> Americans could never do this, he said. We would not trust the builder to make a building so watertight. We would not trust the window manufacturer. We would

> Americans could never do this, he said. We would not trust the builder to make a building so watertight. We would not trust the window manufacturer. We would not trust the water authority to keep the water level perfectly constant. Our insurers would not insure this. Our families would not buy it. Our regulators would not permit it. Our builders would not attempt it. As a Dutch person, it would be easy to feel a bit flattered and proud. But instead I'm gonna have to take the modest pill and call bullshit. Building is sort of my hobby, I've stripped (to the studs if it were American ;)) down and rebuilt my house in the past 4 years, and while doing so have watched endless youtube videos of builders, many american. From my perspective there's only one thing in that paragraph that's correct, and that's that in the US you wouldn't trust the water authority to keep the water level. That's not even an American thing per se (although the US is infamous for aspiring to be independent from government), but mostly a Dutch thing. My house is 5 meter below sea level, a window being 6" above the water line is just not a big deal when you've got that in mind. It's not just I'm at risk of a moldy basement. If the government fucks up, everything would be under meters of water. The U.S.'s has excellent building quality and whenever something is not up to snuff locally you just import from Germany. The U.S. is also not as homogenous as the tiny Netherlands are, you could have a cardboard sheathed house in Texas, or you could have a thick walled brownstone house in Chicago. Also we don't have as many talented tradespeople. Our education system is geared towards getting people to work desk jobs, I think the U.S. system spreads the talent a little bit more evenly. In the past 30 years or so, we've mostly been building cookie cutter houses, the only thing you could say is we've been working on fancier cookie cutters.