4 ms·
Why don't Americans build homes using concrete and bricks?
by billconan 2y ago
Why don't Americans build homes using concrete and bricks?
- brudgers 2y agoBecause historically, owning a house has been very affordable and lumber is abundant because the landscape was not denuded for firewood over the course of millennia. Lumber is not timber. Lumber can be moved about by a single pair of hands and fastened with nails...American construction takes advantage of the industrial revolution and uses commodity nails. Worth noting that where Americans use concrete and brick, they also use steel reinforcing so that their buildings don't collapse brittle collapse from earthquakes and wind.
- pfdietz 2y agoBasically the entire eastern part of the US was denuded of trees, which have since grown back when uncompetitive farmland was abandoned. Lumber is cheap because there's lots of land where we now farm fast growing trees. Wood frame houses are cheap today because of the invention of the stamped metal framing connector, which has enabled large elements to be made off site in high volume. It's also why houses typically don't have attics anymore.
- edflsafoiewq 2y agoCan you elaborate on why no attics?
- sceadu 2y agothe space is able to be opened up as part of the main living area https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oIeLGkSCMA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oIeLGkSCMA
- sgtaylor5 2y agoThe stamped metal framing connector facilitated the use of trusses, which means an open plan house (McMansion) of much larger footprint. Trusses mean no attic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oIeLGkSCMA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oIeLGkSCMA Ninja'ed
- rascul 2y agoThere's still an attic with many typical roof truss designs.
- LastTrain 2y agoI think a lot of people in this thread are too young to understand what is meant by attic. Go upstairs in a house built in 1920, that’s an attic. A tiny cubby in a cavity left by engineered trusses is not. You’ll also notice the modern house, even a cheap one, is far better insulated.
- deleted 2y ago
- marky1991 2y ago"It's also why houses typically don't have attics anymore." That's really strange to me, every house I've ever lived in (5 houses since 1991 , all in the southeast, all new construction) has had an attic and I can't even imagine what a house without an attic would look like. (I guess a flat roof, but only weird modern houses and apartments have flat roofs and there are not many modern houses)
- foobarian 2y agoAdditionally every single new construction I've seen in greater Boston metro area in the past 20 years has not brought in any pre-assembled elements from outside. Just piles of various sizes of lumber and assemble on-site. (Edit: to be clear this is for residential construction which tend to be small 1-2 story buildings.)
- pfdietz 2y agoHere's an example of a Boston area builder doing just that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f4nqf_HgnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f4nqf_HgnY
- foobarian 2y agoSure but I don't buy it's being done at scale. Even in that video they are mentioning an unusual design as a partial reason for the pre-fabbed elements.
- wbshaw 2y agoAttics have been replaced by engineered trusses to hold up roofs. The trusses are made of.... wood. These trusses are also made offsite. This leaves very little room for usable attic space.
- brudgers 2y agoWhen designed for minimal load on the bottom chord, plate connected wood trusses cost significantly less. Not just for materials, but less to install because they weigh less.
- cogogo 2y agoWatching a typical multi family house go up down the street in Boston and the wooden framing is definitely still all nailed together. This is very typical in the US Northeast. No need for connectors when you have nails and nail guns. Where I see elements made off site it’s typically manufactured joists which would be far more expensive as single pieces of wood.
- bkjelden 2y agoI believe the post you're replying to is referring to roof trusses (and perhaps floor trusses) which are generally built off-site at a truss plant, but then attached onsite (usually with nails, but sometimes lag bolts or screws are needed).
- rascul 2y agoIt's not nails that make metal framing connectors not required, it's that modern platform framing doesn't typically need much of them due to design, except for trusses (mending plates) and rafters (metal ties). Nails are used to secure the framing but aren't generally used to provide a structural connection.
