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This is an underestimate - I'm reading your comment from a 170-year-old wooden house.

• chrisseaton 7y ago
  > This is an underestimate No it isn't - if you ask the people actually building American wooden houses how long they think they'll last - they'll tell you almost what I did - just 60 years! Check national building standards 7543:1992. They increased it under pressure a few years ago, but that's what they were designing against until recently! Of course some houses will survive longer (and 170 is a pretty modest age to be boasting about) but even the people building them don't have confidence that they will.
• crispyambulance 7y ago
  > I'm reading your comment from a 170-year-old wooden house. That's great, but that wooden house you live in is vastly better in terms of quality of wood than what is common today in USA construction. If OSB had existed 170 years ago, I assure you would have long ago turned to dust by today. You probably have magnificent wood beams and single-piece shipboards spanning all studs and joists. It all comes down to material-quality, maintenance, design, expectations and weather. Sadly, all of those factors take a back seat to cost and speed where modern housing developers are concerned. Modern building techniques make it easy to fool unsavvy consumers into an illusion of durability and quality.