The problem with American houses isn't so much the material but the architecture. You can build really solid and sturdy houses with wood, but Americans just keep using 2x4s with drywall and plywood as walls. In America "punching through a wall" is a bit of a meme, but it's certainly possible. Anywhere in Europe, even the parts that build their houses from wood, you'll just break your hand.
There is actually high buildings made in wood, the record being a 20 stories building in Sweden (over 250 ft tall). Knowing the codes are very strict, it means really resistant structures to be allowed, resisting to wind, fire, water and earthquake hazards ! Wood is indeed not the problem 😉🖖
@@shadmtmtn1603 That's new and "experimental". That's why it is in the news. But also things like hospitals, or schools are build of concrete and are more robust, resistent to the weather. They just decide to apply another technique to family homes.
As a German I just can't never get over holes in north american walls. Just the concept of a wall someone can punch a hole in is so... strange. And I don't want to imagine how much you can hear from your neighbours or family members, I like my privacy, thanks.
as Friends told me in the past, they try not to laugh to loud, because the Neighbors in the next house (not appartment, HOUSE) could hear them! In my Appartement here in Germany, i can bearly hear the TV of my older neighbor... and its directly behind my wall and she has set it loud. Whatever you do in US-Paperhouses, you can be sure that the entire Street WILL hear you.
This might also be why Americans NEED so much space around their houses. In Germany, we can live close to the street and to neighbours, they won't hear you.
Imagine an abusive american guy trying to punch a hole in a german wall to let his aggressions out 😅 at least the ambulance and hospital costs will be cheaper
@@real_Nessa do you mean my living quality/living conditions? Its okay, i guess. Its a Single-Appartement in a big House near City center, about 30m² and a small balcony, 10th Floor, View onto a busy Shopping street for pedestrians, City mainstation is near, Tram-station close to the House, Cinema in throw-distance,..... Dont have to deal with loud Cars, Rent is affordable. Depending on your Lifestyle, such an Appartment can be enough for many years. If you meant something else, pleased rephrase your question.
Suddenly the never ending trope of “Noise Complaints” in American movies, shows and books makes more sense. I always thought that was sooooo unrealistic, like how could you make THAT much noise even if it is a party. In my house (with closed windows) unless there are fireworks or a freaking parade I don’t hear nothing.
I can clearly hear people outside talking next door from inside the house; granted the very old house I live in has basically zero insulation. You can hear EVERYTHING.
@@S.D.2016 Same problem with my urban apartment. The building's exterior walls are up to 1.5 meter thick (1.5x1.5 load-bearing masonry columns), but the 80-cm infill walls below and above the windows work like resonators of ancient cathedrals. I can not hear anything from the adjacent apartments and commercial space below me, but every voice from the nearby street passes as if there's nothing in between.
I have lived in the US for three years and I have studied architecture and building. American houses IN GENERAL are built to last for maximum 30 years. In Europe they are built in general to last at least 100 years but often more. A Swedish wooden house is built to last more than 100 years so it is not just the choice of materials, it is the initial plan of the builder.
That’s true to some extent, we have houses built in 1880 that still look good but they have been taken care of and alot of our culture in Sweden is to take care of your house and renovate if needed. Even the basic Swedish apartment over-go renovations.
I’m guessing the reason you’re not able to save 4000 dollars a year if you moved to a brick house, is because you live in a warm area and you don’t probably spend that much money on heating your house in the winter. Heating the house during a very cold winter is super expensive and that’s where most of the savings are made.
Well I live in the Austrian alps, in a house made of stone, built around 1840. I barely need to turn on the heating during winter, and in summer it's pleasantly cool inside.
We in Finland have the most forest by area in Europe - maybe even in the world. We use wood, but the houses are way sturdier than in the US. Triple or four paned windows, insulation methods and overall construction is very solid - very different to US methods. Our building code is very strict - that's also very important.
Finland and Sweden has the most in terms of percentage of land mass at 68% each. But if you instead go on total areal of forest in Europe it would be Russia without taking total landmass into account.
@@AlexKall i wouldn't count russia as european nation. But if you insist, then i think you should only count the parts of russia that actually are in europe.
While Norway doesn't have as much forest as Sweden and Finland, we still have enough wood to build our houses. Our houses are also sturdy and built to last. The house I'm sitting in now was built in 1910 and it's still good.
In Sweden, Where I live, we use wood a lot because we have the materials growing in abundance. However, the more south you go, the more stone and brick you encounter. In my home country, Poland, it is almost always brick and stone.
Here in Iceland - we used to use a lot of wood (except the Alþingi being of solid stone) - but the more recent buildings are usually made of stone - and also rather ugly *used to build out of wood refers to the old times, before we actually completely deforested our island so it looks more like an alien landscape now.
@@annebritraaen2237 well, i would assume so - after all, our ancestors are Norwegians. But it might be easier to re-forest when you have some or quite a lot left. Here we had to start from nothing; from decades of nature adjusting not to have trees at all. Oh, also the Elves!! lol
@@Alfadrottning86 And ur trees are very little cause of ur environment and the time for actual growing is short. Nevertheless beautiful island and I hope u get ur forests back in future.
