Nope, that's exactly it - it's cheaper and faster for the builder to frame a house small and simply. They've found that people spend money for houses based on location, size, and the visible stuff (like nice paint jobs and shiny appliances). They could spend twice as long as 40% more in materials and the home would sell for 2% more - not worth their time.
The last months there was again a case of a building constructor using less structural elements than it was legally required to, also violating the number specified in the blueprintS.
If buying and moving homes were a more frequent event, buyers would play more "rounds" of this game and eventually become wiser to the ground rules of it. Reputation would start to matter, and developers, contractors, et al., would need to work harder to ensure they didn't get dinged. As it now stands, except in the luxury market, really, where people custom build homes, no one cares about a developer or contractor's reputation. So they don't have any reputational risk on the line. So they happily cut corners wherever they can get away with it.
(And I'm willing to bet that even the luxury/custom buyer barely has a clue when it comes to evaluating the quality of construction and materials.)
1. Labor specialization, meaning less of the home-buying market is savvy enough in the "handyman" sense to tell the difference. 2. A move away from building the thing you're going to own, and building things that other people will buy later. 3. Minimum standards for housing construction.
The third needs to be explained more - instead of aiming towards "building a good home", the construction industry aims to build the cheapest thing that they are legally allowed to sell (ie, meets building codes). While building codes do mean that there's a quality floor, competitive pressure means that nobody can consistently exceed the floor without getting out-competed by people who aim to barely meet it.
True. I don't know how the market works in the US but in the UK what typically happens is a developer owns the land but borrows short term money to build on it.
The incentive, therefore, is to complete the project as quickly and cheaply as possible. Residential houses are designed for ease of building not for quality.
A typical buyer will have a 90-95% mortgage and the completed house is signed off by a surveyor who is engaged by the mortgage provider. The only real concern is if the house will still be standing in 25 years time and nothing else. In effect it's a rubber stamping process.
The buyer is often too emotionally involved in the concept of owning a home to care less.
No sane person would complete the purchase of a new car if defects in build quality were so glaringly obvious but the same people do it with houses every day?
That's what I meant by labor specialization - on the home-buying side, much fewer people can build a home or participate meaningfully in construction and remodeling.
The same cannot be said for houses. You live in a house everyday, but you don't have a true working or operating relationship with it unless you're very handy (which many home buyers these days are not). The car has a direct input/output operating cycle that you control; the house does not. It's harder to suss defects out because the house doesn't 'run' on them per se. You only learn about the defects when the house fails in one way or another. That may be two days into the inspection period, or it may be two years after closing.
Part of that was declining building standards (go too long between hurricanes and yes, people get complacent).
But another aspect, I think, is a shift in home ownership---we no longer "own" a home for an extended period of time (average length of owning a home in the US is seven years). Yes, my grandparents eventually paid off their mortgages, but nowadays I think that's pretty rare. Why buy quality when you aren't going to own for very long?
The one thing I will say for modern houses is that the wiring will generally be better and with outlets better spaced. They might be better insulated. But my goodness, the quality of the workmanship and often materials. We watched a house going up next to us, and had to think that big is a lot cheaper than good.
I built a few dozen homes and only once had a client request 2x6 construction. I tried to sell it on all the others, citing sturdiness and better insulating properties, but everyone looked at the features it excluded and went for flimsy 2x4 builds.
It gets important if you are a developer building subdivisions of homes. $10k saved on every house is $big profit. 25 home subs is $250k+ savings...very much an issue.
My own house is 2x6, and properly insulated top to bottom. My neighbor's slap job summer cooling bill is not quite double mine. Close to same sqft and same interior ac temp setting.
I read once that buildings are the best thing to cheat on the construction of because each layer of underspecced materials is hidden by the next layer.
I've a friend who has just added to his 17th century thatched cottage with like materials: oak timber frame, timber cladding and wattle and daub, which is dirt and wood/hay/hair. It's lovely and solid. Sadly planning officials insisted on an over the top concrete foundation that negated all his hard work with his sympathetic build.
The wood is good!
I collect antique espresso machines. Some of these are highly sought after because they use big, heavy, high quality components: big brass boilers, copper piping, stainless steel enclosures and big brass groupheads. Compare that with many flimsy, plastic machines today (which rarely last more than a couple years), and it's no wonder there is a market for these older machines.
> Virtually EVERY product
> Compare that with many flimsy, plastic machines today
> it's no wonder there is a market for these older machines.
I'm not sure about this part, unless you are very careful in what you're shopping for, and knowledgeable about it. One Achilles heel of a lot of current appliances is that there are now circuit boards everywhere, which are a common point of premature failure. If the computerized part of your appliance fails (due to a power surge, capacitor aging, etc.), the device is effectively bricked in a difficult-to-repair way, even if all the mechanical parts are still fine. One option is to buy all-mechanical high-end models, which works with some appliances (espresso machines) but is basically impossible with others (washing machines).
(There was this EU introduced power cap for domestic vacuum cleaners the other year, accompanied with articles how you should hurry up and buy one of the powerful ones before they were forbidden. I was in the market for one, and scoured every independent test I could find where I understood the language, and the result were the same: the modern ones using less power picked up small particles better. As soon as you have a powerful enough engine other things start to matter. That's when I sighed deeply about journalistic integrity and bought one of the newer models.)
