What is wrong with north american housing?

[Plermpel]

Hey guys,

 

I often see pictures or videos of houses in north america and it always gives me the creeps!

 

I wouln't even be allowed to build a shed like that in europe.

 

Why is that so?

 

Are their any solid buildings in USA/canada?

[Guest]

Are all the pictures and videos you see supplied by your government?

[Middcore]

Your post is vague to the point of trollish meaninglessness.

 

I doubt you have any familiarity with building codes either in Europe or NA, so your opinion on what's "solid" is of little value. Depending on the part of the continent where they're located, North American buildings have to stand up to things like hurricanes and earthquakes, which you don't have to worry about in Europe, so they're probably more "solid" than most of the buildings where you live. 

 

Most buildings in the US are much newer, whereas in European population centers many dwellings or businesses may be repurposed from structures that have been there a couple centuries. The mere fact a structure isn't built out of brick or stone just because other building materials have been developed doesn't mean it's less durable, though. 

[Plermpel]

Even modern buildings here are made from brick or concrete, very few cheap houses are made from wood and struts, like in the US but still way different they use about twice as much struts and much thicker ones.

Still everyone who can afford it avoids wooden prefabricated houses because they simple don't last as long, it's very common here to give your house to your children if you are to old to care for it for yourself.

 

For example the new roof for my house which is from 1955 and made mostly from stone and concrete btw. was callculated with 17 tons of maximum snow load.

We built a multiple purlin roof structure and used 18 24x48cm spruce struts on one 7,5m lengh side of the house.

 

To be fair I don't know the building codes of north america but everything I have seen yet is just ludicrous, you could brake into those houses with a jigsaw.

 

Edit.

 

Bzw. My house stood up to multiple storms with speeds up to 200km/h and also some minor earthquakes in the last decades.

Also two lavins since 1955 btw.

[YellowJersey]

There are probably a couple of factors here. First, NA has large timber resources, so I imagine that simply the abundance of timber is one of the reasons why it is the dominant building material for homes.

 

 There are also many areas of NA that don't benefit from using a more sturdy material. Where I live (Canadian prairies), there really isn't much benefit to having brick or concrete. Yes, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts should have much stricter building codes due to hurricanes, same with Tornado Alley and the West Coast. But there are large parts of the continent where there's no substantial benefit to using brick and concrete. Timber is also much lighter and therefore cheaper and easier to transport.
 

 Where I live, brick is very expensive and, iirc, isn't something that can be made locally; it all has to be shipped in. I understand that tornado alley is home to a large part of the US' poor population and so poverty also makes timber more attractive.

 So, while I agree that using timber for certain areas makes little sense, seeing homes levelled by hurricanes year after year is just silly, but there are a lot of places where it doesn't make sense.

[Middcore]

9 minutes ago, Plermpel said:

To be fair I don't know the building codes of north america but everything I have seen yet is just ludicrous, you could brake into those houses with a jigsaw.

 

Most houses in the US have siding made of brick, cement mixtures, aluminum, or at worst vinyl. So no, you couldn't. 

[CerealExperimentsLain]

1 hour ago, Plermpel said:

Hey guys,

 

I often see pictures or videos of houses in north america and it always gives me the creeps!

 

I wouln't even be allowed to build a shed like that in europe.

 

Why is that so?

 

Are their any solid buildings in USA/canada?

Since you provide no meaningful information, I'm going to assume you mean the houses you see on Ghost Hunters.

Of course it gives you the creeps, those houses have ghosts in them.  Why are you watching the ghost house show if you don't want to be creeped out?

[Middcore]

2 minutes ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

Since you provide no meaningful information, I'm going to assume you mean the houses you see on Ghost Hunters.

Of course it gives you the creeps, those houses have ghosts in them.  Why are you watching the ghost house show if you don't want to be creeped out?

 

It would be a tough call on whether buildings in NA or Europe are more haunted. They've had centuries longer to kill witches and such, but NA has all the Indian burial grounds. 

[CerealExperimentsLain]

1 minute ago, Middcore said:

 

It would be a tough call on whether buildings in NA or Europe are more haunted. They've had centuries longer to kill witches and such, but NA has all the Indian burial grounds. 

