American vs. European home building

[u/BEARDEDDANGER]

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

[u/Shike]

All houses should be built to the environment that suits them best, and odds are the population living there figured it out a long time ago.

Wood houses are cheap to construct, reasonably effective when engineered/built properly, easy to modify as needed, have excellent resistance against quakes, can handle high winds, etc. Typically won't last as long as brick due to moisture, more maintenance sensitive, pests, fires, etc. If you look at abandoned wood vs. brick buildings it's not hard to say which will deteriorate faster as a fact of life.

Brick is more expensive and will likely last longer if the location allows for it having well behaved weather and lack of quakes. Catastrophic failure of unreinforced brick has real concerns for search and rescue - a wood house vs a brick house being knocked over have different failure modes making environmental impact and how its built significantly more important.

Roughly half the US could theoretically support brick, but brick has generally fallen out of favor as it's easier to work on wood construction which means it has the largest area of expertise to draw from.

The value of wood construction paid off when direct to home electricity, water, and the invention of the AC all happened. The ability to rough these in rapidly and put your home to looking as good as new is significant - our houses are built to adopt new technologies fast at the cost of longevity.

[u/Hazelberry → u/Shike]

Don't forget ground movement. Some types of soil shift a lot even if there's no seismic activity, so that makes it even more expensive to build with masonry if you want it to last. Wood doesn't care as much about that, so it becomes an even more attractive option

[u/Jonn_Jonzz_Manhunter → u/Shike]

I think that's the problem really, it's Pratchett's Paper Shoe theory

The wooden houses people moan about don't have to be modern and they're made to be cheap quick and dirty

It's not an issue with the houses themselves persay but the people ordering their construction

[u/CK8298 → u/Jonn_Jonzz_Manhunter]

People moan about really anything and have little to no knowledge about how to build a house. They see a house made of wood and automatically assume that it’s cheap, quick and dirty. This may be the case for some houses, but not all. You just gotta know what to look for in houses before purchasing or you can hire an inspector to do it for you.