what's up with american and (to an extant) western house?
I live in a humid and poor tropical shithole, picrel
and I've never encountered the common horor story about rotted foundation, flooding, mold, shitty roofing, etc
what's up with american and (to an extant) western house? I live in a humid and poor tropical shithole, picrel
Americans have set really shitty standards for themselves (for everything. Not just houses). So as long as it's big and looks good on the day it is sold, anything goes.
But the bigger one is that the shit holes have no idea how to build anything so they just overcompensate by having more material and simpler construction. Same reason why old American house last longer than the ones from the last 80 years. New constructions are minmaxing to get you 6 bedrooms out of barely enough plywood to wipe a fart.
yeah
even the shittiest house here have concrete support column
>tile roof
That is why you never hear of roof problems. They are great.
>concrete support column
This is put in places where you get earthquakes. You will see it here in the balkans but not in g*rmany. Frankly I would rather live in a stick house than german shit like that, brick is such a shit brittle material, probably they use higher quality brick there, it's sketchy when I lived between 2 walls of solid fricking concrete for most of my life.
>You guys just sort of accept a few roof leaks during a bad rain storm
That's such a load of shit, our roofs don't leak, period.
>we don’t because the fancy wood floors will get fricked.
WOOD FLOORS? In the US? Pffffffft, maybe there's fricking plywood underneath your laminate shit or tile or who the frick knows. Hardwood is a standard here, laminate is just for utter poors.
>WOOD FLOORS? In the US? Pffffffft
lmao you have no idea what you're talking about.
Rent free, homosexual. It must be awful to wake up every day knowing that you'll never be a real person in a real country that matters in any way.
>
I put hardwood flooring into every house I remodel
Get fricked commie lmaoooo
>I put hardwood flooring into every house I remodel
That's great.
>Get fricked commie lmaoooo
Commies put hardwoood flooring in most apartments they built.
> plywood
ROFL… plywood???
We’ve been using cheap-ass OSB for years now gramps. And we have cardboard sheathing now.
they're not overcompensating dumbfrick they know that a house is supposed to be longlasting and multigenerational
>that a house is supposed to be longlasting and multigenerational
Why do you imagine that? Homes that are cheap and disposable fit the model of rapid growth and change. Just because you crave the illusion of permanence does not make that the most coldly pragmatic way to build things.
A house need not outlive me to serve me.
>multigenerational
my kids don't get shit from me frick them. I'd rather my house burn down than they get it. my other American friends agree.
ffs "America" is not that homogeneous. California & Washington homes are built 3x stronger than houses in Arizona or Florida.
>he doesn't know about hurricanes
those houses destroyed by hurricanes on beachside property probably make the construction companies a killing, not that the rich people there can't afford it
Compensate moisture issues by blasting the AC and heat all day long. Some people actually run a dehumidifier 24/7 in the basement.
>as long as it's big and looks good on the day it is sold
This is the American way. If it's a big house that has a nice shiny veneer of luxury it will sell for ***at minimum*** a half million. The guts though have been thrown together as cheaply as possible with as many corners cut as they could get away with by lying to inspectors or going around behind their backs.
American housing is the cheapest, flimsiest, overpriced crap you can imagine.
I thought I was done, but I'm not finished yet.
Almost every new construction home I've been inside of has had one or several of: electrical problems, plumbing problems, drainage problems, foundation problems, framing problems, or roofing problems.
It's hilarious watching these dipshit general contractors and subs rush around with their heads cut off scrambling to throw together a house as quickly and cheaply as possible only to have to later eat the cost of fixing all of the problems they made by half-assing everything.
Houses are no longer designed to last forever because modern real-estate taxes and the changing desires of the average person has almost completely eliminated the "Family farm" of inheriting properties from your parents. Housing and real estate has become an investment, in which (mainly boomers) buy a house with the intent that the value will always go up, in order to sell for a profit and fund their retirement. The whole scam trend of reverse mortgages is a symptom of this. Not only that, but technology is changing so rapidly that the electrical, plumbing, LV, etc are all being outdated rapidly. Who needs the old RJ11 wiring in a house? Old school doorbell wiring? Lead plumbing? It's costly to replace these things.
