Why So Many American Homes Are Flimsy - Cheddar Explains

you can hear conversations through the walls footsteps up the stairs banging pots in the kitchen when you're across the house that's just life in most american homes walls are thin and the opposite of soundproof and something always needs to be fixed and most homes aren't even that old there should be no excuse that they're falling apart but why are they like this especially when other areas have sturdy thick houses that last hundreds and hundreds of years the answer isn't just capitalism so don't click off the video just yet it's actually a lot more complex and the solution isn't easy [Music] if you're looking for one quick thing to blame you can look towards george washington snow in 1832 the civil engineer was tasked with building a chicago warehouse as quickly as possible from the local softwood so he got creative snow used two by fours to assemble hollow walls several stories high the method let individual workers handle assembly leaving only one person to nail it all into place snow completed the warehouse in record time the method was called balloon framing and it became the construction method of choice in chicago but balloon framing didn't take off until the 1940s when america was experiencing a post-war boom period more americans had money than ever before and they wanted the american dream a house they could suddenly afford to buy homes in sprawling new suburbs and contractors knew they could make killing if they could produce enough homes to satisfy the demand balloon framing and its successor platform framing allowed contractors to frame houses basically overnight but there was something unique about balloon framing that made it only feasible in certain countries like the us and canada and not in europe balloon framing requires a massive quantity of long mature trees and america had an abundance of super tall mature trees plus it was an easy and cheap construction material for the newly growing suburbs wood is sturdy yet flexible enough to withstand low intensity earthquakes and tornadoes if you want to hear about all of wood's good qualities check out our video on the subject here in europe wood is still incredibly expensive because so few forests remain and what they do have is heavily protected so the average european home is built with brick stone or concrete and they are many centuries old these materials can be sturdier and safer than wood a concrete masonry wall has a shocker higher fire insulation property rating compared to a wooden frame wall one of these concrete walls has a fire rating of around four hours till it's destroyed as compared to a wooden framed wall which only has a rating of around an hour insurance carriers also have long-term data suggesting that homes constructed of brick are less likely to be destroyed by natural hazards and if saving money is your game the us department of energy estimates that you could save 340 a month or over four thousand dollars a year on heating and cooling if you live in a brick house over a wood one it's estimated that losses from wildfires have added up to 5.1 billion dollars over the past 10 years a number made even more bloated by all the wood framed houses now to be clear wood isn't necessarily a bad building material i mean take a look at the fairbanks house in dedham massachusetts it's been standing since 1637. but in general wood is harder to maintain in fact without maintenance many houses won't make it to 30 years and to many americans that's just the right amount of time the u.s census says that the average american moves houses 11 times in their lifetime that figure across 16 european countries about four times since americans are constantly moving their homes they don't need them to last as long they expect a semi-new home wherever they go because with the increased owner turnover regular maintenance isn't normally done it's easier just to rip it down and start over fresh but why do americans move around so much you can blame the job market in america it's much more common to hop around between companies the opposite is true in the european union the world bank reports that the median tenure of the average u.s employee was four years while the median tenure in the eu was 10 years part of that culture of constantly shifting jobs is moving to a new area to take that job meaning you've got to move houses so short story blame george washington snow long story blame the shifting u.s job market interestingly we aren't the only country in the world to have famously flimsy houses we shared that title with japan and they're actually worse than us houses in japan depreciate like cars do in the u.s after 20 years a japanese house typically loses all of its value and is on average torn down just 30 years after being built according to a paper by the namura research institute it's a major obstacle to affluence for japanese families the collective waste is approximately an annual loss of four percent of japan's total gdp the total amount of new houses built in japan every year is on par with the united states despite having only a third of its population which is shrinking every year 87 of japan's home sales are new homes compared to only 11 to 34 in western countries part of the reason for this is that the japanese love new things their frequent and severe earthquakes make old houses cheap wood frame houses from the same post-war boom we had dangerous and without proper seismic reinforcement it's considered futile to invest in their maintenance or try to improve them that's especially reinforced the nomura research institute says by concepts of impermanence in the shinto religion take a look at isei's grand shinto shrine a huge religious site that is rebuilt from scratch every 20 years unfortunately it's very expensive when you apply that same principle to houses americans wanted cheap homes to fulfill their dreams of home ownership after world war ii but the tricks that contractors used to make that happen have made it easy for us to view homes as disposable and unworthy of repair but times could be changing a recent trend that hasn't unseated wooden framing yet is modular or prefabricated homes modular homes are constructed in sections away from the building site and then put together on the property but they're actually framed with eight to ten percent more wood so they're extra strong for transportation and are designed to be sturdier than regular homes instead of nails and screws walls are connected using joints and strong blues it's a method that has become increasingly popular for making tiny homes but hasn't managed to beat out balloon framing on the most important thing to contractors price modular homes sell for less than regular homes even though they can be slightly cheaper to make so contractors avoid them in favor of more profit if americans decided to stay put in one home and invest in it that might change but the cheap efficiency of wooden framing and the necessity of moving to advance one's career are hard lures to resist especially when everyone else is doing it so i suppose you can really just blame it on trying to keep up with the joneses how many times have you moved in your life let us know in the comments make sure you like this video click subscribe and don't forget to ring the bell for post notifications we'll see you next time

Channel: Cheddar

Views: 742,638

Rating: 4.7905622 out of 5

Keywords: Cheddar, cheddar explores, cheddar explains, explainer, construction, architecture, development, suburbs, suburban, homes, houses, wood homes, wooden skyscrapers, house construction, balloon framing, framing, wooden framing, modular homes, modular construction, american homes, america, united states, usa, europe, european homes, roofing, brick homes, real estate, estate, realtor, housing, urban development, city planning, culture, moving, move, rent, home ownership

Id: wpxLLCdW_Gc

Length: 8min 40sec (520 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 11 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Garbonzohats]

So.....capitalism. I’m bummed I wasted my time to watch this. Cheddar is garbage.