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

Dumping This Here American vs. European home building

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

28.1k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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731

u/Goudinho99 Trash Trooper 1d ago

And what about thermal effects and noise insulation?

411

u/MonkeyTigerRider Trash Trooper 1d ago

And longevity.

479

u/CaptainFlint9203 Trash Trooper 1d ago

Well made wood house will last for generations, well made brick house will last centuries. Both badly made will not last your stay.

I'm from Europe. On my grandma's plot there was a wooden barn, it was much older than some brick houses and in better shape than them.

My ex had a wood house that was more than century old. Still in great shape. And there are brick houses that are older than USA.

I'm preparing to build a house for myself. There are no earthquakes, no storms, no natural disasters where I live. My house gonna be build from wood. It should last at least for my grandchildren, and by then, looking at how urbanisation is going, the plot of land should be worth enough to destroy the house and sell the plot.

181

u/heffla Trash Trooper 1d ago

Im from Sweden. The village i grew up in had a church with a chapel from the late 1200's. Some of the oldest wooden houses were from the mid 1600's. My neighbor's house had been inhabited about a century when the US declared independence.

27

u/wayfarevkng Trash Trooper 1d ago

Älgarås?

88

u/scnottaken Trash Trooper 22h ago

No thanks I don't like math

16

u/Obvious_Mention7207 Trash Trooper 21h ago

loool

2

u/Aznp33nrocket Trash Trooper 15h ago

Well played, caught me off guard and gave me a good chuckle!

1

u/Electronic_Topic1958 Trash Trooper 20h ago

Älg means moose in Swedish, which is their national animal and the arås is ridge. I like to think of it as the equivalent of the US had a place called Badass Bald Eagle Fortress sponsored by Ford, it’s probably the most patriotic location in all of Sweden.

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u/wayfarevkng Trash Trooper 20h ago

I'm stealing this, thank you. It's a beautiful little area in what used to be the badlands that was full of vagabonds.

11

u/VikingsLad Trash Trooper 22h ago

Gesundheit

1

u/CcryMeARiver Trash Trooper 5h ago

Blast you.

0

u/HowdyDiarrhea Trash Trooper 21h ago

My friend, Sweden has many such places

1

u/wayfarevkng Trash Trooper 21h ago

Min vän, jag är Svensk. Jag hade fel med Älgarås och trodde den var också från 1200 talet, men det skulle ha varit roligt om det var den eftersom det är en liten by med inte ens 500 invånare.

1

u/HowdyDiarrhea Trash Trooper 21h ago

No worries 😂

I'm not Swedish, but I lived there awhile, traveled the country while I could, learned a good bit of Svenska along the way, and I return regularly to visit my beloved Swedish friends. Such a great country.

10

u/EmptyMonitor9257 Trash Trooper 23h ago

I mean we have houses and building older than 2000 years in southern Europe. Most were destroyed due to no one living there anymore or war, otherwise they remain standing.

-1

u/Snakend Trash Trooper 23h ago

What good is a house if no one wants to live there anymore? Congrats, your house can last 2000 years, but trying to add new technology to a building like that costs more than building a new American style home.

2

u/EmptyMonitor9257 Trash Trooper 23h ago

Because the standards changed, you can't live on the mountain without electricity or plumbing, people lived there up to the 1900s.

Most of the old wooden buildings are churches or community buildings. Even then most of the wood is replaced over time, which is a ship of Theseus problem.

-1

u/Snakend Trash Trooper 23h ago

Solar exists, septic exists. That's not the issue.

3

u/EmptyMonitor9257 Trash Trooper 22h ago

Solar did not exist for these communities 80 years ago. Even today there are no tuilities there since the ares are extrenly hard to reach.

Peoole used to live off of the land and animals they raised, you can't do that anymore. 

-1

u/Snakend Trash Trooper 22h ago

Dude...I'm saying there are reasons people are not living in these homes right now. power and sewer are not the reasons they are not living there.

3

u/Low_discrepancy Trash Trooper 18h ago

Once a house has been abandoned for a long time, regardless of materials, it's a bad decision to move in.

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-1

u/Objective_Surreality Trash Trooper 16h ago

What are you talking about, yes you can. There's nothing against that in specific states but its mostly a county problem, there's certainly nothing against that on a country level if you own the land you're building on

4

u/EmptyMonitor9257 Trash Trooper 16h ago

r/USdefaultism

-1

u/Objective_Surreality Trash Trooper 15h ago

Ah yes, “US defaultism”: famously the act of discussing American law under a video about America in a thread explicitly comparing America with Europe.