Modern houses are "Shit" because they are designed to last 50-60 years, and are designed to be easily torn down and replaced. Thin slabs, no basements, OSB and timber construction, thin roofs, foam insulation. Once the lifespan of the house is up, it's effortless to tear it down with a backhoe and put the entire thing in a roll-off dumpster. The problem is that economic forces have made these "modern" older houses, designed to last 50 years and nearing the end of their lives, the only houses that younger generations can afford. Of course they have rot problems, damp problems, and things like that. They're way past their expiration date.
so you are saying the houses built in 1980's are collapsing soon? the quality now is much better than back then.
Collapsing? No, but I'm sure the cladding and roof is starting to go.
Labor unions.
>american and western house
I assume you mean North American, they are the only ones living in plywood shacks with asphalt roofing.
All these issues are related to:
- basements that are not waterproofed
- running water and plumbing, which can develop issues and lead to moisture buildup, leading to mold
- all kinds of roofs degrade over time
- the houses being well isolated, so the moisture can't always escape as easily
>british
Old brick housing stock in cold climate. The houses are leaky as frick, the brick is intended to be breathing, but modern standards demand better thermal isolation, which does not breathe, and all not so well isolated areas will be cold spots where moisture will build up and lead to mold. Which is a notorious problem in the UK.
>euro houses
Every country has different building methods and different issues, so it's hard to point out anything specific.
The biggest thing in civilized countries is really running water and plumbing. If that leaks, then you will get moisture problems. It's doubly troublesome when the housing stock is old and was adapted and the buildings weren't built in mind with that amount of moisture.
>Old brick housing stock in cold climate.
Bri'ish are terrible. Old and new builds. Just cheaping out everywhere. DOUBLE GLAZING IS CONSIDERED A LUXURY IN THE UK. Lmao.
>The houses are leaky as frick, the brick is intended to be breathing, but modern standards demand better thermal isolation, which does not breathe,
Aerated concrete breathes. Mineral wool breathes, so the manufacturers say at least.
>>euro houses
>Every country has different building methods and different issues, so it's hard to point out anything specific.
No, actually, you can consider Sweden and Norway to be completely different, they built out of wood, like USA but better, while the rest of Europe is virtually identical on all levels of construction.
The best insulation, plumbing and electrical probably goes to krauts just because they're autistic and will enforce code. The structurally strongest houses will be in the former Yugoslav countries and Balkans in general due to seismic activity of this region.
>the need for proper insulation instead of just thermal mass
Would you look at that, we can have both.
You guys just sort of accept a few roof leaks during a bad rain storm, we don’t because the fancy wood floors will get fricked.
It’s like driving a BMW 7-series compared to a Lada. Nobody gives a shit if the Lada burns oil, but if the BMW’s touch screen stops working, gotta get it fixed
Much of north america spends a good portion of the year being cold and wet. That means freeze/thaw cycles, snow load considerations, and the need for proper insulation instead of just thermal mass. Also we like paying a lot for cheap houses.
>paying a lot
Labor costs are ridiculous.
the problem is you are only invited to low class places
Americans consider housing and investment not a home and their dream is to get money for free by owning a house that they don't live in so everything is focused on the appearance of someone driving by the house not what living in the house is actually like living in a house to these people is pushing through 2 hours of traffic to microwave some macaroni and cheese and jerk off to the office while scrolling a corporate social media platform on their smartphone until falling asleep on the couch and then shambling to their ever unmade bed for another couple of hours before the alarm goes off and the drudgery begins again. They mostly also live in these planned communities as a workaround a Rube Goldberg machine to segregate blacks in which you can't Garden or plant flowers or grow food or even build a shed on your own home it must remain sterile and uniform for that curbside appeal we talked about earlier.
I'd add that the shortsightedness of housing in North America isn't solely a part of the racial problem or aspirational rent-seeking but rampant capitalism as a whole in the sense that it's a big country and the economy largely works on exploitation in which an area is built up economically until the occupants of that area are priced out or forced to sell their homes and property and then the transient upper middle and upper classes abandoned the area in favor of new opportunities to exploit so Americans tend to move a lot between not just different towns and cities but different ends of their country and the cycle of this by wait sell move pattern is about 12 years and most middle class homeowners won't feel confident until about 6 years into that cycle when the last of the blacks have been moved out.
use punctuation and take your meds.
Ever how OP never says WHICH country he's from in these threads?
Not like you'd know the country anyway, American.
Out of respect and professional standards, I would research racial slurs and statistics to make fun of you, your country and your building practices.
If you build a house like you do in a "tropical shithole", but place it in the northern 2/3rds of the US, you will freeze your ass off AND spend a shitload of money trying to heat the place.
