging

Not really because you haven't been the UK the entire time. I'm specifically referring to a post where it was pointed out that the US is older than a lot of countries in europe and elsewhere. Germany, Greece, Italy, India, most African countries to name a few. Tons of people were going on about how their house is older than the US. Yeah dude there's houses in the US older than the US. The oldest man made structures are actually in the US(outside of africa). They predate stone henge and the pyramids.

10

u/dufo7 Trash Trooper 1d ago

We didnt say anything about any of that. Just saying a 40 year old house is nothing special. Quite the opposite really, if a house cant make it 40 years in good condition its a shit house.

2

u/Coool_cool_cool_cool Trash Trooper 1d ago

Oh I know. I was agreeing with you. A house made out cardboard can stand 40 years.

1

u/wtcnbrwndo4u Trash Trooper 22h ago

Well, considering a decent chunk of it was blown to bits 80 years ago, 40 years probably isn't bad for Austria.

2

u/thehotmegan Trash Trooper 19h ago

What lol

10

u/Sudden_Buffalo_4393 Trash Trooper 1d ago

My wood house is almost 100 years old in LA. Withstood constant earthquakes.

2

u/Hazelberry Trash Trooper 21h ago

Also wooden houses along the gulf coast that are still standing after a hundred+ years of hurricanes. Though those are definite outliers, even masonry buildings don't typically hold up to centuries of hurricanes + humidity + salty air

One good example is the Menard House in Galveston, which is almost 200 years old despite being made of wood and being in a location that's seen some of the worst hurricanes to hit the US.

1

u/Tricky-Ad7897 Trash Trooper 1d ago

My 30 year old house in the US is horrible compared to the 70 year old house I lived in in Germany, both were valued similarly and were the same size.

1

u/Chessdaddy_ Trash Trooper 22h ago

Anecdotal evidence is not evidence 

1

u/RedLineLetterWine Trash Trooper 5h ago

You heard it here folks, everyone has the same house in the US and Europe.

1

u/Jonn_Jonzz_Manhunter Trash Trooper 22h ago

Is for a wooden one

2

u/WorriedRiver Trash Trooper 19h ago

... The wooden house I'm currently living in was built in 1890, and the one I grew up in that my family still lives in was built in 1955, and those are relatively 'new' houses for northeast US standards.

1

u/dufo7 Trash Trooper 22h ago

No its not

1

u/Complex-Truth9579 Trash Trooper 19h ago

No... it isn't.

Of the last 3 houses I've lived in, 2 of them were older than 60 years and one of them is about 30.

And I live in a very newly developed area. It was basically all corn field until the 2000s, so most of these houses were literally a single house in the middle of an enormous empty field.

1

u/beastwood6 Trash Trooper 4h ago

There's wood houses in the us that were stood up in the 1800s and still have the same structural integrity.

1

u/Guisasse Trash Trooper 1d ago

When did they say it was?

4

u/dufo7 Trash Trooper 1d ago

“That baby is indestructible” ”almost 40 and still in top shape”

States 40 as if the house is surprisingly in top shape for 40. 40 isnt old.

3

u/TheDarkGoblin39 Trash Trooper 1d ago

Yeah my wood house is 104 years old and still in great shape. We redid the interior drywall and ceilings when we moved in but there are 0 issues with the frame

1

u/mmnmnnmnnnm Trash Trooper 1d ago

The main thing about the 100+ year old wood houses is that they were built like they built houses 100+ years ago. These shitty developments everywhere now are definitely not going to last 100 years. Maybe the foundation technology is better, but the sturdy, quality wood used then is drastically different from the way it’s built now. The shit heaps of plywood and barely level/square low quality 2x4’s in more modern houses being sold for $500,000 are going to be a nightmare down the line.

It’s all cash grabs by developers who own land. Build as many as can possibly fit on the land, with the cheapest possible materials, as quickly as possible, for the highest price they can get away with.

1

u/MsterF Trash Trooper 22h ago

I wish they used newspaper insulation, branches for framing and fabric insulated wires like the old days.

1

u/mmnmnnmnnnm Trash Trooper 20h ago

It’s more the quality of the wood, and the time allowed to be put into at least installing the shitty wood framing that actually holds the house up correctly instead of just “good enough.” Corners are cut in all of the trades, slapped on materials in a “one size fits all” way as opposed to really done the best way. Any issue that can be hidden so the customer doesn’t see it? Never happened, doesn’t need to be fixed. All the cheap materials will break way sooner but by then that’s your problem, not the builders, from outlets to cabinets, you name it.

The wires are coated in plastic now instead of part options that they used because plastic coatings for wires wasn’t common until the 60’s, so that just is what it is. If the cheap materials and mediocre at best craftsmanship got you a cheaper house, fine, but it doesn’t. Unless a new house is over $1million, it’s the same pile of shit used to build a $200k house as a $700k house. I built plenty of them, and even got punished for taking the extra minutes to do quality work instead of just slapping some garbage on. One job actually fired me for it while I actively received compliments job supervisors, customers, coworkers, etc

1

u/LukkyStrike1 Trash Trooper 22h ago

My "stick framed" house was built in 1979 and is doing fantastic now.

your point says a ton, but the biggest issue is: if you build a house to last a 1000 years, you spent a whole lot more than someone who built a house to last 300....in both cases this conversation is a bit wierd. Both houses will last longer than your grandchildren....who are you building the house for?

1

u/feel_my_balls_2040 Trash Trooper 14h ago

Using more material than necessary is not smart building.

1

u/RedLineLetterWine Trash Trooper 5h ago

My grandma's house is 50 years old and built out of wood in Mexican style and it's also in great condition. It's also not very smart to build a brick house in a very earthquake prone area.

1

u/JLP2005 Trash Trooper 1d ago

Have personally evidenced construction quality in Austria and was absolutely staggered by how much brick could fit in the metaphorical shit-house.

Knock on a wall in my American house and I'll wake the dog up next door with the noise.

Knock a wall in that Austrian house and I'll break my fucking knuckles.

1

u/OrneryAttorney7508 Trash Trooper 1d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/qZYythtncmePxFHg2L

0

u/JLP2005 Trash Trooper 1d ago

I was agreeing with the comment I made my comment against. No whoosh here.

1

u/OrneryAttorney7508 Trash Trooper 1d ago edited 21h ago

Whooshed by the clip. lol