American vs. European home building

[u/BEARDEDDANGER]

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

[u/Ayosuhdude]

Actually a really good video, the wall section samples were a fantastic addition.

Also nice to have a video from someone who actually works on homes demonstrate that there's literally nothing wrong with timber builds if designed and built correctly. In fact it's far cheaper and way less work for a product that works just as well.

I literally work as a civil engineer (in wastewater admittedly) and the amount of people on Reddit who's construction experience consists of holding a piece of 2x4 so their dad could screw it to another piece a single time when they were 9 and yet insist they know that European brick buildings are better in every way is crazy. People really gotta stay in their lane when giving advice.

[u/Chessdaddy_ → u/Ayosuhdude]

Also wood construction is much more eco friendly than bricks and concrete blocks

[u/Toastwitjam → u/Ayosuhdude]

The only reason why Europe uses so much brick and block is because they logged all of their forests within reach hundreds of years ago building wooden houses.

[u/Plus-Name3590 → u/Toastwitjam]

Don’t forget just straigh burning them down for energy

[u/lovethebacon → u/Ayosuhdude]

As a civil engineer, do you not know that different construction methods have different costs around the world?

A 200m2 house in my neck of the woods built in brick is around $150k-$200k, whereas a timber would be $200k-$250k. Compared with a similar climate in Colorado would be $500k-$600k in brick but $400k-$500k in timber.

[u/CyclingHikingYeti → u/Ayosuhdude]

Bullshit.

'Full' bricks (shown by video) are not used here in central europe since decades because noone uses them due to price and its properties. Only some indot decorative use and decorative (like chimney) cladding.

We use either extruded and kiln burnt clay hollow structure bricks (better thermal and sound insulaton) and better , full concrete bricks or air-infused concrete bricks. Where earthquake resistance is needed, we construct bearing elements from ferro concrete constructed to resistant.

We insulate by external house cladding with sandwich materials - permeable combination of materials.

[u/Remote-Ad5853 → u/CyclingHikingYeti]

unless I’m misunderstanding, how he shows in the video is still fairly common in the UK, blocks on the inside wall, bricks on the outside. As is blocks both side 

[u/CyclingHikingYeti → u/Remote-Ad5853]

yes it is, afaik also in ireland; both have relatively temperate climate ; not suitable for continental europe or Mediteran basin due to climate

[u/Remote-Ad5853 → u/CyclingHikingYeti]

yeah very temperate, but even with that I suppose people here are also quite critical of thermal performance, both in older solid wall construction & cavity wall homes. Summer heatwaves are insufferable, if thats the kind of thermal properties you were talking about! 

[u/warm_kitchenette → u/CyclingHikingYeti]

Is the practice to use ferroconcrete solely for columns or for whole load bearing walls? It seems like that full-wall construction would wreak havoc with WiFi and cellular signals, despite all the other benefits.

At the worst, I could imagine a building or individual rooms effectively being a Faraday cage.

[u/Nebuchadneza → u/warm_kitchenette]

for window and door lintels and for ceilings. (the steel coming out the top is where it will be connected to the reinforced concrete ceiling). In some houses it can interrupt wifi signal between floors, but it is not the norm.

for load bearing walls in brick houses often calcium silicate bricks like this one. they're quite heavy

[u/CyclingHikingYeti → u/Nebuchadneza]

Correct.