American houses (at least in the northern half) are built to be extremely well insulated. They're also built to require minimal amounts of labor to assemble, because laborers cost probably 10x per hour what they do in your country, and I'm not exaggerating.
Foundation issues are usually caused by water getting in, and then undergoing freeze-thaw cycles. I've seen outdoor concrete walls around a garden literally crumble in a matter of years here. If not maintained, water will get into tiny cracks, and when water freezes it exerts a tremendous outward pressure as it expands. This widens the crack, and as the temperature goes above and below freezing (sometimes daily), the cycle repeats until entire chunks of concrete are broken off.
hands down best construction is probably east europe style,
reinforced RC-Columns walls filled with 1foot thick perlite filled clay bricks, RC roof, Well insulated no organic materials only mineral so no mold, no mice, no vapor barrier needed, if it becomes wet it dries without getting damaged, good thermal mass, good sound insulation.
look at this pic serbian house, fricking tiled in a big flood without collapsing, whole europe builds like this
countries without quakes like germany just leave the RC roof away and use smaller or no RC corners for better insualtion properties.
only thing east europe cant is fricking plaster the outside kek.
pic the bricks used, large and tight surface tolerances so its quick and easy to stack them only thinset mortar needed, saves on labour
enought insualting that you do not need any aditional layer with would require stuff like a vapour barrier and has many posibilitis to frick something up.
plaster it with lime/cement mortar and paint ith with 100% silicate paint,
its now so alkaline it can never get moldy if a pipe leaks you fix the leak and the walls just dry without disintegrating and becoming moldy like osb.
wiring goes into slots in the bricks and gets plastered in, no voids for mice no room for air to move, no fire hazard.
only needs a bit of carefull planning better runn a wire to much or a gouge thicker adding one later is hard
>Thermal bridging.
Kneegro please
i have never seen this, but i don't work in construction
t.balkan
Europeans build houses for longevity. Americans build house for profit.
I would like a house like this since I'm in tornado alley but it'd cost me probably $1.5 million. Sticks and plastic it is for me.
>walls filled with 1foot thick perlite filled clay bricks
I am literally from Serbia and I have never seen this used. I don't even think you can buy that here. That shit used there is called giter blok and it is just hollow inside and likely weak as shit.
>only thing east europe cant is fricking plaster the outside kek.
Nobody plasters the outside right away, not for the last 2-3 decades. We do external wall insulation first. Used to be 5cm styrofoam now either 8cm or 10cm, but mineral wool is the absolute best and has absolutely no fire hazard.
>RC roof,
A good amount of it is wood actually. Often the entire attic just is wood and OSB. It's fine.
That kind of stacked 60mm boxes are used in Croatia, it's a German thing I think.
In Serbia we manufacture and use clip in modular ones like pic related, I think this type of box was originally made by Italians or French? No idea. Standard 60mm box fits 2 modules so 1 or 2 light switches or one schuko outlet, for more you use modulars, goes up to 7 modules.
its just gitter block filled with insulation, perlite or rockwool, then no need for aditional insulation.
we still have many houses like you with external stysrofoam or even both for max insualtion.
german roofs are 99% wood and tiles , i think croatia uses 'RC roofs because they have quakes.
>its just gitter block filled with insulation, perlite or rockwool
I have never seen it here. I've seen videos of maybe 2 houses in Croatia built with that porotherm izo or whatever it was called.
>then no need for aditional insulation.
RC colums will be a huge thermal bridge then, I thunk that's why we use the cheap shit brick, external wall insulation is a must regardless.
>RC colums will be a huge thermal bridge then,
in germany we do not use RC columns, only a purded ring beam at every story, which is made smaller than the walls and insulated with a layer of xps.
but now americans will say i will die a agonizing death crushed under my house if a quake happens, but we have no quakes in germany,
Come to think of it, Belgrade Waterfront BW Quartet buildings are built with Ytong aerated concrete for the exterior walls and they are insulating the RC with mineral wool.
Though for the price those frickers are asking one should expect a ventilated facade.
It is not often you see only aerated concrete used. I lived in a building from the early 90s that was aerated concrete with 5cm styrofoam over it, we had an AC in the living room and we never had to use it. Better insulation than most buildings 20 years newer than it.
>even richgay don't bother with central HVAC system
The thing is even Americans aren't bothering with them anymore if they can afford ducted splits instead and multi split systems are frickin expensive.
That roof isn't RC, it's wooden roof beams. The only RC element is the RC ring beam the rafters sit on.
