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Nicer architecture: Only sometimes. Sometimes, old is just old and plain. Not to mention that things change over the years: I'm guessing by 'old house' you refe
by Broken_Hippo 4y ago
Nicer architecture: Only sometimes. Sometimes, old is just old and plain. Not to mention that things change over the years: I'm guessing by 'old house' you refer to something built pre-1940 and not the ranch style house built in the 60's: Those houses from the 60's are over 50 years old, though.
Better materials? I'm not convinced. Drafty doors and windows, little insulation, lead paint, outdated plumbing parts, and old wires are a few things that were used. Any serious look at windows used during building booms during the 50's dispels the materials, honestly - at least in the US.
More space? Again, only if you get the right house. Plenty of old houses are small. You also have a bit of survivor bias here: Old, large houses that were expensive were more likely to be maintained and preserved later. I'll also point out that a good deal of old houses are now apartments, and also point out that the space you get in an old house costs more to heat. On top of that, this was a space designed for a different time period. That means that space can be a much less efficient space than you get in a new house that is wired for modern times.
Maybe using more mature trees really isn't something we should be doing right now? At least some of those mature trees contributed to deforestation and it seems better to get trees not from old growth, but from new growth from a well-managed forest area, where swaths of trees are replanted.
Old houses are just full of downfalls, even if you happen to be getting more space and possibly a better looking house.
- chrisseaton 4y ago> Maybe using more mature trees really isn't something we should be doing right now? The trees are more mature because they were planted longer ago. Planting trees in suburbia is the opposite of deforestation.
- Broken_Hippo 4y agoI do understand both of these, and I advocate using managed forest areas with newer growth - perhaps you misunderstood? We simply don't have as many old growth forests that our ancestors have had due to deforestation. The trees being planted in suburbia aren't offsetting what we are using to build the houses either, and definitely aren't replacing them where they were harvested (the forest, in general). We also aren't planting the same varieties of trees that we use to build the houses, as trees in housing development are generally chosen for looks, speed of growth, and size.
- chrisseaton 4y agoI don't really understand what you're on about. I'm saying that houses in areas built in the 1920s have beautiful hundred-year old trees along the roads. Houses built in the 2020s have tiny saplings. I'm saying the former is nicer than the latter. Not talking about building materials. Talking about the environment around the houses.
- robonerd 4y agoHe's talking about trees, not lumber. A nice healthy mature oak in the backyard is a thousand times nicer than a scrawny sapling that might give you shade in 20 years if it survives that long. The flipside is that sometimes the mature tree isn't healthy, and remediation of a large and dying tree can be tricky and expensive.
- lupire 4y agoEvery a healthy mature tree is expensive to trim and will eventually fall on your house.
- robonerd 4y agoAs is often the case, preventative maintenance is a lot cheaper than remediation. It's easier to safely dismantle a tree that is dying but not yet rotting. If you ignore the problem for too long, that's when things fall on your house and fixing your roof will cost a lot more than getting the tree removed properly a few years ago would have cost.