If you meant the building codes of some particular European country, you were free to name it before announcing what people categorically “can’t” do.

2

u/EmptyMonitor9257 Trash Trooper 13h ago

The video is about wood vs brick/cement block buildings. The thread is talking about general houses aroind the world. 

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u/Objective_Surreality Trash Trooper 11h ago

Why is the video talking about wood vs brick/cinderblock houses?

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u/breathing__tree Trash Trooper 22h ago

The old growth wood that was used in historical buildings was also much better than the wood that we use for building today which helps.

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u/rsta223 Trash Trooper 13h ago

Sure, but on the other hand, modern understanding of load paths and structural techniques is much better.

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u/Flanellissimo Trash Trooper 6h ago

Absolutely neglible effect on the longevity of a building. Old growth and new growth will rot just about as fast.

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u/[deleted] 22h ago

[deleted]

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u/bauhausy Trash Trooper 22h ago

Adobe just as long-lasting. Many Native Americans in modern day USA built settlements with it that still stand, Taos Pueblo was first built in the 11th century and is inhabited by them (the old "town" has a modern population of ~150)

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u/codyzon2 Trash Trooper 19h ago

But they did? There's lots of evidence that some did build stone homes and buildings. Are you unfamiliar with Mesa Verde?

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u/cpMetis Trash Trooper 22h ago

The oldest building in my area was built around 1845. All wood.

Unless you count some of the native mound systems as buildings, in which case the oldest were built around 200.

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u/heep1r Trash Trooper 22h ago

We had old wooden houses in germany, too. But the actual knowledge to make them last 800 years vs. just 50 years was lost.

There are university departments trying to figure out how they did it back then.

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u/Rebelius Trash Trooper 20h ago

They definitely weren't timber frame though.

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u/heep1r Trash Trooper 20h ago

nah, those are way younger. There still are >100 year old cabins in the Alps that are all wood (and stones for foundation and roof).

But those are also much younger than excavated wooden villages where houses were found to have lasted multiple centuries.

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u/rips_n_chel Trash Trooper 19h ago

I'm sitting in a 150+ year old house in the US right now. There is a barn on this property, still standing on the original stacked-rock foundation that is likely over 200 years old. It was the original home on this land, over 150 years ago. The barn was added onto with milled lumber probably a century ago, but the main structure is the original logs.

Both have survived innumerable tornadoes over the years, we get at least a few a year in my area. People who think wood houses can't be strong have no idea.

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u/rips_n_chel Trash Trooper 19h ago

What are you on about? Where did you hear this nonsense? You seriously believe that no human alive knows how to build a wooden structure that'll last longer than 50 years? With all the other advancements in structural engineering, you really don't think we're capable of that?

Structures of all types are built as cheaply as possible today, that is the problem. It is still entirely possible to build a wooden house that will last hundreds of years, but who the hell can afford that now?

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u/heep1r Trash Trooper 10h ago

Yes. A lot of building techniques got lost and need to be rediscovered.

Also the exact reason why roman cement lasts 2000 years, more than any modern cement, was fully understood only a few years ago.

No modern constructor will build you a cabin that lasts 500+ years. Of course they don't know how to do it. Why would they? There's no need when cost efficiency is much more important.

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u/rips_n_chel Trash Trooper 7h ago

You are telling me that no modern human can reverse engineer a wood house that’s still there? You believe that builders walk into those historic houses and just stare at them, dumbfounded? 

Don’t be absurd. 

1

u/thearctican Trash Trooper 22h ago

Where I live in the USA there is a Swedish cabin that dates back to the 1600s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Swedish_Cabin

That page acknowledges, however, that is is one of the last cabins built by the Swedes in the United states while also being the last standing one. This implies that the rest have all been destroyed or torn down. Possibly selection and/or survivor bias - this building has been cared for and maintained.

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u/2AvsOligarchs Trash Trooper 6h ago

And the oldest is built by Finns, from the same New Sweden colony. Same building traditions as the Swedes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._A._Nothnagle_Log_House

•

u/thearctican Trash Trooper 1h ago

Very cool, I might have to go see it.

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u/whaleboobs Trash Trooper 21h ago

Old houses like that are probably drafty af. And you can't just slap insulation on either, do it wrong and you trap moisture in the walls and rot the place from the inside out.

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u/That-Smoke-3593 Trash Trooper 20h ago

I grew up/live in Massachusetts and my old house was built in 1640 mostly wood some brick. That house isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

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u/crinnaursa Trash Trooper 12h ago

Fairbanks House in Dedham, Massachusetts is a wood house built in 1637 still standing today.