>look at this pic serbian house
still better than american houses, look they use 2 sheets of osb on eoutside and one inside, with glued groves this is a vapor barrier and should not mold, in comparisation to americans using osb outside and only drywall inside.
and you cant punch throught the walls.
still many decide against this construction because resale value here is considerably worse than a solid house.
>still better than american houses, look they use 2 sheets of osb on eoutside and one inside
norway and sweden do that too, its so you can mount shit to the wall
seems only we do the standard styrofoam insulation over it instead of siding though, likely because there is no siding to buy here, but whatever more insulation always more good
>many decide against this construction because resale value here is considerably worse than a solid house
was gonna say shit's worthless regardless because anywhere you can build a house here is a gypsy slum and then I remembered morons in sremčica want 200-400k for their shitheaps in a shithole now, it's so fricking over
The strongest house in the world doesn't count for shit if morons build it on a flood plain I guess lol
two things
americans buildt truly shit houses with the cheapest materials around and no regards of climate and laws of physics.
thirdies dont know that their based and trad houses they think of as solid af are often just as bad, you dont even consider looking for thoose problems so you dont know you have them. you need to actually afford a new kitchen or bathroom in the first place to discover that the wall behind it is rotting away, and you need to think rot=bad it must be fixed instead of thinking you can just cover it and forget about it.
aids too isnt a problem if you dont know you have it, you just die one day and thats it.
thoose houses are some of the worst around, its a mix of both the above.
>you dont even consider looking for thoose problems so you dont know you have them.
Plus even if they did, there is no one to complain to in their corrupt shitholes. Complaining is a first world thing. You know, home inspectors, damage assessment, home repair businesses, expensive litigations and the entire food chain around that. Thirdies just try to survive. That's why it is funny when the OP says he's never heard of mold in a tropical shithole lmao.
>thoose houses are some of the worst around, its a mix of both the above.
lol moron, it is a very strong structure, what more do you need?
if the poor bastard could afford to insulate it, it would be perfectly fine
you summed up thirdie mindset of houses pretty well
>cant afford insulation
>its a hard and "solid" structure so it must be good.
>concrete doesnt rot
no it crumbles away, exposes the rebar for water causing it to rust and its brittle. that is if its done poorly, its a safe guess most of these houses are. brick/concrete isnt the rock solid maintendance free material you guys think it is.
same with wooden houses like we buildt them here in northern europe, do it properly and rot never happends. do it sloppy and it will happend.
>no it crumbles away, exposes the rebar for water causing it to rust and its brittle
relatively easy to fix in a small property, its nothing to get hysterical
>no it crumbles away, exposes the rebar for water causing it to rust and its brittle. that is if its done poorly, its a safe guess most of these houses are.
You are dead wrong
>brick/concrete isnt the rock solid maintendance free material you guys think it is.
Much less than wood
take a brick, hit it with a hammer
take a 2"-4", hit it with a hammer
build a brick wall, try to bend it over
buildt a wood wall, try to bend it over
notice the different results and tell me what building material is best.
Out of those 2, it is the reinforced concrete that is unscathed.
moron.
try to bend my brick wall with RC concrete columns build in the 1940s
if you hit it with a hammer it will spark and the hammer will get a dent, bastards put almost 50% cement in the concrete if you break it it is blue like on the bunkers, these beams have killed a few chinese hammer drills, gona need a TE75 for that.
>>cant afford insulation
Because those that can usually just buy condos.
>>its a hard and "solid" structure so it must be good.
Yes, that is the most important thing. Insulation is easy and cheap.
>you need to think rot=bad
concrete doesnt rot, this fear of rot is something that people in wooden houses have
they get told not to get their house wet or it rots
Ive been in the housing repair business over 40 + years. I also worked residential new construction briefly. Home builders are anything but. They are money shufflers that dont know dick about building
. I spent more time chasing my money and educating these idiots than actually working.
Thank GOD I retired from it all last year. New houses are junk. I could write a book on the subject.
The last of the real builders ended in the 80s.
Granted there are a few if you can afford them.
After fighting that for years along with finding people to work I decided to do what I can by myself. The last 20 years have been good.
Now thats shithouse as well….home owners want the cheapest price which yields the shittiest results.
Then they bad mouth the business.
I still do work for my valued customers.
My advice is avoid this business unless you can turn a blind eye to shitty help and shoddy work.
