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Two things. One, houses are built out of the most abundant/cheap materials. In some places this is literally concrete. In North America it is lumber. Two.

Two things. One, houses are built out of the most abundant/cheap materials. In some places this is literally concrete. In North America it is lumber. Two. The construction cost of the house follows that of the land. Cheap land, cheap construction (relatively). An anecdote. This has happened twice now with different visitors from my old country (Germany). I tour them around and show them exactly how houses are built here. In one case, the construction was so shoddy that there were holes in the exterior sheathing where they had slipped when cutting something with a chainsaw. In the other case, the construction was, by North American standards, quite good and solid, and the people building the house were happy to let us tour inside (two of my visitors in this case were construction carpenters). In both cases, after showing them how houses are built, I then took them to a model home. And in both cases they were absolutely floored by the luxury and wished they could have a house like that in Germany. Houses there may be solidly built, but they don't have, say, a huge basement with only minimal support columns and 8+ foot ceiling. Or a master bedroom with luxurious ensuite, walk-in closets and nearby laundry room. Or a family room with 12 foot high windows. When everything is tradition bound, flights of fancy like this don't happen at this price point.

tenns 5y ago
Are you american ? I love it when people that are more than 5th generation immigrant still identify with the place they "originate" from lmao. If we did this in Europe, I'd be german, belgian, portugese, spanish, and Italian all at once! Ah and that's on top of actually being french, is it rooted in the deep racism or the fact people kept to their "group" ? Is that why people are fascinated with those DNA test that tell you nothing but where your ancestors lived only 200 years ago ? Regarding houses, the luxury you talk about being absent must be because most old houses weren't even built when there was electricity, running water, or a centralized sewage system, let alone built with where to place a TV in mind. Most houses need to be renovated/remodeled to better fit today's lifestyle. You should come to Europe, you'd feel the same way about luxury with those meter large walls, it feels like a cavern, cold inside in the summer, and no sound to be heard. Truly relaxing.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  > DNA test that tell you nothing but where your ancestors lived only 200 years ago They don't even do that. They just tell you where people with similar DNA live today or whenever the DNA was collected which is likely to be very recently.
- MarkusWandel 5y ago
  First generation immigrant, came over at age 13. It works both ways. Living in a North American style house, you get used to the lightweight doors, the total lack of sound insulation, the crank casement windows and such. Then you visit Germany, and everything is so solid. Windows and doors are airtight, with single gaskets on the door and up to triple on the window. Fresh air? Any true German will only sleep with the windows open. But teenager in the next bedroom over playing the stereo until 3am? No problem, the sound insulation is so good you hardly hear it. And everything is finished with such good materials and maintained so well. Envy envy, what ridiculous hovels we live in back home. Even stick construction - and they do that in Germany too - is finished to the same standard, with obsessive levels of sound insulation inside the walls and such. Someone mentioned thermal insulation though. Modern North American stick houses, while not airtight inside, certainly have an airtight envelope, and with 6" studs have a brick house beat hollow as far as thermal efficiency. In fact, the first thing we noticed when we immigrated, living in an old stick type house, was how toasty warm it was in the brutal winter cold.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    I've visited an energy efficiency model home in Northern Ontario that was heated by body heat and sunlight. It was called a passive house because there was no active source of heat inside the house. Double 6" walls, so a house within a house, double triple glazing. It used so little energy to stay above freezing that they demonstrated at 40 below the whole place could sustain its temperature using a single candle. Very impressive, I do wonder how in a box that airtight you're going to get rid of moisture and what they did to manage the humidity in the spaces between the three walls. The big trick that I understood they used was to make smaller vertical boxes and to use reflective foil on the outer wall side to radiate heat back in. I've googled for a bit but I can't find any online reference to this but it certainly looked very interesting and promising.
the_mitsuhiko 5y ago
> One, houses are built out of the most abundant/cheap materials. In some places this is literally concrete. In North America it is lumber. By that standard all Austrian houses should be made mostly from lumber but they are not. While lumber plays a huge role in the _design_ of buildings here, they are still built rigidly with a lot of concrete etc. Even the lowest standard house in Austria overranks even well built American houses for reasons that make little sense to me. I can only assume it's a fact of hitting a local economic maximum of what people are willing to pay for.
soco 5y ago
Two things struck me when watching documentaries about US big houses: the very narrow corridors (as a rule, two people could barely cross) and the minimalist bathrooms (rarely a bathtub and when yes then a tiny one for one single small person). And I was watching villas with at least 6 rooms, pools... Could you comment on why those particularities?
namdnay 5y ago
> The construction cost of the house follows that of the land. Cheap land, cheap construction (relatively). Japan would be the counterexample to this theory. Very expensive land, yet houses are built ultra-cheaply
alkonaut 5y ago
> One, houses are built out of the most abundant/cheap materials. In some places this is literally concrete. In North America it is lumber. Material doesn’t necessarily dictate whether something is cheap or flimsy. Lumber is the cheapest material in lots of places. A wooden frame house built by 2x4” timber with plywood + timber cladding outside and simple drywall inside is cheap and flimsy. A wooden frame wall with 10” timber is neither cheap or flimsy. How long something lasts is also a matter of construction standards and attention to detail e.g whether the plastic moisture barriers are perfectly sealed preventing condensation in the construction, or if it’s allowed to be punctured e.g by electrical wiring.