You describe an important problem. Consumers keep buying older models, which are objectively worse, because they want a scalar value for "betterness". It's just like megapixels, where you stuff a 20 megapixel sensor behind a plastic lens and consumers buy it because big numbers are good.
The claim that cleaning time is linear to motor effect is unrealistic at best. There is an optimum effect for the nozzle. A 10 kW engine wouldn't clear your floors any faster than a 1 kW one, and definitively not ten times faster. The best (household, not for garages or anything like that) vacuum cleaner commercially available on the market is likely closer to 1 kW than 2 kW.
You think only "average" people falls for marketing tricks, but this superficial knowledge of the engineering involved actually makes you an easier prey for the marketing trick that more powerful motors makes for a better product. That bigger numbers are better is one of the easiest marketing schemes ever.
...my dad's top-end washing machine bought 25 years ago is still going strong, working without a hitch. Had simple maintenance once. All the while I'm about to get my third model in 14 years.
Craftsman tools used to be the same, although you have to be careful - they've started mixing in the cheapo junk lines and putting the Craftsman name on them, and those don't necessarily have the same warranty policy.
I do know someone whose entire business is reverse-engineering bricked old devices, sticking in a new circuit board with custom software. But it's expensive enough to hire him that his customers are all businesses with expensive equipment they want rescued, mostly 1990s vintage produced by now-defunct companies.
We've seen a spread in the market to where the cheap end
is now affordable by everyone, and the expensive end is
even better than (and more expensive than) the best of
the best was 20 years ago.
I mean, I'm sat here in my living room, place was built 1798 (relatively modern), near as damnit everything is original. Stone floors. Stone fireplaces. Stone walls. Lath and plaster ceilings. Lime plaster.
They knew what they were doing, this shit is built to last.
These days, they also know what they're doing, but a house has a shelf life of 30 years, so you can tear it down later, not feel bad, and stimulate the construction industry. In theory. I. Practice people live in leaky shoeboxes made of twigs, paper and tar.
Finally, the insurance industry drives this. Ever try insuring a 100 year old slate roof in America? Good luck with that. They'll insist you rip it off and replace it with tar shingles, because no roof more than 20 years old can be any good.
My other property has a 13th century stone roof (limestone, stacked), and it's barely been maintained and is in perfect nick after 600+ years.
A.) Snow doesn't come off of shingles worth a damn unless you have a wicked pitch on your roof. So you have to get up and shovel off the roof, or risk icedams, leaks, and potentially the whole roof collapsing if you have really heavy snowfall.
B.) Shingles only last about 20-30 years. Steel roofing lasts a lifetime. You might have to repaint it once in a great while.
I'm unclear what point ventilation or insulation in the attic would have to do with ice dams... In my experience, it's caused by snow that doesn't get removed, which then melts, seeps down to the roof, and refreezes, with the texture of the shingles providing a greater surface area to freeze against.
All things being equal, it's nice to have a steel roof that will warm up on a sunny day and have all the snow slide off.
The snow melts because of heat coming from the inside the house. [1]
So if you keep your roof cold through insulation and ventilation, you don't need to remove the snow (as long as the roof can handle it structurally)
[1]: http://www.erdc.usace.army.mil/Portals/55/docs/CEERD-RV/CEER... [pdf]
Windows if anything are too big, not too small! My city apartment has floor to ceiling windows which are difficult for window treatments. Suburban homes can have huge two-story family rooms.
Noise is more a problem from adjoining units. Outside noise is sealed out quite well thanks to double-pane windows.
Overall new construction is of quite high quality when it comes to what's important. New homes have smoke detectors, fire sprinklers, better electrical systems, more durable cladding on the outside, better insulation, more bathrooms, and air conditioning. As someone who has seen both old and new homes and has considered living in both, I do not get the nostalgia for old homes. Most home buyers around here agree as they are gutting old homes and renovating them, not living in them as is. I considered living in old homes, but only because they are in good locations. Their oldness in and of itself offered no benefits.
As for the pros and cons of old construction...
Pros: generally more durable, more attention to detail, nicer materials used. Will suffer from age-related maintenance issues, but unlike modern construction, is unlikely to suffer from issues related to fundamental structural or design failure.
Cons: design and layout choices that no longer fit a contemporary lifestyle (small or no closets; tiny bathrooms and kitchens; closed floor plans; etc.). Generally poorer insulation. Depending on the age of the home, it may also have issues with old plumbing and, having not been designed for central heating or A/C, will sometimes be a bear to deal with in that department.
All things considered, having lived in a c. 1920s home and a series of c. 2000s and c. 2010s homes, I'd take the older house 9 times out of 10 and just gut/retrofit as necessary to remedy layout issues (not construction-quality issues). I don't enjoy living in a drywall box with a superficially nice looking kitchen.
