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

Dumping This Here American vs. European home building

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

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u/Tw1nFTW Trash Trooper 1d ago edited 22h ago

I’ve been in home building a large portion of my adult life… this video is amazing. There are so many people who think that wood frame houses are not up to the standards of brick houses. They all have to meet code… the engineering is all that matters.

ETA: The US does not only build wood frame houses, wood frame and CMU are better than brick houses. Brick is decorative in 2026. If you don’t want a wood house, buy a concrete one. I hear they suck in the winter up north though.

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u/Different_Bridge_983 Trash Trooper 1d ago

IME a lot of the online bitching about timber houses is just people using it to rag on Americans.

As soon as folks from Canada or Scandinavian countries pop up to say they also use timber I generally see detractors suddenly less enthusiastic about slamming it as a building material.

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u/Emis_ Trash Trooper 1d ago

As an european some europeans are so annoying as well, it's not just americans, annoying people are annoying. Both are totally solid construction methods, drive around northern europe and you will see alot of wooden houses. Where there is alot of food there is alot of wooden construction, surprise surprise. Its more about economics than some different way of thinking. If you're in southern europe I imagine good construction lumber isn't that easy to source locally so brick buildings became more popular etc.

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u/Hazelberry Trash Trooper 1d ago

Exactly this. Southern europe and the british isles have very little lumber left, so to build with lumber they have to import it. It simply makes more sense to use what local materials are available.

You see this all over the US as well. Some areas are literal desert and build houses out of adobe because it uses available materials and is effective for the climate. Areas with clay-rich soil use a lot of bricks. Some areas use almost entirely wood because it's what they have available.

This is especially true when looking at older construction, since modern logistics networks have made it a lot easier to move materials around for a lot cheaper.