Integrity is rarely appreciated these days…
Im going fishing, have a great day peeps
Oh btw my grammar sucks…I can cut hips and valleys and still pack lumber all day..how about you grammar nazi
In your part of the world, houses are built for your climate. They're all block and concrete and change with the outside weather so there's never a temperature difference causing moisture issues
In most of the US, we have wildly varying climates and inside climate control so we'll have hot days outside when we run the air conditioning, and cold days outside where we run the heat inside
These temperature differentials create moisture issues
Old American houses were built in such a way that the houses could dry out no matter where the moisture gathered due to lack of modern air and moisture proofing materials.
Coming into the modern era, we've been trying to properly manage that moisture in such a way that we can have an air and moisture tight house without the house accidentally gathering moisture and water where it can't get away and then damages the structures
I would say the biggest issues for newer American homes is simply lack of construction oversight and education of those who should know the proper ways.
The building codes all outline the proper way to build houses such that they don't have the issues that get shown in the news and media, but the building inspector can't catch everything or be there all the time
Beyond that, construction continues after an inspector sees a property so everything might be good when he sees the building, but then some moron might cut a huge hole through the outside of the building without properly weather and waterproofing it after
A lot of building disasters happen because of bloated, terrible building companies like Dr Horton that puts up houses with no oversight whatsoever leading to all kinds of water penetrations into the structure that leads to the houses needing to be demolished after 10 years or so
This thread proves how much the US lives rent free in everyone else's heads lmaooooooooo
>common horor story about rotted foundation, flooding, mold, shitty roofing, etc
It's not as common as you think, but it does happen.
Issue stems from McHomes, cheaply and hastily built cookie cutter subdivisions.
Developers are raking in tons of cash because people have deluded themselves into paying hundreds of thousands for these shacks.
But if you are willing to not be a moronic NPC, cost me $60k for a slab and a 4 bed steel house on my own piece of land. American build techniques are incredibly cheap.
>inb4 steel house bad
Cost me less than your shitty car.
How's the HVAC situation in that b***h? Got ducts running all throughout?
>Got ducts running all throughout?
Through brick walls? Sure, yeah, right. It's gonna be a mini split or multiple depending on how much money you have.
I've seen ducted split units put in high end condos here, I've also seen them put in US new builds, sooooo... Ductwork is for poors in this day and age.
yep one 1 split ac per room
even richgay don't bother with central HVAC system
1 split per room is the most efficient if correctly sized.
even the best inverter AC only have a range from xkW to ykW, a multi split needs to be big enought to cool all rooms in a hot summer, now if the kids move out or whatever and you only want to cool half the house its likley oversized and reaches the lowest output the inverter can do after that it beginns to cycle on and off which cost lifetime of the motor and compressor and lowers efficiency.
1 split ac sized to the room, rather on the lower end that runns near max 24h a day is more efficient.
Here in germany many AC guys will tell you a we just use the 7,5kW version bigger is better it only costs a bit more, t
hey still think its 1970 and they install oil burners, you need 10kW to heat the house we install 25kW oil is cheap anyways and so we dont get complaints.
1 split with 1 outside unit. No sharing.
If one breaks the rest will still function.
Perhaps all the 'American houses fall apart after 5 years!' threads are just bullshit. 42yo and never lived in a home less than 30 years old. Current house was put up in 1955. I've had exactly one 'rotting/flooding/etc' issue, and that was shitty roofing related. Contractor that did the roof didn't flash the chimney properly so it was dumping water into the wall behind it. Replacing the siding all the way up to the third floor was not enjoyable, but still just a couple of weekends to fix.
Third worlders are completely obsessed.
if you're slightly interested in modern construction
shit like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijtpz5xwpu0 will pop in in your req and you'll start to wonder why did this never happen here
Unfortunately there is not enough space here to cover it, one of my college papers covered it. Scariest rabbit hole I ever fell down. But it can generally be broken down into 3 forces I see
1. race to the bottom. Many of the modern things we hate are based on good ideas of the past that have been reduced to nothing like their original form. A good example is how we went from lath and plaster walls to drywall. Flat white walls use to be respected because it was associated with performance and wealth, now we have flat white walls made of paper and dust that are the pinnacle of such development if purely on looks and cost as all other benefits were abandoned.
2. code for cash. code may have started as a way to help protect people, but now it is used as a weapon to lock in industries. Western homes were often made with wood as it allowed for quick western expansion, however that also gave the lumber industries a lot of power which they have abused over the years as they helped write the code. To make it even worse the lumber standards have dropped by 3 to 4 times what they use to be as they use faster and faster growing wood to inflate sales volume in more ways then one.