And I say all of this as someone who, all things being equal, greatly prefers a hyper-modernist aesthetic. I just have to accept that I don't get a Tony Stark house until I have Tony Stark money. :)
http://timber.ce.wsu.edu/Resources/papers/4-3-2.pdf
However, if you're not in an earthquake-prone area... then I agree I'd prefer to have a more solid construction.
Even in modern times where big timbers are scarce, you can still get straight, true, kiln-dried douglas fir in large (8x8, 8x12) sizes relatively cheaply.
For stuff like houses, I prefer the first approach.
It wouldn't be at all surprising to see a home built with such 'toy' materials require nothing more than some stucco repair and drywall patching, with a brick house right next door literally falling apart.
I realize not every region has earthquakes to worry about, but it is a factor in some areas.
> 10ft ceilings
These were no longer necessary once air conditioning was invented. However high ceilings and window awnings are more energy efficient and therefore should probably make a comeback.
Whenever something is done cheaply and it looks like it's not a cost issue because it's only miniscule part of the total cost of the product, it's usually actually is a cost issue. The buyer of the final product might not mind spending a little extra to have that one thing done a little better, but for the supplier of the sub-sub-contractor whose entire profit comes from doing that one thing, the "miniscule" part becomes 100% of the cost.
Not only that, but this is only one of many things that could be done more expensively. What if you add better fire resistance, better insulation, more weather resistant paint, more carefully assembled parts, etc. it ends up becoming quite a lot more expensive. It's a bit like the difference between a Mercedes and a Toyota. They both seem to be basically the same, but the Mercedes has slightly more expensive parts scattered all through it like a few dollars spent on fluid dampers on the adjustable seat backs compared to no damping.
> The most reliable engines came from Honda, with a failure rate of just 1 in 344, with Toyota in second (1 in 171) and, maintaining some honour for the German brands, Mercedes in third (1 in 119).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/9815860/German-cars...
If you go into a modern home, you see sheet drywall with tons of shitty looking texture all over it to hide the deep imperfections with the hanging of the drywall, and nary a wood detail to be found.
It's absurd that we've taken these woefully cheaper home construction standards with the prices of housing.
...in many cases i have seen in NYC, homeowners are economically motivated to "lower" their ceilings (cheaper to heat/cool living space).
I bought and still live in an early century Georgian, and the maintenance costs over the past two decades has been a very real challenge.
If a pipe leaks, if there is a crack in the wall, if/when the floor eventually gets bowed, etc. It is an entirely different, time-consuming and expensive approach to maintaining everything.
For the majority of homeowners, it is clearly and absolutely a cost issue.
We stopped living in walkable villages and cities and started living in motorway dependant sprawling suburbs. Our buildings got uglier. Our built environment got worse even as we got richer.
Largely this was a matter of public policy. The Roosevelt administration made new rules to plan new development to promote industry during the Depression and imposed it on banks and local planning boards. Still, there wasn't enough push to get the banks to allow anything to be built. Then after the war, those regulations had been in place for almost fifteen years and nothing had been built in the whole country for 16 years since the Depression began.
So people took the rules as gospel and built using them. The only thing allowed was car dependant sprawl and the car companies -- an enormous political power right after the war -- loved it. So the whole country was redesigned. It still is. And if your community isn't worth loving -- as sprawl isn't -- then it isn't worth building beautiful buildings.
That's why this is now the nation of NIMBYism. People can see that nothing has gotten built here but garbage since 1929 and they don't want more of it. Places like San Francisco are now like jewels and museums since nobody has been allowed to build like that in 86 years and won't be allowed to start tomorrow. The epoch when things could be new and beautiful has passed from living memory.
That's no explanation for situation in the article, of course. One would expect that structural elements of large, dramatic investments of that sort would take proper care to last. But drywall-on-sticks is an economic reality that makes sense.
The basic framing of houses is not that much different.
Lots of the old houses people are pining for here used death-trap "balloon framing".
I've lived in Europe for almost 30 years, and have never seen the plaster fall off the wall/ceiling without some serious other cause, like a leaking roof or serious subsidence.
My mum's house was built in 1908. A water leak in the summer meant part of the ceiling was ruined. The plasterer said it was original lath and plaster, and gave her a discount as he said it was a pleasure to work with.
21% of dwellings in England were built before 1919.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...
You could extend this to a lot of other things. Pre-war and post-war America look way more than five years apart.
The way I see it, some time right after WWII, people in US suddenly decided to live in a poorly built and ugly looking dwellings regardless of their income level. It is especially easy to see when looking at NYC buildings, some rentals are even explicitly advertized as "pre-war".
Examples of annoying trends in modern construction:
Even looking at materials used for construction today, I can't figure out why everyone thinks that drywall-on-sticks is acceptable? Literally every multi-story home I've been in felt hollow and shaky if you jump on the 2nd floor because there's no mass anywhere.This is clearly not a cost issue, I have taken tours looking at brand-new multi-MM homes in Austin, TX just for fun. While they all had top-notch appliances, finishes and a gazilion of square feet and bedrooms, they were also built using the same "toy" materials and used generally similar architectural patters as middle class homes.
What caused this change? It's like our collective mind suddenly stopped caring about tall doors, 10ft ceilings and solid feel of floors we walk on.