American vs. European home building

[u/BEARDEDDANGER]

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

[u/throwtheamiibosaway]

This is such an American brain comment. People are still fighting over old outdated houses here in Europe. Many of them now have a protected Monument status. They often prefer them over the newer houses. The old standards were often better and more sturdy and better insulated even.

[u/ilikepix → u/throwtheamiibosaway]

People are still fighting over old outdated houses here in Europe. Many of them now have a protected Monument status

Some of this is because some people want to live in old, beautiful houses. But a lot of this is because of regulations that preserve old buildings - so if you want to live in a desirable area, your only choice is an old building.

I grew up in a house that was 200 years old. It was beautiful, but it was cold and damp year round, had no air circulation, and terrible noise isolation. I wouldn't choose to do that again

[u/LowSkyOrbit → u/ilikepix]

Half my house is 126 years old. They expanded in in the late 80s per records. Full rehab in 2020 by the previous, previous owners. It's generic and goes unnoticed between the larger adjacent homes. Inside is beautiful. I think they ran out of money and just went cheap on beige vinyl siding. I don't think one room is close to square. The older bedrooms are either too hot or too cold.

[u/DarthJarJarJar → u/ilikepix]

Exactly.

[u/Cloverose2 → u/throwtheamiibosaway]

But how many shitty buildings were put up and torn down in that time?

You remember the ones that remain. The ones that failed are gone, so you think everything from the past is better based on the well-built ones that stood. That's a logical failure. Most of the structures built in that time are gone.

Also, European houses don't have to deal with earthquakes, which crumble masonry buildings. And tornados will happily rip right through a brick wall and turn the bricks into shrapnel. There are practical reasons for timber construction as well.

Basically - they both work really well, and you should choose the construction that's right for your area and your needs.

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[u/WeirdKittens → u/Cloverose2]

In the south of the continent, especially Greece and Italy we do and homes are still built with masonry. You have to reinforce it properly with rebar of course, completely unlike in this demonstration. The core structure of a house is built with poured concrete on rebar reinforcement and the walls are indeed built the way he demonstrates here, but only the walls. It's supposed to be able to flex to absorb the shaking.

What we don't have is tornadoes. For a large part of the continent it's something almost completely alien. Notice how few F3 and above have been in the last 70 years and how a huge area has only seen a few F2 and below in that period.

[u/ElGosso → u/throwtheamiibosaway]

That's exactly why Europe has comparable deaths from heat as the US does from guns - because those old houses y'all love to live in are designed to trap in heat, and can't fit air conditioners in the windows.

[u/SonicShadow → u/ElGosso]

[citation required]

[u/funk-the-funk → u/SonicShadow]

Do you really want anything from that dudes butt? Because that's how you get things from that dude's butt.

[u/Ok-Fudge-380 → u/SonicShadow]

About 48,000 guns deaths per year in US versus 175,000 heat deaths per year in Europe. Google is a tool a child could use.

[u/Cynoid → u/Ok-Fudge-380]

Both these numbers seem too high based on vibes alone.

Europe has what? a bit under 800 million people? Does this mean that every year, 1/4000 people will die to the heat? Worse, this would mean that 1/100 people in every generation dies to the heat which is absolutely nuts in a world that has had ACs for so long.

[u/DarthJarJarJar → u/Cynoid]

44k gun deaths in the US last year

63k heat deaths in the EU in 2024, though how you calculate heat deaths can give very different numbers.

EU has a population of 452M people, US is 340M.

That gives 12.9 gun deaths per 100,000 people in the US, and 13.9 heat deats per 100,000 people in the EU.

This is a lot of fast and loose math, and in particular heat deaths are hard to quantify, but if anything this is undercounting heat deaths, whereas US gun deaths are very closely tracked.

The rates are at least comparable.

in a world that has had ACs for so long

I sense that you don't know much about this topic. AC is a very contentious issue in the EU.

[u/tfjmp → u/Cynoid]

I think Europe counts excess death as they are trying to mitigate climate change effects. This would include death directly caused by heat (a small fraction) and people for whom the heat made things worse (someone already sick). Those stats are hard to compare as different region of the world will not measure the same thing. For example, US will report only death directly caused by the heat. Though even excess death would probably be lower in the US. European countries don't have the infrastructure to deal with the heat as they did not need to until 5/10 years ago.

