@stux

American here. I'm not even sure what the alternative is. Bricks? In any event the culture of disposable goods has infected even our housing market. Ever since the 80's houses really aren't built to last any more. They are expected to have a 40-50 year life span and then be torn down and replaced.

@Moriel oh yes!

My parents build our home before i was born, and the default here is:

Reinforced concrete fundation with at least 2 brick walls, inner and outer with stuff to isolate warmth and colth etc

On top there are againr einforced concrede floors for the next level

@stux Yea, cheap, fast, and easy to build. We've got easy access to lumber, and plenty of land to spread single-story, single-family homes on.

HUGE boom in the 40s and 50s with vets & the GI bill meant we needed a LOT of houses very, very quickly.

@Moriel These are the outer walls alone and we do not get any tornadoes etc

Found a quick little example of how I know walls are build here, at least this is how we use to build them when i was working construction

An inner wall, isolation for heat and outer wall

Ofc this isn't useful for walls inside the house

These are also connected with simple metal pins every x cm

@stux wood is abundant, it is faster, etc., and therefore more "economical" in the eyes of many. Building codes have also codified a long habit of this form of construction.

@nhgeek Hmm i wonder how many tornadoes it costs when the price exceeds the bricks

I mean.. one would build for stability rather then cost right

@stux Hell, I'm in a suburb of a tier 2 or 3 city, and most of my neighborhood was built in the late 40s. There are at least three houses on my street that are all built on the base floorplan, with small variations and additions over the last 80 years.

@drsbaitso huh!

We also live in a house from the 50 or 60's, quickly build after the war but it's still all super solid and "reasonable cheap"

@stux @Moriel no masonry here cause earthquakes.

@stux Americans build houses out of locally sourced, renewable wood purely to piss off Europeans online tbh.

Sure, it would make more sense to significantly increase our carbon footprint and construction costs by hsing concrete, but then euros wouldn’t get to mock us for using wood.

“Haha american houses are made out of cardboard”

Yes we get it. You are so superior to us.

@grechaw @Moriel Thats a good one!

Wood would hold better with quakes i guess?

@cruftyold That's not the point

I was seriously wondering why keep rebuilding wooden houses instead of investing a little more and build brick ones

It has nothing to do with "superiority"

@stux

I would l live a house built like this but would never be able to afford it. It would take at least 3 or 4 times the amount of money a stick-built house would.

Some people are pioneering (re-pioneering?) better construction methods with rammed earth, hyperadobe, etc. but building codes are created around wood framing so it's hard for other types to even be legal.

@springdiesel It's so messed up that is so out of reach while it should or could be the standard-ish

A house made out of mostly wood without isolation/double walls etc would classily as a shed or something here and not be sold as homes

Maaaaybe vacation homes or something

But yeah, the climate here is rainy mostly

@stux we have a lot of trees here in america and a lot of really good building wood. its harder to get stone here, some parts of the country dont really have great stone to build with and a lot of older cities are brick so the price is high to build with brick. other than deserts and the great plains most areas of the country have really good wood to build with.

@stux It's cheap, and quick to put up and people want cheap big houses. We're into what's called "stick built" houses here where big houses can be put up cheaply and quickly but they are garbage. Absolute garbage. I'm wanting a euro-style minihouse :3

@stux

1) concrete has a huge carbon footprint. Wood is recent/modern carbon.

2) Flexibility for earthquakes.

3) Flexibility for modification. It is easy to knock down a wall or insert water/power/ducting, etc.

4) Modern building codes make a wood structure resistant to earthquakes an hurricanes.

@stux @nhgeek

In North Alabama, that often has tornados, the wood houses tend to survive better than the brick houses because the wood "bends" and the brick just breaks.

Also, it depends on the quality of the construction. Around the 1950s, cheap became the standard over quality. Even those houses stand up better than the ones built from the 1990s on, which usually start falling apart after 15 years.