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> But they last forever. At least until the next earthquake, which is a real possibility in much of the US. Light frame houses survive earthquakes pretty well
by dpark 10y ago
> But they last forever.
At least until the next earthquake, which is a real possibility in much of the US. Light frame houses survive earthquakes pretty well. The brick chimneys on them don't.
> Houses here are routinely hundreds of years old where in the US the approach seems to be to knock down the wooden houses and build them again before they get that old.
Well, yes and no. The US isn't that old. There weren't a lot of homes here hundreds of years ago so obviously there aren't a lot of 200-year old homes now. But yes, there's also a fair bit of demolishing of 50-year old homes.
- crooked-v 10y agoI live in a four-story condo building that's about 100 years old and entirely wood-framed, all the way down to massive wood beams in the basement that anchor the entire place to the foundation. There's been some moderate renovations of exterior walls because of water damage before, but it's worth the hassles of that kind of thing to know that if an earthquake comes along the building will ride it out without any serious damage.
- dpark 10y ago> There's been some moderate renovations of exterior walls because of water damage before Yeah, I don't understand the comments in this thread that talk about water damage. Do people in Europe just not bother maintaining their roofs? You can get hidden water damage from a leak into a hollow wall, but it's really not that common. Typically there's visible water staining and severe damage only comes from willfully ignoring that signs.