- twothamendment 2y ago"It's also why houses typically don't have attics anymore." As someone who framed houses as a job and designed and built three of my own I disagree with your take on attics. It is common for houses not to have an attic because builders must build cheap to compete. Attic space can be cheap square footage, but it has to be part of the plan from the beginning and is difficult to make it an option to pick. You can indeed have an attic with "attic trusses". They are still built out of dimensional lumber and stamped connectors - the bottom chord will be much larger. I've seen them span 36', not sure what the limit is. On one house, to do a partial attic was only $2000 extra for the trusses. Attics present other problems/expenses too, like additional stairs. (Many plans didn't have a place where extra stairs can be added as an option AND work with the truss layout. HVAC is another issue. You either end up with a second system for the attic or need to have space in the floor below to run ducts to the attic space. Again, most of your cookie cutter plans didn't leave a space for this. When walking my HVAC guy through my house to plan ducts he asked how much of this closet he could have for ducts. I told him "as much as you need to make it work correctly". From the look on his face you'd think he won the lottery. He replied "no one ever says that!". Attic spaces require different insulation techniques, they aren't difficult, but cookie cutters don't like different. I've used attic trusses on 2 of 3 houses. The one where I didn't was because stairs, HVAC and I didn't need more space (full extra height basement, daylight windows - that was enough).
- pfdietz 2y agoA relevant NY Times article. Mostly on factory built homes, but also has something on trusses for roofs. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/08/headway/how-an-american-dream-of-housing-became-a-reality-in-sweden.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qE4.4w_x.0kUHIeXybpY1&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/08/headway/how-an-american-d... "What may ultimately force the adoption of industrialized housing in the United States is a skilled labor shortage. This has already affected one area of home-building: roof trusses, the structural timber frameworks that support a roof. Trusses require precisely cutting angles, a skill few workers possess, and so the structures are now mostly made in factories."
- l1tany11 2y agoWhy do you think that would solve the problem? Keep in mind stucco is very common in Southern California. Basically a 7/8” thick layer of concrete on all the exterior walls. It is fire resistant. Many such buildings burned down. This isn’t the three little pigs where the brick house is the solution. And that wasn’t the moral of the story anyway.
- ajuc 2y agoBecause old cities had these kinds of fires constantly (in my city there's still a paiting of a fire from 18th century that destroyed half the Old Town) and usually only stone/brick buildings survived. This isn't a 0%/100% thing, but it increases the chances by a big margin.
- SirHumphrey 2y agoThe first house by the forest would probably still be destroyed, however the next one has a much better chance because it’s not next to a large flammable structure.
- spicyusername 2y agoThis is such a worn out talking point. Because concrete and bricks are more expensive and for most places wood construction is perfectly adequate. It's really very intuitive.
- HPsquared 2y agoHow much more expensive compared to the fire risk? This is where risk pricing is important.
- infecto 2y agoAnd this is where insurance when allowed to set premiums, can help guide the market to the right solution. I don't believe LA has ever had a fire of this scale. Similar to that large fire in NorCal a few years back. I am certain either through insurance requirements or simple price comparisons, homes that are getting rebuilt will be done so using modern standards. Its worth mentioning that a lot of this is not so much a concrete vs wood discussion. You can absolutely build a wood framed home that is fire resistant.
- apocalyptic0n3 2y agoFrom the article: > Some of the homes in Pacific Palisades were 90 years old 90 years exceeds your lifespan, the lifespan of your children, and maybe the lifespan of your grandchildren depending on when in your lifetime it is built. Even if the house is never sold and is simply inherited, it is very likely that a home that age is lived in by someone the builders never met. So if a house burns down once every 3 generations, what incentive is there to build it to be more fire-resistant? These fires are bad, yes. But LA isn't burning down once a year. LA is massive and only small chunks are affected by each fire. For reference, these fires are the most destructive in history and have destroyed an estimated 12,000+ structures throughout metro LA and Riverside. Per ChatGPT, there's an estimated 3 million buildings in LA County alone with the rest of the greater metro area (San Bernadino, Orange, Riverside, and Ventura counties) have an estimated 5 million. So while, yes, the odds of your home burning down are elevated in metro LA, they are still quite slim. Slim enough that making the initial building even more expensive is not worth it, especially not in an area that also sees a lot of earthquakes.
- mbesto 2y agoAside from what others have mentioned - maintenance/upgradability. I own a home in Costa Rica, which is basically all concrete. Try upgrading your building with Cat6 ethernet when you have concrete (vs wood/sheetrock).
- lousken 2y agoEuropean here - it's easy, the solution is called conduit
- nottorp 2y agoBosch also sells those huge ass drills here that take a few minutes to make a 2-3 cm hole through concrete to pass those conduits between floors/rooms. They're not available in the Americas?
- mbesto 2y agoPatching sheetrock is 10x easier than concrete and looks way nicer. Protruding conduit does not look good.
