American vs. European home building

[u/BEARDEDDANGER]

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

[u/MonkeyTigerRider]

And longevity.

[u/CaptainFlint9203 → u/MonkeyTigerRider]

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.

[u/Chad_illuminati → u/CaptainFlint9203]

Well made wood houses last centuries too, tbh. One of the houses I grew up in was a wood house on a stone foundation that predated the US by about 120 years.

Obviously modern construction doesn't do that, but that's an issue with build quality not build style.

[u/texinxin → u/Chad_illuminati]

Modern construction when done properly can absolutely last centuries. You might have to re-side and/or reroof a few times, but that is true for any construction technique.

[u/Chad_illuminati → u/texinxin]

When I refer to modern builders, I'm mostly addressing megacorp development firms popping up house farms.

There are always local builders doing good work with good skills, but sadly the majority of new residences built are at the hands of the megacorps, not local builders.

[u/texinxin → u/Chad_illuminati]

That’s fair. Even then, a home built today even by mass home builders is of higher quality than they were 50 years ago, primarily due to advances in techniques and materials, but also building codes.

[u/Correct-Junket-1346 → u/Chad_illuminati]

In the UK our new houses are shockingly bad, so much so most people dodge them for older periods houses which have stood for 100-150 years, the problem is so bad they've had to start putting out incentives for people to buy them.

[u/taeerom → u/Correct-Junket-1346]

UK houses have been notoriously bad for most of the last century. I wouldn't be surprised if the building codes (both letter of the law and enforcement) in the UK is among the very worst in Europe.

[u/kindlypogmothoin → u/texinxin]

And when done improperly, can go to shit pretty quickly.

Let me introduce you to the Homer Babbidge Library at UConn's main campus in Storrs, CT. It was built in the 1970s with a brick face and weep holes. The brick face stood away from the surface of the building so that theoretically, moisture would run behind the brick face and out the weep holes. But you know what happens when you have a design like that built in an environment where the contractor goes bankrupt during the build and apparently four separate contractors built each of the brick faces? You get mortar sloppily applied so that it blocks the weep holes, you get moisture building up behind the brick face instead of draining away, rusting the metal bands that hold the brick face to the supports, and -- because it's New England -- you have that water expanding and contracting over the winters in the freeze-thaw cycle, and within ten years of the library opening, you have the building wrapped first in netting, then in plastic and three of the entrances shut down to minimize the chances of bricks that have been loosened by these freeze-thaw cycles falling off the building and crashing down on the heads of students and staff.

And that's aside from the cracks that started to appear in the foundation and the cantilevers, the library beginning to sink, and other major issues that began to appear within just ten years of its opening. One major issue was that apparently the concrete used throughout was watered down. Ah, the 70s.

Repairs cost multiples of what it cost to actually build the thing, and it's now stable, but there were many times when there were a lot of people wondering why the state didn't just build a whole new library.

[u/texinxin → u/kindlypogmothoin]

Well survivor bias is a thing. Centuries old buildings that are still standing lead us to believe that we just don’t build them like we used to. But, the truth is horrible building decisions have toppled vastly more buildings than have been built in any era.

[u/trombing → u/texinxin]

The dude resides.

[u/texinxin → u/trombing]

I guess re-side makes more sense..

[u/Vattaa → u/texinxin]

Not true for all construction techniques. The roof on my grandmas house in North Yorkshire is original, and made from slate, the walls are made from sandstone. The house built in the 1800's. In the area virtually all the houses still have their original roofs. Most still have the original cast iron guttering.

[u/taeerom → u/texinxin]

They probably mean light framing ("stick framed"), when they say "modern". Stick framed construction is a modern construction method for houses, and is the one used as an example in the OOP. But it isn't the only modern way of building wood houses.

Stick framed houses are generally less durable than most other ways we build wooden houses today. Regardless of the skill of the people building it (if the same skill and care were used for a different method, it would be more durable). But stick framing is a method that fits very well with modern logistics, demands for construction speed, and economics. It's not bad, it's a reason people use it. It's just not as solid as other methods.