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> There is nothing inherently wrong with stick built houses using drywall. There are some things wrong, just to list a few: - Stick+drywall building have terr

> There is nothing inherently wrong with stick built houses using drywall. There are some things wrong, just to list a few: - Stick+drywall building have terrible sound isolation, that drives people away from more efficient high density housing options, everybody wants a fully detached house so the air between the houses may help isolate you from the neighbor's noises. - Stick+drywall needs more diligent maintenance (a simple leak may destroy a house), so again it drives people towards fully detached houses, otherwise your neighbor's bad maintenance may cause troubles for you. Good walls make good neighbors. I'm convinced that big part of the American aversion to urban living comes from their use of sticks+drywall.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
I was replying to a comment comparing the quality of Austrian houses (presumably detached single family homes) to US houses. I agree with you that stick built is not desirable for multifamily housing or any housing that shared walls with other families. I disagree that people dislike shared and more dense housing because of their conceptions about what what noise insulation could be. Shared maintenance would be more of a concern, but shared and dense housing has a ton of other drawbacks (on an individual family level), even though the society wide level benefits are positive. Who would not want space to park their individual cars and store their skis and beach gear and have a backyard to throw parties in? Not to mention the use of zoning only for detached single family housing on larger plots of land to be able to keep out people who cannot afford as much from the local schools. But that is a separate conversation.
- dimmke 5y ago
  >I disagree that people dislike shared and more dense housing because of their conceptions about what what noise insulation could be Have you ever lived in apartments? Because It's the reason I bought a house instead of a condo or townhouse. Not everybody has families, in fact single person households are on the rise in the US and this style of living would be ideal for them.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I had not considered that single person households would be more willing to live in shared housing if it had better noise insulation. That is a good point. However, I feel like the cost for building concrete shared housing unit must be high enough such that the people willing to pay that much for shared housing units would rather just pay a little more and buy a detached stick house.
dimmke 5y ago
I agree with this. It's something I think about a lot actually. Neighbor noise is the TOP complaint about that style of living. If you go on the subreddit r/neighborsfromhell well over 50% of the posts are about a disruptive upstairs/downstairs neighbor. But it's not accounted for when building at all. It feels like this thing that gets hand waived away at every step of the process. It's personally why I feel like that style of living is off the table for me.
acuozzo 5y ago
> everybody wants a fully detached house so the air between the houses may help isolate you from the neighbor's noises … and their fires. I don't want my property burned because Aunt Sally went to sleep with a lit cigarette hanging out of her mouth.

lotsofpulp 5y ago

I was replying to a comment comparing the quality of Austrian houses (presumably detached single family homes) to US houses. I agree with you that stick built is not desirable for multifamily housing or any housing that shared walls with other families. I disagree that people dislike shared and more dense housing because of their conceptions about what what noise insulation could be. Shared maintenance would be more of a concern, but shared and dense housing has a ton of other drawbacks (on an individual family level), even though the society wide level benefits are positive. Who would not want space to park their individual cars and store their skis and beach gear and have a backyard to throw parties in? Not to mention the use of zoning only for detached single family housing on larger plots of land to be able to keep out people who cannot afford as much from the local schools. But that is a separate conversation.

dimmke 5y ago
>I disagree that people dislike shared and more dense housing because of their conceptions about what what noise insulation could be Have you ever lived in apartments? Because It's the reason I bought a house instead of a condo or townhouse. Not everybody has families, in fact single person households are on the rise in the US and this style of living would be ideal for them.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I had not considered that single person households would be more willing to live in shared housing if it had better noise insulation. That is a good point. However, I feel like the cost for building concrete shared housing unit must be high enough such that the people willing to pay that much for shared housing units would rather just pay a little more and buy a detached stick house.

dimmke 5y ago

I agree with this. It's something I think about a lot actually. Neighbor noise is the TOP complaint about that style of living. If you go on the subreddit r/neighborsfromhell well over 50% of the posts are about a disruptive upstairs/downstairs neighbor. But it's not accounted for when building at all. It feels like this thing that gets hand waived away at every step of the process. It's personally why I feel like that style of living is off the table for me.

acuozzo 5y ago

> everybody wants a fully detached house so the air between the houses may help isolate you from the neighbor's noises … and their fires. I don't want my property burned because Aunt Sally went to sleep with a lit cigarette hanging out of her mouth.