The big problem with concrete homes is that the water in the concrete traps the ghosts EM fields, so it makes it much harder for them to leave your home on their own.  It's like a bird getting in and it not understanding it can't fly through the glass windows.  Now your brick or wood homes, ghosts go right through those like a hot knife through butter.

[YellowJersey]

You could also consider timber homes to be a carbon sink, provided the timber was produced sustainabley. Concrete emits a lot of CO2.

[whm1974]

10 minutes ago, YellowJersey said:

You could also consider timber homes to be a carbon sink, provided the timber was produced sustainabley. Concrete emits a lot of CO2.

Didn't know that about Concrete. Personally I think People should plant some Billion Trees or so. Create a dependable Carbon Sink...

[atxcyclist]

42 minutes ago, Plermpel said:

Even modern buildings here are made from brick or concrete, very few cheap houses are made from wood and struts, like in the US but still way different they use about twice as much struts and much thicker ones.

Still everyone who can afford it avoids wooden prefabricated houses because they simple don't last as long, it's very common here to give your house to your children if you are to old to care for it for yourself.

 

For example the new roof for my house which is from 1955 and made mostly from stone and concrete btw. was callculated with 17 tons of maximum snow load.

We built a multiple purlin roof structure and used 18 24x48cm spruce struts on one 7,5m lengh side of the house.

 

To be fair I don't know the building codes of north america but everything I have seen yet is just ludicrous, you could brake into those houses with a jigsaw.

 

Edit.

 

Bzw. My house stood up to multiple storms with speeds up to 200km/h and also some minor earthquakes in the last decades.

Also two lavins since 1955 btw.

Brick is expensive to transport, and North America has a gigantic land area. Austria is about 80,000 square Kilometers, the United States alone is nearly 10 million square Kilometers. Older houses were made from brick, but those materials get more difficult to source and have fallen out of favor for other reasons as well. I say this as someone that's worked in commercial architecture for nearly two decades, there's no reason to flex about having a 17 ton snow load or overbuild the structure of a building beyond a reasonable engineering margin. It's a waste of money and valuable resources, and a structure also needs to meet insulation requirements and other building codes and municipal ordinances, and brick may not be the best way to do that.

[Plermpel]

Now that's some reasonable answers.

 

14 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

1) Concrete and bricks = trash thermal insulation.

That's true but you can insulate aftwerwards on the outside and have the advantage of hight thermal capacity.

15 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

3) Cheaper homes = more people with their own homes.

That's why I have an old house, the house I wanted to build first would have cost me about 600k which ment me and my wife would have been in depth for the next 45 years.

19 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

4) There are premium houses completely made out of wood in europe (including insulation). Some people pay a lot more not to have a bunch of plastics and synthetic fibers (rockwool/fiberglass, which are not that different from asbestos) close to them.

Wood and stone whool is very common these days because it also has a high thermal capacity.

 

 

17 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

Brick is expensive to transport, and North America has a gigantic land area. Austria is about 80,000 square Kilometers, the United States alone is nearly 10 million square Kilometers. Older houses were made from brick, but those materials get more difficult to source and have fallen out of favor for other reasons as well. I say this as someone that's worked in commercial architecture for nearly two decades, there's no reason to flex about having a 17 ton snow load or overbuild the structure of a building beyond a reasonable engineering margin. It's a waste of money and valuable resources, and a structure also needs to meet insulation requirements and other building codes and municipal ordinances, and brick may not be the best way to do that.

I agree that some constructions are overbuild in austria but that's because there is a law in the ÖNORM which forces the architect to consider natural disasters which stasticlally happen every 30 and 100 years. It's not even that far off I had about 1,5m snow on my roof this winter and when it came down it teared down my balconny.

Insulation is good but insulation and thermal mass is better.

 

I still don't change my mind that houses in NA are just build fast and cheap. There are many buildings in the town where I live that are twice as old as even the USA itself, which means they did something very right back than.

And there is not much more heart warming for me than the LotR Vibe wandering arround in the ancient towns of middle europe.

