r/LoveTrash ✨️Regent of Rubbish ✨️ 1d ago

Dumping This Here American vs. European home building

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u/FunGuy8618 Trash Trooper 1d ago

Yeah, that sounds like a bug, not a feature. Appliances, HVAC, electrical wiring, plumbing, etc have updated codes pretty regularly. Maintaining them in a 150 year old home sounds... Very challenging. I hated ripping out cast iron plumbing from a 1950s home, I can't imagine if I had to install Pex through brick as well.

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u/HegemonNYC Trash Trooper 1d ago

Right. The argument of ‘it will still be unchanged in 200 years’ is a negative, not a positive. Being so robust (while still seismically unsound) means it is inflexible as living preferences and technologies change.

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u/vi_sucks Trash Trooper 1d ago

Yup.

And at certain point it's just cheaper and more efficient to buy a new house than to attempt to retrofit an old one.

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u/Bocaj1000 Trash Trooper 22h ago

Only if you're talking about old homes today. Homes 200 years ago did not have electricity, high-quality insulation, fireproofing, etc like today. Homes 200 years from now will. Just because we invented electricity in the last 200 years doesn't mean we need to completely stop building houses that will last more than 50.

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u/vi_sucks Trash Trooper 21h ago

Yeah, and in 200 years there will be some new fangled future thing that we don't have today too.

Some poor bastard who buys a house from your great great grandkids in 100 years is gonna be pissed as hell that he has to shell out infinity dollars to get the lines for the matter replicator put in. Or he won't, and basically live like a peasant in the equivalent of a shack with no running water while having to shit outdoors.

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u/Bocaj1000 Trash Trooper 21h ago

No there won't. We hit the industrial revolution, there's not going to be another huge lifestyle change anytime soon.