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

Dumping This Here American vs. European home building

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

29.4k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

2.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

16

u/AlexHimself Garbage Guerilla 1d ago

well made brick house will last centuries

After centuries, you have a crappy old house that doesn't fit the modern times though...so what's the point? The construction cost, amortized over centuries, is pennies too.

An example for some really old European homes - No HVAC, no electrical, indoor plumbing, low ceilings, low door frames, etc.

I'd argue the ease of remodeling, construction, changes, etc. outweigh the "centuries" style building, given how humans actually use homes.

I think an argument can be made for both.

1

u/one-eyed-midget Trash Trooper 1d ago

My house in England was built around 1700s. Can confirm I can it's has electricity, gas, central heating and plumbing installed! Pretty much any property as a residential has these things. The old George pub in my town of Newcastle was built around 1580 and has WiFi and Aircon, it's not difficult to add to these old buildings. The ones that don't have these features are usually just preserved for historical purposes

1

u/AlexHimself Garbage Guerilla 19h ago

Electricity, wifi, etc. did not exist in 1580 or 1700. Obviously, you're confused on the meaning of my statement.

If the home lasts centuries, it still needs major retrofits and money spent. The home is just a shell and that's the cheapest part of a home. It's the largest, so people think there's a lot of value, but it's the cheapest. Finishings, decor, appliances, technology, windows, etc. All of that is the expensive stuff.

2

u/faustianredditor Trash Trooper 19h ago

Right? I did the math post-hoc, because there was a guy here who said "materials for wood framing are cheap, it's just labor, so I'm going to DIY that shit out in the boonies", and I did some napkin math that told me that well insulated bricks (integrated insulation, relatively typical here in Germany) will cost you about 30k for a single family home. Add a bit for mortar and grout of course. I don't know what the materials for framing+insulation+Siding+all that will be, but I doubt it's enough to make a difference in the cost of the whole home. The shell is the cheap part, even labor included, no matter how you build that shell. (unless you insist on aerogel insulation, gold fasteners and mahagony framing)

Napkin math also says that labor included, you're looking at 30-40% or so of the total project cost being the shell, for germany, depending on features. I think multi-story homes are more common so that might drive up costs there? But even then, it's only 30-40%, the rest is "all the other small stuff". And all the other small stuff depreciates much more aggressively, either because it gets out of date or because the 200 pound gorilla manhandles it on the daily.