[YellowJersey]

29 minutes ago, Plermpel said:

Now that's some reasonable answers.

 

That's true but you can insulate aftwerwards on the outside and have the advantage of hight thermal capacity.

That's why I have an old house, the house I wanted to build first would have cost me about 600k which ment me and my wife would have been in depth for the next 45 years.

Wood and stone whool is very common these days because it also has a high thermal capacity.

 

 

I agree that some constructions are overbuild in austria but that's because there is a law in the ÖNORM which forces the architect to consider natural disasters which stasticlally happen every 30 and 100 years. It's not even that far off I had about 1,5m snow on my roof this winter and when it came down it teared down my balconny.

Insulation is good but insulation and thermal mass is better.

 

I still don't change my mind that houses in NA are just build fast and cheap. There are many buildings in the town where I live that are twice as old as even the USA itself, which means they did something very right back than.

And there is not much more heart warming for me than the LotR Vibe wandering arround in the ancient towns of middle europe.

Not all the answers are necessarily good answers, though. In NA, homes are also seen as more disposable. Homes over 30 years old are often just torn down and replaced because it's often not seen as worth it to properly maintain them and they go out of style. Cheap and easy to build; cheap and easy to tear down; cheap and easy to replace. This concept of disposable homes definitely has its issues and I'd love to see more longer-lasting and sustainable building practices put in place.

 I also think the sheer size of Canada and the US has led us to fundamentally treat homes and cities differently than in Europe. In Europe, every square meter counts, so space needs to be used efficiently and I think longer lasting homes made from more durable materials is a part of that. In Canada, especially in my city, there's so much land that there's no apparent need to use space efficiently.... until you have cities like Calgary that are geographically enormous and low density, which causes all sorts of other problems.

 

 

 

Also, @whm1974 conventional concrete accounts for about 8% of global CO2 emissions. The chemical reactions that take place while concrete sets release CO2 as a byproduct. Though, there are new types of concrete hitting the market that actually absorb CO2 as part of their setting process. I believe the new runway at the Calgary airport was made from such concrete. I think it's by a company out of Nova Scotia.

[whm1974]

12 minutes ago, YellowJersey said:

Also, @whm1974 conventional concrete accounts for about 8% of global CO2 emissions. The chemical reactions that take place while concrete sets release CO2 as a byproduct. Though, there are new types of concrete hitting the market that actually absorb CO2 as part of their setting process. I believe the new runway at the Calgary airport was made from such concrete. I think it's by a company out of Nova Scotia.

I wa wondering if there is such a Type of Concrete.

[Plermpel]

7 minutes ago, YellowJersey said:

In Canada, especially in my city, there's so much land that there's no apparent need to use space efficiently.... until you have cities like Calgary that are geographically enormous and low density, which causes all sorts of other problems.

On the other hand laws for zoning and cunstruction standarts in austria are insane, if you buy a piece of land you can't do anything with it, you could buy a pice of prospective building land, the price arround here is between 70 and 100€ per square meter. Otherwise you get on a waiting list to rededicate your land and a commissioner (who you have to pay) has to decide if your land can be rededicated or not, which can take multiple decades in the worst case. There is a maximum of 5% prospective building land in a region, so if that is all bought up all that and don't build anything there it will be zoned back to wasteland or argicultural after 25 years. Also the spot has to within percell nearby another building otherwise it's impossible, except if you are a farmer.

All wayyy too much to explain, I for example had restrictions with my roof it had to be a saddle roof angled within 15 to 40 degrees and covered with roof tiles or tile looking material in a speciffic color space. There is even a town in austria where people are forced to cover there roof only with hay, because if your house is oldere than about 150 years it will be set under monument protection and then the gouvernment tells you when or whatr you have to do with your house...

