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Our modern building practices and materials are not optimized for longevity. What incentive in modern times does a contractor have in building homes that last h
by allovernow 7y ago
Our modern building practices and materials are not optimized for longevity. What incentive in modern times does a contractor have in building homes that last hundreds of years?
The average person is too ignorant to know or care anyway.
- totalZero 7y agoThe average person doesn't build his home in seawater.
- loeg 7y agoRoman concrete is slow setting and didn't have rebar. We prefer to build quickly (more efficient use of land multiplied by time) and prefer our buildings not fall over in earthquakes. Also much of residential construction is wood frame (edit: US), which also has pretty bad longevity unless extremely overbuilt.
- chrisseaton 7y ago> much of residential construction is wood frame Why is this?
- hobofan 7y agoIt's cheaper.
- jsilence 7y agoWhishing people would realize it is also much more sustainable.
- chrisseaton 7y agoEven if you have to rebuild every 50 years or so? A brick structure will last thousands of years.
- russellbeattie 7y agoI grew up in a New England school house that was over 200 years old when I was there 40 years ago. Wood buildings last for generations with basic maintenance. I'd much rather live in one than a concrete slab.
- chrisseaton 7y agoDo you realise there are other building materials beside concrete and wood?
- loeg 7y agoNew England houses that have survived 150+ years are the exception to this rule. They're extremely overbuilt compared to today's wood-frame construction and you get some survivorship bias effect (the ones that didn't make it have been replaced). They're also mostly not on fault lines, and the climate may or may not be beneficial to the longevity.
- atoav 7y agoThe Vindlausloftet in southern norway is a wooden cabin built in 1170 — granted, this is a massive wood construction and not a wood frame construction. My feeling when I went to the US was that many houses felt incredibly "flimsy" as if you could just punch your fist through the wall.
- loeg 7y agoYou can easily put your fist through drywall. That's just the decorative coating on the inside. The framing is treated 2x4, mostly, and good luck putting your fist through that.
- chrisseaton 7y agoYou don't need to put your first through the 2x4, because they're only every half-metre or so - you can walk between them if you've knocked out the drywall.
- readams 7y agowood frame is fantastic for earthquake resistance.
- loeg 7y agoFor short buildings.
- saberdancer 7y agoWood frame construction seems to be much more popular in US than in Europe. At least parts of Europe I am familiar with.
- loeg 7y agoAh, sorry, your observation is astute -- I am in the US.
- tim333 7y agoWhen I was last in Italy, concrete seemed to remain popular for house building.
- thesmok 7y agoIt's becoming more popular in Eastern Europe, because cheap and fast. Architects say that typical age of their client is 40 to 50, and these people started to realize that their children wouldn't want this house. So the house only has to last another 40 years.
- TsomArp 7y agoI think that is a US thing. In Europe and South America at least we don't use much wood.