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My last house was built in ~1936. It was cheap for the time, but the entire estate of houses it sat in was complete - virtually nothing had been removed. The fo

My last house was built in ~1936. It was cheap for the time, but the entire estate of houses it sat in was complete - virtually nothing had been removed. The form of the buildings had changed somewhat (extension for bathroom instead of toilet in the garden), but the brick walls were incredible and the internal timberwork (joists, frames, etc.) was all hardwood of a quality that would be very expensive now. My current house was built in ~1985. The brick quality isn't bad, the walls are much straighter, but the wood is cheaper and the materials thinner and lighter. It might be the case this place will last 100 years, but I wouldn't bet on it. It's a middle market house, for the time, not cheap but not high end. While survivor bias is important, where I live (London) the main reason houses from 100 years ago aren't around now is simply the war. The stuff from then that's still about - including "cheap" factories and other stuff - is now wildly fashionable and still well-built. Stuff built in the 50s was laughably awful and a lot is gone, stuff from 60s and 70s is going the same way. There are definitely other things going on.

jfoutz 11y ago
It's also interesting to see 2x4s that are actually 2 inches by 4 inches
danieltillett 11y ago
I think one thing is buildings are now are built closer to their required engineering tolerances. In the past many building were massively over engineered, while modern buildings seem to be built for their exact expected lifespan. The one thing I really hate about most modern buildings here in Australia is the ceiling height has been reduced. A lot of modern buildings have ceiling heights around 7’ while old buildings will have ceilings of 10’ to 12’.
- computer 11y ago
  Ceiling heights of 7 feet? Are you sure? Many tall people would only just fit upright...
  - nikatwork 11y ago
    7' is accurate for many new Housing Estate houses eg AV Jennings. The buildings all look similar except for roof color. It's very disorientating. My house is 1860s with a 12' ceiling. Those other places feel like claustrophobic rabbit holes in comparison. Low ceilings minimize material costs and maximize profits.
    - redcalx 11y ago
      > Low ceilings minimize material costs and maximize profits. They also minimise heat loss, which is strictly regulated in the UK. Hence that other annoying feature of many modern build - tiny windows.
      - oh_sigh 11y ago
        Why is heat loss regulated? Shouldn't I be able to heat my home as much or as little as I want?
        mrec 11y ago
        The regulation is about energy efficiency of new-build construction, not how much you have your heating on. Partly it's a green thing, partly it's pragmatic, in that the UK has failed to invest in serious power generation for decades and faces the real possibility of brownouts in the not too distant future. Plants are approaching EOL and they haven't been building new capacity to replace them. They've thrown a bunch of money at wind, but I think that's been more of a handout to (traditionally Conservative-voting) landowners than a viable strategy.
        speeder 11y ago
        UK STILL don't fixed those issues? UK since middle ages was already infamous for having cities (specially london, but not just london) that have energetic problems and rely a lot on coal (and now other fossil fuels), leading to the infamous killer fogs, and to the victorian fashion (in victorian era, people tried to use stuff that would not have issues in a highly polluted air, for example extremely thick and dark curtains, so that people don't notice you aren't washing them a lot...)
- fweespeech 11y ago
  Are you 100% sure its 7'? There are a number of people [if small percentage wise] that are 7'.
  - jonnathanson 11y ago
    Seriously. And it's not just the seven-footers who'd have issues. I'm 6'3, and I'd feel claustrophobic in a home with 7' ceilings. I'm above average in height, but, like, not wildly so. I certainly don't think I'm an outlier or anything.
    - garrettgrimsley 11y ago
      Assuming you are a male in the USA you are in the 95th percentile [0] by height. And if you are 7 feet tall then you don't need to worry about low ceilings in council housing because you are probably an NBA [1] player. [0] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr010.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr010.pdf [1] http://www.truthaboutit.net/2012/05/true-or-false-half-of-all-7-footers-are-in-the-nba.html http://www.truthaboutit.net/2012/05/true-or-false-half-of-al...
  - jonknee 11y ago
    It would make for an interesting ADA claim...
- tobico 11y ago