[YellowJersey]

35 minutes ago, Plermpel said:

On the other hand laws for zoning and cunstruction standarts in austria are insane, if you buy a piece of land you can't do anything with it, you could buy a pice of prospective building land, the price arround here is between 70 and 100€ per square meter. Otherwise you get on a waiting list to rededicate your land and a commissioner (who you have to pay) has to decide if your land can be rededicated or not, which can take multiple decades in the worst case. There is a maximum of 5% prospective building land in a region, so if that is all bought up all that and don't build anything there it will be zoned back to wasteland or argicultural after 25 years. Also the spot has to within percell nearby another building otherwise it's impossible, except if you are a farmer.

All wayyy too much to explain, I for example had restrictions with my roof it had to be a saddle roof angled within 15 to 40 degrees and covered with roof tiles or tile looking material in a speciffic color space. There is even a town in austria where people are forced to cover there roof only with hay, because if your house is oldere than about 150 years it will be set under monument protection and then the gouvernment tells you when or whatr you have to do with your house...

Both cases speak to the issue of regulation: how much is too much and how much is too little? I'd say, generally speaking, that Europe is probably too regulated whereas NA is under-regulated.

 In Canada, it's often the case that elected officials at every level of government are subject to heavy lobbying by builders who just want to throw up as many houses as quickly and cheaply as possible to maximise profit to the detriment of everything else.

[Middcore]

8 hours ago, Plermpel said:

I still don't change my mind that houses in NA are just build fast and cheap.

 

That's fine, it was clear you never were going to change your mind regardless of what anybody said. 

 

 

8 hours ago, Plermpel said:

And there is not much more heart warming for me than the LotR Vibe wandering arround in the ancient towns of middle europe.

 

Well this is an aesthetic consideration of no bearing to the ostensible thread topic. Clearly both NA and Europe are screwing up by not constructing all homes as Hobbit Hole dugouts. 

[freeagent]

That's like this one time we went to Grand Forks ND, I live in Winnipeg Canada, so about a 3 hour drive or so.. anyways, stopped for gas.. started chatting up the the girl behind the till and I told her I liked her accent. She asked where I was from and told her.. now we are 3 hours away.. and she asked if I lived in an igloo.

 

Are you fucking kidding me?? Do you see my car? My clothes? DO I look like I live in an igloo??

 

Of course I didn't say that, but I sure was thinking it. She was a hottie and I wanted some

 

Never saw her again after that. Thanks for the memories!

[whm1974]

3 hours ago, freeagent said:

That's like this one time we went to Grand Forks ND, I live in Winnipeg Canada, so about a 3 hour drive or so.. anyways, stopped for gas.. started chatting up the the girl behind the till and I told her I liked her accent. She asked where I was from and told her.. now we are 3 hours away.. and she asked if I lived in an igloo.

 

Are you fucking kidding me?? Do you see my car? My clothes? DO I look like I live in an igloo??

 

Of course I didn't say that, but I sure was thinking it. She was a hottie and I wanted some

 

Never saw her again after that. Thanks for the memories!

You should have said yes, maybe should would went home with you.

[freeagent]

56 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

You should have said yes, maybe should would went home with you.

Lol woulda got some moose meat instead of the antler 🤌
 

My wife had not heard that story so in case she gets curious I will just stop right here

[Middcore]

59 minutes ago, Caroline said:

Liquid buildings confirmed.

 

 

 

Those are for peasants, my house is a gas. 

[Doug_Dangger]

I've changed the walls of my home several times over the decades.  I can move a wall forward or backwards within a day or 2.  I can add rooms, expand or contract as needed.  All I'll need is my truck and Home Depot and in a weekend I just changed parts of my house.

 

I can't even fit a truck thru europe's tight roads.  Good luck hauling bricks and blocks back and forth in that VW Lupo.

[Donut417]

16 hours ago, Plermpel said:

Hey guys,

 

I often see pictures or videos of houses in north america and it always gives me the creeps!

 

I wouln't even be allowed to build a shed like that in europe.

 

Why is that so?

 

Are their any solid buildings in USA/canada?

You need to be specific. Part of the house I live in was originally built in the 1930’s. Houses vary in materials. 

[whm1974]

53 minutes ago, freeagent said:

Lol woulda got some moose meat instead of the antler 🤌
 

My wife had not heard that story so in case she gets curious I will just stop right here

Well You could share her with your Wife...