3. people don't want to be smart. I can't tell you the number of times I've had someone cut me off and tell me to not ask questions about how the home was built, that's the builders problem let them deal with it. You don't need to waste time double checking a "professional" who knows far more then you, only for me to later fix their amazing work. It's a tragic mix of people thinking they could never understand what a builder does, and not caring because they see other things as more important than their shelter or the nutrition of their food.
Builders and suppliers are in it for money, so builder grade is the cheapest that doesn't get them sued. While customers go for what looks nice, who cares how it works.
You have an exterior with very few air gaps, and the interior is always ventilated because you live in the tropics. Clay roofing also shits on shingles for longevity. Duh
t. homebuilder
>open israelitetube
>recommended shows me this fricking SHED with RC columns
What absolute overkill, but that's balkans. Even the sheds will stand forever.
Those are some phat rafters
But I live in canada where even our forest industry israelites us by selling to the US and having the US sell it back to us
but why not?
in germany my shed was build when the house was build in 1950, it got painted a decade ago other than that its still perfectly fine.
why build something shitty and then have to replace it every 15 years.
>german "houses"
in a country with no tornadoes or hurricanes.
they got a little wet.
and the OP bragging about his shithole is also hilarious.
if you look ever so slightly carefully you would see they are ALL MADE OF FRICKING WOOD and they look to be what, at least 100 years old?
atleast, my bet is 1600-1800 after that timber framing got less popular,
also they look poorly build with thin and bend timber, probably build DIY by the people in that time,
pic rel from 10x10 oak beams would probably held up and only need some repair.
Because houses in third world shitholes are usually made out of brick/concrete while houses in the USA are made out of wood. simple as that ol mate
masonry houses wouldn't hold up in a lot of the usa because of the earthquakes
>masonry houses wouldn't hold up in a lot of the usa because of the earthquakes
RC columns fix that very well though
>masonry houses wouldn't hold up in a lot of the usa because of the earthquakes
Mansonry can adopt to quakes just fine, i bet pic rel is more quake resistant than a mc mansion, and it will also survive a hurican, it will dry out just fine and wont get moldy after a flood, and it can probably withstand shelling by your neighbours country.
>i bet pic rel is more quake resistant than a mc mansion
It does look stupidly strong I must say. Although wood is very flexible and doesn't get damaged by flexing as much so something worth considering. Amerimutts cheap out a lot in general, I think a wood house could be made to infinitely more earthquake resistant than anything masonry, but that and a muttshack are probably the same.
Shitty cheap slumlords and developers are very common in muttstan
You are so full of shit you are even embarrassed to name your shithole. Based on reverse image search, it is Indonesia.
>I've never encountered the common horor story about rotted foundation, flooding, mold, shitty roofing, etc
>pic related
This is the average neighborhood in Indonesia
Yet you've never "heard" about any problems.
You people have zero self-awareness.
10yo in me finds this pic awesome.
Scrap shack-houses bolted together on stilts by the river, corrugated metal sheet, plastic foil and palette wood.
I want to check them out, see how they connect with eachother and interact, maybe play some hide&seek there.
only a moronic american would think that's what most of indonesia looks like. whats the point of inventing google maps street view if you dont remember it exists
one thing I always wonder about during the winter when driving around. I see these construction sites where they are using osb sheathing and it will rain or snow before they are able to cover it with tyvek. that has to be pretty bad for it, no? I know using osb as a concrete form in a pinch it didn't stand up well to the moisture exposure.
is that an old taco bell
>mold
I've seen bad mold in the types of places you live.
The basic problem with US/Canadian building is "demand side economics." Encouraging remodeling, and even rebuilding is built into the entire industry.
Places like Florida have changed, where the first floors and walls are bricks/cinderblocks, because of hurricanes. But most standard building is "make work, now, and later."
Buildings should never be permanent, lifestyles an trends change, in some cases radically. At one point, an attached kitchen was the most moronic and dangerous things you could do. Old Victorian homes often have a carport on the side of the house, which is substandard now, especially if you have snow. What's become of all of the coal cellars? Wasted space I would imagine.
I can only imagine my home theater room will be as antiquated as a sitting room by the time I have grand children
Fun fact. The Anglo genes prevent houses being built normally and properly. See the USA with it's OSB and asphalt sheds, the UK with it's tiny damp brick buildings that leak constantly, Canada, Australia, new Zealand with similar US style buildings