tenns 5y ago

Are you american ? I love it when people that are more than 5th generation immigrant still identify with the place they "originate" from lmao. If we did this in Europe, I'd be german, belgian, portugese, spanish, and Italian all at once! Ah and that's on top of actually being french, is it rooted in the deep racism or the fact people kept to their "group" ? Is that why people are fascinated with those DNA test that tell you nothing but where your ancestors lived only 200 years ago ? Regarding houses, the luxury you talk about being absent must be because most old houses weren't even built when there was electricity, running water, or a centralized sewage system, let alone built with where to place a TV in mind. Most houses need to be renovated/remodeled to better fit today's lifestyle. You should come to Europe, you'd feel the same way about luxury with those meter large walls, it feels like a cavern, cold inside in the summer, and no sound to be heard. Truly relaxing.

kwhitefoot 5y ago
> DNA test that tell you nothing but where your ancestors lived only 200 years ago They don't even do that. They just tell you where people with similar DNA live today or whenever the DNA was collected which is likely to be very recently.
MarkusWandel 5y ago
First generation immigrant, came over at age 13. It works both ways. Living in a North American style house, you get used to the lightweight doors, the total lack of sound insulation, the crank casement windows and such. Then you visit Germany, and everything is so solid. Windows and doors are airtight, with single gaskets on the door and up to triple on the window. Fresh air? Any true German will only sleep with the windows open. But teenager in the next bedroom over playing the stereo until 3am? No problem, the sound insulation is so good you hardly hear it. And everything is finished with such good materials and maintained so well. Envy envy, what ridiculous hovels we live in back home. Even stick construction - and they do that in Germany too - is finished to the same standard, with obsessive levels of sound insulation inside the walls and such. Someone mentioned thermal insulation though. Modern North American stick houses, while not airtight inside, certainly have an airtight envelope, and with 6" studs have a brick house beat hollow as far as thermal efficiency. In fact, the first thing we noticed when we immigrated, living in an old stick type house, was how toasty warm it was in the brutal winter cold.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  I've visited an energy efficiency model home in Northern Ontario that was heated by body heat and sunlight. It was called a passive house because there was no active source of heat inside the house. Double 6" walls, so a house within a house, double triple glazing. It used so little energy to stay above freezing that they demonstrated at 40 below the whole place could sustain its temperature using a single candle. Very impressive, I do wonder how in a box that airtight you're going to get rid of moisture and what they did to manage the humidity in the spaces between the three walls. The big trick that I understood they used was to make smaller vertical boxes and to use reflective foil on the outer wall side to radiate heat back in. I've googled for a bit but I can't find any online reference to this but it certainly looked very interesting and promising.

the_mitsuhiko 5y ago

> One, houses are built out of the most abundant/cheap materials. In some places this is literally concrete. In North America it is lumber. By that standard all Austrian houses should be made mostly from lumber but they are not. While lumber plays a huge role in the _design_ of buildings here, they are still built rigidly with a lot of concrete etc. Even the lowest standard house in Austria overranks even well built American houses for reasons that make little sense to me. I can only assume it's a fact of hitting a local economic maximum of what people are willing to pay for.

soco 5y ago

Two things struck me when watching documentaries about US big houses: the very narrow corridors (as a rule, two people could barely cross) and the minimalist bathrooms (rarely a bathtub and when yes then a tiny one for one single small person). And I was watching villas with at least 6 rooms, pools... Could you comment on why those particularities?

namdnay 5y ago

> The construction cost of the house follows that of the land. Cheap land, cheap construction (relatively). Japan would be the counterexample to this theory. Very expensive land, yet houses are built ultra-cheaply

alkonaut 5y ago

> One, houses are built out of the most abundant/cheap materials. In some places this is literally concrete. In North America it is lumber. Material doesn’t necessarily dictate whether something is cheap or flimsy. Lumber is the cheapest material in lots of places. A wooden frame house built by 2x4” timber with plywood + timber cladding outside and simple drywall inside is cheap and flimsy. A wooden frame wall with 10” timber is neither cheap or flimsy. How long something lasts is also a matter of construction standards and attention to detail e.g whether the plastic moisture barriers are perfectly sealed preventing condensation in the construction, or if it’s allowed to be punctured e.g by electrical wiring.