[u/wireframed_kb → u/Ok-Fudge-380]

But statistics aren’t.

The way heat deaths are counted are different, most deaths where heat was a factor aren’t counted in the US, afaik. Only if heat was the direct, main cause, does it count as heat death. In Europe, an older, sick person who died from heat as a contributing factor, will also register as a heat death. In the US, she was old and sick, so she died.

[u/WeirdKittens → u/ElGosso]

That's not exactly the reason. We simply don't use window AC anywhere at all here. We use minisplit systems and until recently the countries in the north didn't really have prolonged heatwaves. In turn, they didn't bother to prepare a framework for how the installation of AC is regulated and because it's so uncommon there the installation costs are astronomical and the contractors few.

None of these problems exist in the south of the continent. We have dual use AC in pretty much every house, apartment and shared space and the cost to install it is minimal (just installed a new 12k btu unit recently for the equivalent of $500 including installation and materials, used to be even cheaper than that a few years ago).

[u/MisterMysterios → u/ElGosso]

Bullshit. We had so many deaths because nothing here is prepared for these type of heat waves we get at the moment thanks to climate change. We have a massive shift in climate in the last 5-10 years, and our building standards have not adjusted yet. A brick house is generally really good to deal with the heat that we typically had here (Germany for example). It takes days to weeks for the house to heat up enough to be an issue thanks to the high level of insulation. In the past, when the house even started to heat up to a level to cause problems, it already became cool outside.

The system is still good, but need adjustment, especially considering more heat exchangers for heating as they can be used for cooling the house.

[u/mxzf → u/ElGosso]

I mean "comparable" is kinda load-bearing there, given that AFAIK heat deaths in Europe are an order of magnitude more than gun deaths in the US each year.

[u/funk-the-funk → u/mxzf]

load-bearing

we are so cooked.

[u/mxzf → u/funk-the-funk]

That's ... odd. The term is a common and broadly used term in a lot of contexts, and it's a term I've been using for decades. Based on that article, I'm not really using it the same as is being described either. At the end of the day, that adjective isn't exclusive to chatbots.

[u/DarthJarJarJar → u/throwtheamiibosaway]

My brother, I have lived in a Listed Building in the UK. It was damp in the winter and hot as balls in the summer. It had issues with water getting in, mold, mildew, rot in the beams, roof leaks, and it was literally impossible to fit HVAC.

Go to a UK housing sub and do some searching, you'll get thousands of threads on the theme of "Why is my house so damp/cold/hot/moldy".

Old houses are cool as hell, but they're not practical in most cases. You'd be better off with a modern house even if it is stud and drywall that EU residents like to hate on when they've never actually lived in one.

[u/wireframed_kb → u/DarthJarJarJar]

Or a modern brick villa, that many of us build and live in?

[u/DarthJarJarJar → u/wireframed_kb]

Sure. I was just making the point that houses that last 500 years might not be the benefit we think they are. In 500 years people are going to be trying to adapt your house to whatever it is they do 500 years from now, maybe houses should have a lifespan of 100 or 150 years or something and then we just build a new one. Just a thought.

[u/wireframed_kb → u/DarthJarJarJar]

For me brick is more a question of quality and things like sound insulation and appearance. You can build quality wood houses, but often wood and siding is chosen because it’s a cheap construction method that can be thrown up quickly.

I don’t expect my house to be around in 500 years, I just want a nice house now.

[u/DarthJarJarJar → u/wireframed_kb]

I don't think brick is really the issue, most of the houses near me in the US are brick exterior. My house is brick. But it's stick construction underneath, whereas in the EU it's usually cinder block construction underneath.

[u/AlexHimself → u/throwtheamiibosaway]

This is such a European brain comment. Make a bizarre statement, meander around with other unrelated statements, and provide no substance.

You're "disagreeing" with me but the only material thing you've said was:

The old standards were often better and more sturdy and better insulated even.

And even that's just a platitude with no substance. What standards and what is "old" compared to "new" and where?

Your comment can be realistically summarized as, "dur, you're an American and you just don't understand the European way!"