  Shorter ceilings are better for climate control, though. No need to heat up a bunch of air that just floats around over your head.
  - feedjoelpie 11y ago
    This is only true if your climate makes it more expensive to heat the building than to cool it.
  - jonknee 11y ago
    Not a huge concern in most parts of Australia... Having high ceilings (and fans) is actually an advantage.
  - prodmerc 11y ago
    It's the opposite in countries with a hot climate - high ceilings make ventilation (without an AC) better.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  That opens the question of expected lifetime of a house though. The interior might need to be ripped out and plumbing or sewage etc retrofitted, but in plenty of cases there is simply no reason why the foundation, framing, or other things can't be retained. Which, given the value of high quality timber, seems like a goal worth striving for, rather than disposable houses.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    From a purely economic perspective a building that lasts more than 50 years is probably not worth doing. In theory you could invest the initial savings and replace the whole building in 50 years from the income. The downside of pushing the engineering to the limit is the builders often cut corners to make their own savings so that the building does not even make 50 years. Plenty of new buildings here in Australia are having major structural issues after only 5 to 10 years because of this.
    - gluggymug 11y ago
      Agreed. I was a victim of this in my former home in Adelaide. It was a newly built townhouse complex so we were a body corporate. Within 4 years of building completion, we were suffering from rising damp and completely loose paving in the shared driveways. The paving was too high relative to the damp proof course and the base wasn't prepared properly. It took a couple of years of legal stuff to claim on the building warranty. Having been through this, I now are more acutely aware of how dodgy new building are around Australia. New apartments especially.
      - danieltillett 11y ago
        There is no way I would ever buy a new apartment. One of my friends is a builder and the number of horror stories he tells me about current building practices is near endless.
      - Khaine 11y ago
        It is absolutely criminal how much we let builders get away with, and since building inspectors are no longer independent (the builder pays for them) everything is stacked against home-buyers these days
- ams6110 11y ago
  High ceilings help when you don't have air conditioning. They are nice aesthetically but unnecessary and even detrimental (more air volume to cool) when you have it.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    The same argument can be made against windows. High ceilings not only avoid the need for air conditioning (my home has 11' ceilings and no air conditioning), they make you feel better in the space. When I am in a building with low ceilings I feel totally claustrophobic and tense - this is not something I want to feel in my own home.
    - roel_v 11y ago
      Modern windows can be made very energy efficient. In fact, it's possible to design an almost all-glass energy-neutral house in much of Western Europe.
  - olau 11y ago
    Feels like nitpicket but: volume of air is in itself not a problem. There's not a whole lot of energy in air. The issue with heating/cooling is the surface area. With active heating/cooling, what really helps is better insulation. In Scandinavia and Germany people are insulating walls in new houses with 40 cm rockwool, or the equivalents thereof.
- douche 11y ago
  My experience in the US is that 8' ceilings are pretty much standard. I've helped build a few stick-built additions and houses, and when you are buying stud timber in bulk, it comes precut either to 96" or 92 5/8" - which, with standard 2xX top and bottom plates, works out to be 8'.
chaqke 11y ago
There's a saying that goes something like: "Any idiot can build a bridge. It takes an engineer to build a bridge that is just strong enough to stand given the weight it's meant to bear". A lot of older structural "engineering" was figuring out how much material was required, then multiplying it by 80 just in case.
pcurve 11y ago
I laughed at this post because my current home is all brick house built in 1930s, with a brick extension built in 1980s. An inspector said, "those are very good bricks from the 30s. They don't make bricks that strong anymore"
- roel_v 11y ago
  Yes they do, if you pay for it. I know several brick factories that will make you those 'high-quality' ones. But they don't stock them (instead they make them custom if you want them) because the demand is so low due to the 100% price difference with other bricks that, realistically, serve they purpose just as well.

