17 ms·

> even a terraced house As someone who has only ever lived in apartments - how is terraced house better, is it because there is no one above you (never heard o

> even a terraced house As someone who has only ever lived in apartments - how is terraced house better, is it because there is no one above you (never heard of the term, but that's what i inferred from googling)?

6LLvveMx2koXfwn 4y ago
I live in a terraced house. I own the land on which it is built, I have a tiny garden to the front and a less tiny garden to the rear. No one charges me a maintenance fee. I am free to shop around for energy providers or even change how energy is provided to my house completely by installing solar panels etc. I have free use of my loft, to the extent I could create further living space there if desired. Etc. None of the above would be true if I owned an apartment.
guntherhermann 4y ago
It's more than your direct neighbours. In a flat/apartment/commie-block everyone is closer together. In a terraced house there's nobody above you, there's nobody below. There is no echoey hallway with relentless pounding of boots, neighbours across the hall with large soundsystems. Of course you can still have bad neighbours in terraced housing street, but it requires less luck, and you can knock around and ask about how it is to live in the area before you buy the house. Trying to do the same when buying a flat is much more difficult. It's doable but you're treated like a weirdo I have a front and a back garden, my own dedicated place to park my car. The rooms that directly join my neighbours house are the staircase and the master bedroom, so places people are usually quiet, the living areas then have a barrier that helps to minimise noise. Compare this to my mate who lives in a flat and his living room backs onto their neighbours bedroom, and vice-versa. Flats don't have to be designed badly, but in my experience they usually do not prioritise mitigating noise pollution. I think living in a flat is great if that's your thing, it's definitely cheaper to heat! But the argument always seems to be this sort of dogmatic "do this if unless you're a shithead who hates the planet" and I just don't think that it's true for everyone, or a healthy approach to enjoying what limited time we have alive.
- balfirevic 4y ago
  > I think living in a flat is great if that's your thing, it's definitely cheaper to heat! Nothing else is a realistic option 'round here unless I want to live in a village (which doesn't necessarily mean far away, maybe 20 minute ride by car to the city, but there isn't much there and your first neighbour might well keep animals). Barely anyone I know lives in a house. > it's definitely cheaper to heat! There is nothing cheap about heating heating here, lol. Fortunately, it's not that cold most of the year. But no one heats their homes properly, so you are still leaking heat in all directions even in an apartment. > But the argument always seems to be this sort of dogmatic "do this if unless you're a shithead who hates the planet" and I just don't think that it's true for everyone, or a healthy approach to enjoying what limited time we have alive. I don't pretend to do it "for the planet" (and would gladly live in a house), but that's a valid argument, if a little hyperbolic. I don't think it makes anyone a bad person but that doesn't lessen negative effects. Especially the effect of housing scarcity - you've basically taken entire column of Earth for yourself in a (presumably) desirable location, where that same column could have housed 20x people if it was a highrise. Failure of civilisation here is not having sound-proof apartments. If I could play drums or blast karaoke at full volume in mine at 3 in the morning I couldn't care less that it was not a house.

6LLvveMx2koXfwn 4y ago

I live in a terraced house. I own the land on which it is built, I have a tiny garden to the front and a less tiny garden to the rear. No one charges me a maintenance fee. I am free to shop around for energy providers or even change how energy is provided to my house completely by installing solar panels etc. I have free use of my loft, to the extent I could create further living space there if desired. Etc. None of the above would be true if I owned an apartment.

guntherhermann 4y ago

It's more than your direct neighbours. In a flat/apartment/commie-block everyone is closer together. In a terraced house there's nobody above you, there's nobody below. There is no echoey hallway with relentless pounding of boots, neighbours across the hall with large soundsystems. Of course you can still have bad neighbours in terraced housing street, but it requires less luck, and you can knock around and ask about how it is to live in the area before you buy the house. Trying to do the same when buying a flat is much more difficult. It's doable but you're treated like a weirdo I have a front and a back garden, my own dedicated place to park my car. The rooms that directly join my neighbours house are the staircase and the master bedroom, so places people are usually quiet, the living areas then have a barrier that helps to minimise noise. Compare this to my mate who lives in a flat and his living room backs onto their neighbours bedroom, and vice-versa. Flats don't have to be designed badly, but in my experience they usually do not prioritise mitigating noise pollution. I think living in a flat is great if that's your thing, it's definitely cheaper to heat! But the argument always seems to be this sort of dogmatic "do this if unless you're a shithead who hates the planet" and I just don't think that it's true for everyone, or a healthy approach to enjoying what limited time we have alive.

balfirevic 4y ago
> I think living in a flat is great if that's your thing, it's definitely cheaper to heat! Nothing else is a realistic option 'round here unless I want to live in a village (which doesn't necessarily mean far away, maybe 20 minute ride by car to the city, but there isn't much there and your first neighbour might well keep animals). Barely anyone I know lives in a house. > it's definitely cheaper to heat! There is nothing cheap about heating heating here, lol. Fortunately, it's not that cold most of the year. But no one heats their homes properly, so you are still leaking heat in all directions even in an apartment. > But the argument always seems to be this sort of dogmatic "do this if unless you're a shithead who hates the planet" and I just don't think that it's true for everyone, or a healthy approach to enjoying what limited time we have alive. I don't pretend to do it "for the planet" (and would gladly live in a house), but that's a valid argument, if a little hyperbolic. I don't think it makes anyone a bad person but that doesn't lessen negative effects. Especially the effect of housing scarcity - you've basically taken entire column of Earth for yourself in a (presumably) desirable location, where that same column could have housed 20x people if it was a highrise. Failure of civilisation here is not having sound-proof apartments. If I could play drums or blast karaoke at full volume in mine at 3 in the morning I couldn't care less that it was not a house.