- nottorp 2y agoIsn't the conduit inside the ... whatever ... plaster? ... you put over the hard concrete wall, I don't know the name in english? It's definitely not protruding in my home... and it's all conduit in the walls.
- cwillu 2y agoDrywall is common in north america. It's ~1.25m×2.5m×1cm sheets of gypsum sandwiched between a heavy paper, and plaster is only used to bridge the seams. It's almost always screwed down, and adds significant rigidity to a stick-framed wall. Cement walls are often (but not always) finished by stick-framing a false wall and then screwing the drywall to that.
- 2y ago
- jvanderbot 2y agoThere are several factors already mentioned, but also b/c it's not really required, given all those factors. From TFA: TIL about Class A wood. It is as fire resistant as concrete, apparently. The biggest predictor about what burned: Age > The architect says that he’s done hundreds of renovations in Southern California to make houses fire-resistant. Driving along a stretch of beach in Malibu this week, Dawson says that he counted five houses left standing; three were his projects. “I haven’t had any house burn that’s been brought up to the latest standard.” > The orientation and exterior materials, including a metal roof and metal eaves, prevented a fire from sparking inside the roof, which is the way most homes burn down. We know where fires come from, and under what conditions they spread rapidly in LA - because the santa ana winds blow generally the same direction. You can design neighborhoods and houses to survive that. We also built right up into the hills, surrounding them with natural vegetation. Pretty, but basically a tinder box.
- cbg0 2y ago> TIL about Class A wood. It is as fire resistant as concrete, apparently. Being in the same category of a rating system does not mean it truly is as fire resistant as concrete. In Europe it would most likely not be classified as A1: > An A1-Rated material is defined as a material that does not contribute to fire at any stage, including a fully developed fire. The rating from the US is a bit more vague on the class A wood: > Class A is the most desirable category for fire-rated plywood as it indicates a flame spread index of 25 or less. "or less" isn't zero.
- jvanderbot 2y agoA fair point - but several factors, focusing largely on roof design, were highlighted in the article. Taken as a whole, it makes the case that concrete is not a strict requirement. That's all I'm trying to say.
- throwup238 2y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake Concrete that can withstand M7-8 is a lot more expensive, mostly limited to commercial buildings. There’s plenty of brick homes in the rest of the country.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- infecto 2y agoIts historically cheap, unlike Europe. More importantly I thought think it buys you much compared to building up to modern standards. Remember most of these homes are old. I think this is one of those European/World memes that America just builds cardboard homes.
- JOnAgain 2y agoSpecific to LA, earthquakes
- x3n0ph3n3 2y agoAmong the reasons listed here, producing concrete also emits a huge amount of CO2 while lumber in houses are effectively carbon sequestration.
- WithinReason 2y agoNot if it burns down
- infecto 2y agoYes, all homes in America burn down every 5 years.
- Over2Chars 2y agoIn earthquake prone areas concrete and bricks fall over. You want that in hurricane prone areas.
- elzbardico 2y agoNot reinforced concrete built to code. Contrary to common American percepctions, there are other places in the world with Earthquakes.
- Over2Chars 2y agoI like how despite my comment on Japan, I'm characterized as a geographically challenged American. How about you take your stereotypes and go have a nice burger at McDonald's?
- astura 2y agoThey do, I grew up in a brick house, both my grandparents lived in brick houses...
- megaman821 2y agoIt is probably a house with a brick veneer, not a thick, load-bearing brick house.
- elzbardico 2y agoYes, unless it is 100 years old, the framing is either reinforced concrete or steel beans(less common)
- astura 2y agoAll the houses I'm talking about are older than 100 years.
- elzbardico 2y agoOne important clarification for americans: Most of European, Middle Eastern and Latin American houses are not fully built on concrete. Reinforced concrete is used most of time only for the structure. The walls themselve are masonry.
- _yb2s 2y agoUnreinforced masonry is illegal in most of California- it essentially fractures into a swarm of heavy projectiles during an earthquake- which is a bigger risk than fires here. Brick homes are very common on the east coast where they don’t have frequent earthquakes. Commercial style construction with steel beams and reinforced concrete is extremely expensive, and not very warm/classic looking. It is used in a tiny fraction of extremely high end custom homes for wealthy people that like modern and brutalist style homes.
- rurban 2y agoBecause their houses need to last only 5-20 years. And most need no heating systems. And wood work is cheap