jfoutz 11y ago

It's also interesting to see 2x4s that are actually 2 inches by 4 inches

danieltillett 11y ago

I think one thing is buildings are now are built closer to their required engineering tolerances. In the past many building were massively over engineered, while modern buildings seem to be built for their exact expected lifespan. The one thing I really hate about most modern buildings here in Australia is the ceiling height has been reduced. A lot of modern buildings have ceiling heights around 7’ while old buildings will have ceilings of 10’ to 12’.

computer 11y ago
Ceiling heights of 7 feet? Are you sure? Many tall people would only just fit upright...
- nikatwork 11y ago
  7' is accurate for many new Housing Estate houses eg AV Jennings. The buildings all look similar except for roof color. It's very disorientating. My house is 1860s with a 12' ceiling. Those other places feel like claustrophobic rabbit holes in comparison. Low ceilings minimize material costs and maximize profits.
  - redcalx 11y ago
    > Low ceilings minimize material costs and maximize profits. They also minimise heat loss, which is strictly regulated in the UK. Hence that other annoying feature of many modern build - tiny windows.
    - oh_sigh 11y ago
      Why is heat loss regulated? Shouldn't I be able to heat my home as much or as little as I want?
      - mrec 11y ago
        The regulation is about energy efficiency of new-build construction, not how much you have your heating on. Partly it's a green thing, partly it's pragmatic, in that the UK has failed to invest in serious power generation for decades and faces the real possibility of brownouts in the not too distant future. Plants are approaching EOL and they haven't been building new capacity to replace them. They've thrown a bunch of money at wind, but I think that's been more of a handout to (traditionally Conservative-voting) landowners than a viable strategy.
        speeder 11y ago
        UK STILL don't fixed those issues? UK since middle ages was already infamous for having cities (specially london, but not just london) that have energetic problems and rely a lot on coal (and now other fossil fuels), leading to the infamous killer fogs, and to the victorian fashion (in victorian era, people tried to use stuff that would not have issues in a highly polluted air, for example extremely thick and dark curtains, so that people don't notice you aren't washing them a lot...)
fweespeech 11y ago
Are you 100% sure its 7'? There are a number of people [if small percentage wise] that are 7'.
- jonnathanson 11y ago
  Seriously. And it's not just the seven-footers who'd have issues. I'm 6'3, and I'd feel claustrophobic in a home with 7' ceilings. I'm above average in height, but, like, not wildly so. I certainly don't think I'm an outlier or anything.
  - garrettgrimsley 11y ago
    Assuming you are a male in the USA you are in the 95th percentile [0] by height. And if you are 7 feet tall then you don't need to worry about low ceilings in council housing because you are probably an NBA [1] player. [0] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr010.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr010.pdf [1] http://www.truthaboutit.net/2012/05/true-or-false-half-of-all-7-footers-are-in-the-nba.html http://www.truthaboutit.net/2012/05/true-or-false-half-of-al...
- jonknee 11y ago
  It would make for an interesting ADA claim...
tobico 11y ago
Shorter ceilings are better for climate control, though. No need to heat up a bunch of air that just floats around over your head.
- feedjoelpie 11y ago
  This is only true if your climate makes it more expensive to heat the building than to cool it.
- jonknee 11y ago
  Not a huge concern in most parts of Australia... Having high ceilings (and fans) is actually an advantage.
- prodmerc 11y ago
  It's the opposite in countries with a hot climate - high ceilings make ventilation (without an AC) better.
sliverstorm 11y ago
That opens the question of expected lifetime of a house though. The interior might need to be ripped out and plumbing or sewage etc retrofitted, but in plenty of cases there is simply no reason why the foundation, framing, or other things can't be retained. Which, given the value of high quality timber, seems like a goal worth striving for, rather than disposable houses.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  From a purely economic perspective a building that lasts more than 50 years is probably not worth doing. In theory you could invest the initial savings and replace the whole building in 50 years from the income. The downside of pushing the engineering to the limit is the builders often cut corners to make their own savings so that the building does not even make 50 years. Plenty of new buildings here in Australia are having major structural issues after only 5 to 10 years because of this.
  - gluggymug 11y ago
    Agreed. I was a victim of this in my former home in Adelaide. It was a newly built townhouse complex so we were a body corporate. Within 4 years of building completion, we were suffering from rising damp and completely loose paving in the shared driveways. The paving was too high relative to the damp proof course and the base wasn't prepared properly. It took a couple of years of legal stuff to claim on the building warranty. Having been through this, I now are more acutely aware of how dodgy new building are around Australia. New apartments especially.
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      There is no way I would ever buy a new apartment. One of my friends is a builder and the number of horror stories he tells me about current building practices is near endless.
    - Khaine 11y ago
      It is absolutely criminal how much we let builders get away with, and since building inspectors are no longer independent (the builder pays for them) everything is stacked against home-buyers these days
ams6110 11y ago
High ceilings help when you don't have air conditioning. They are nice aesthetically but unnecessary and even detrimental (more air volume to cool) when you have it.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  The same argument can be made against windows. High ceilings not only avoid the need for air conditioning (my home has 11' ceilings and no air conditioning), they make you feel better in the space. When I am in a building with low ceilings I feel totally claustrophobic and tense - this is not something I want to feel in my own home.
  - roel_v 11y ago
    Modern windows can be made very energy efficient. In fact, it's possible to design an almost all-glass energy-neutral house in much of Western Europe.
- olau 11y ago
  Feels like nitpicket but: volume of air is in itself not a problem. There's not a whole lot of energy in air. The issue with heating/cooling is the surface area. With active heating/cooling, what really helps is better insulation. In Scandinavia and Germany people are insulating walls in new houses with 40 cm rockwool, or the equivalents thereof.
douche 11y ago
My experience in the US is that 8' ceilings are pretty much standard. I've helped build a few stick-built additions and houses, and when you are buying stud timber in bulk, it comes precut either to 96" or 92 5/8" - which, with standard 2xX top and bottom plates, works out to be 8'.

chaqke 11y ago

There's a saying that goes something like: "Any idiot can build a bridge. It takes an engineer to build a bridge that is just strong enough to stand given the weight it's meant to bear". A lot of older structural "engineering" was figuring out how much material was required, then multiplying it by 80 just in case.

pcurve 11y ago

I laughed at this post because my current home is all brick house built in 1930s, with a brick extension built in 1980s. An inspector said, "those are very good bricks from the 30s. They don't make bricks that strong anymore"

roel_v 11y ago
Yes they do, if you pay for it. I know several brick factories that will make you those 'high-quality' ones. But they don't stock them (instead they make them custom if you want them) because the demand is so low due to the 100% price difference with other bricks that, realistically, serve they purpose just as well.