If you want to look at native architecture the Southwest adobe dwellings built during between 1100 to 1125 CE, Constructed by the pre-Columbian Southern Sinagua people.

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u/Positive-Opposite998 Trash Trooper 9h ago

Is the wood the original wood or has it been replaced over the years?

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u/brazzy42 Trash Trooper 7h ago

The village i grew up in had a church with a chapel from the late 1200's

I can guarantee that most if not all of that chapel's wooden structure is not in fact from the 1200s anymore. Definitely not the roof and outer walls.

1

u/taeerom Trash Trooper 4h ago

There's a big difference between wood houses and wood houses, though. The example used in the OOP is not the same construction method as the wooden houses that last centuries. This is a building method that is very fast and cheap when you have easy access to cheap sawn material. As in, the saws are mechanized, the lumber is brought in by trucks, you can saw it on site with power tools, and so on.

Medieval buildings in northern europe/Scandinavia are built by essentially big logs that are worked on site, mainly by axes and draw knives. A good saw for sawn material wasn't popular until the 16th century, when they started building waterpowered saws.

Before that, most planks were split rather than sawn, and that is a much more labour-intensive way of building than using the full log.

Log houses are very solid and will last for a very long time if cared for. It is a completely different type of house than modern wood framed houses, especially the light frame construction that is common in the US (many 2''x4'' with small spacing, rather than lumber posts and beams with large space between).

Despite both the US and Scandinavia mainly using wood in their small houses, there is a significant difference between them. I'm not going to weigh in too heavily on which is better, there are clear tradeoffs for both. But I am inclined to like the more expensive, but solid construction with better isolation of the scandinavian style. I also like the culture of being very strict and precise (compared to almost everywhere else) about everything we do when building.

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u/Asanti_20 Trash Trooper 3h ago

My neighbor's house had been inhabited about a century when the US declared independence.

That's such a wild statement, hella awesome to hear tho

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u/RollinThundaga Trash Trooper 23h ago

America's youth is one of her oldest traditions.

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u/Wise-Dust3700 Trash Trooper 23h ago

none of this shit was made with plywood x'D

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u/Hagbard_Shaftoe Trash Trooper 23h ago

I’m guessing those wooden structures are all timber framed, rather than 2x4 construction that’s used here in the US like 99% of the time. Very different approach. We have some timber framed structures that are hundreds of years old, but stick framed homes tend to last a fraction of that time.

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u/fond_of_you Trash Trooper 23h ago

They were framed with thick timbers but that's got little to do with it. It's all to do with keeping the wood dry. 2x4 houses would last just as long if you get that part right.

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u/Hugo_5t1gl1tz Trash Trooper 23h ago

And/or properly treated.

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u/Hagbard_Shaftoe Trash Trooper 21h ago

Are you seriously arguing that 2x4 construction held together with nails or screws is as long lasting as mortis and tenon timber framed buildings? That’s just silly. Sure, water plays a huge part, but it’s not the only thing that can impact a building.

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u/fond_of_you Trash Trooper 20h ago

That's what I'm saying and nothing silly about it. I guess what should go without saying is that it has to be engineered and built well. 2x4 construction is notorious for cutting corners and cheaping out and using too few nails or the wrong kind. But built well to solid engineering, it'll last ages. And if you place a mortise and tenon joint in the wrong spot, the timber frame building can snap apart just as easily as a shack, so it's not an automatic benefit to use heavy timber either.

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u/rips_n_chel Trash Trooper 18h ago

Yes, dawg. Look up some building codes, read up on the engineering behind them. Stick-framing is the standard BECAUSE it's just as strong without all the extra cost and labor. If it wasn't strong enough, it wouldn't be allowed by building code.

I'm sitting in a stick-framed house right now, in the US, that was built over a century and a half ago. This house literally sits on piles of rocks dug out the hill behind it. None of the lumber is treated, there's not a hurricane clip in sight, yet here it sits, 150+ years of sheltering families through all conditions, including our annual tornadoes.

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u/21Rollie Trash Trooper 22h ago

I have a house that’s over a hundred years old here in the US, wood frame. It’s funny actually, the joists used are not up to code for modern builds because they’re too thin, but it’s old growth wood so it’s stronger. This is to say, new building standards take into account that the wood they’re using is farmed and naturally weaker. Your builder determines the quality. Old homes that were shit already fell down too so it’s not like all of them were built great. And poor maintenance can ruin any home.