I live in North Peloponnese, Greece, on the slope of a mountain about 800 meters above sea level. My place is a two-story stone house build 103 years ago, so it's relatively new since there are some stone houses in our village made way back in 1820's, after the greek revolution against the Ottomans. We have pretty harsh winters with lots of rain and snow and the temperature falls well under 0C specially at night. In the summer the sun is very hot and the temperature reaches many times over 36C, sometimes even over 40C, specially in mid/end July. We expect such temps at the end of this week actually. The Corinthian Gulf is right below us, very close and is a territory well known for it's seismic activity. We have tectonic tremors/earthquakes (2-3R) every 2-3 months, a couple of 4-5R eartquakes every year and a big one about 6R every 10-20 years.Our houses are made to protect us from all these elements, stay cool in the summer, warm during winter (stone walls are over a meter thick) and while they shake hard during earthquakes, they don't fall. Only the inside plaster surfaces get cracked, but that's something that some new plaster and paint easily covers. I understand that the problem with american wooden houses is that are not made to last like wooden houses in northen Europe do. It's a shame because once upon a time american products in general were famous for their sturdiness, a few still do, like Harleys❤. I think Americans nowdays treat their houses like any other product, use it while it's new and then throw it away and get another. No sustainability concept involved, probably because of your newer-bigger-better approach to things. Might be good for a few things, definitely not for houses.
I live in a wooden house in the US built in the 1700s. And the earthquakes don't cause any damages. Seems like maybe the Greek financial skills crossed over to architecture 😂😂
@@e.o.7177 Why? It was built before modern codes downgraded wall thickness to current low values. Even then, the recommended aerated concrete wall in my area must be 60cm; add 10cm for exterior rockwool cladding and 5 cm for interior finishes - that's 3/4 meters. My unheated summer house was built to these specs, and although usually unheated, winter temperature inside never falls below +5C (+10C at the slab under the screed) even when it's -30C outdoors. Fortunately, we haven't had -40s since the 1970s, thank you Greta. And of course there is no need for AC - inside temp never rises above +23..25C even when it approaches +40c outdoors.
Europe has a past history of building wooden houses, but it also has a history of large fires - The Great Fire of London 1666 for instance. Building regulations were often strict to encourage sturdier houses made of stone to cope better
@@vomm and most houses aren’t modern in Europe. They certainly can use more wood in their modern production now than they used to but couldn’t previously.
@@letheas6175 In Amsterdam a lot of houses have a combination of wood foundations and brick walls, or a mix of brick/concrete/wood walls. Nearly all the older houses (18th century to pre-WW2) in the wetter parts of the country have this, because wood just works really well as a foundation in these parts. Modern structures can now also be built on reinforced steel foundations, but wood is still used quite often as a foundation for buildings in our country. So we still build a lot with wood, only it's always been more of a mixture between wood and stone here...
@@jeffafa3096 Yes, I know. Lol. Thanks for explaining to those who dont, though! I especially love the modern architecture in (mostly) wood, like the Haut building near Amstel. Top notch building honestly. I think it even won some awards.
Up until like 10 years ago I used to think that those thin walls were just built for movies, sitcoms and such, for the effect of punching through them. Because our German walls are usually made of bricks. Actually, I thought that several things that wouldn’t make sense in Germany were just for the camera: windows that slide up (so teen girls’ bf can climb through at night), toilet bowls with much water in them (so the highschool bully can have their moment), doorknobs instead of handles (so it’s easier to break in), vents instead of radiators (for the villain to poison an entire family by gas or sth) etc… 😅
It really depends. Most middle class US homes have brick walls (on the outside), and even the inner walls can't be punched through. However, many of the cheaper homes just have vinyl or stucco exterior, which is incredibly weak.
@@pikachuchujelly7628 I watch a lot of funny animals-clips (mainly to cope with depression), and I saw one of a dog chewing through a door. An entrance door. The door seemed to be made of plastic and very thin. There is no way a dog could do that here. A beaver - yes. A dog - no. And many doors to flats are steel to prevent fire from spreading and also to make burglary more difficult.
Strong(er) earthquakes and tornadoes are pretty rare in Europe (the tectonic plate is pretty stable and the continent is very mountainous), that's why you don't really hear about this stuff happening in Europe. When it comes to the energy-saving part, brick houses (at least here in Europe) are built in a way so that they retain heat during winter (you don't have to heat them as often) but remain cool in the summer. That's why many places in Europe don't have AC. In my family's house, we have a wood stove on both floors and during winter we save some extra money on heating by burning wood in the stove. The heat from a few hours of burning wood can last us 3-4 days until we have to burn wood again.
As an Italian, I have to strongly disagree about the earthquakes part. Sure, we don´t have them as often as Japan, but Italy is one of the highest earthquake-risk regions in the world nonetheless. and yet our old houses and buildings(someone said medieval castles?) lasted for centuries, while the cheaper, badly built buildings of the 70s and 80s, before the new building rules came into force, come down like paper castles whenever there´s a slightly stronger earthquake. The technology to build earthquake-safe buildings doesn´t allow for cheap, low quality buildings, that´s it.
@@ChiaraVet Your country has the unfortunate honor of having been ramed into Europe so hard it made one heck of a mountain range (I never get tired of how the Alps dwarf everything when you get near lol), so I don't think you can qualify for that "stable tectonic plate" part of their comment. 😂 I'm always amazed your historical buildings don't take more damage than they do, to be honest. We get a few eathquakes here in France, but nothing to the level of what you guys get.
@@tomvladik yeas in portugal we are also at risk of having very strong earthquakes but it doesn't happen since 1755 the ones that happen are very very soft and somehow I'm never able to feel it it has to be my mother calling and saying 'did you felt the earthquake' and I'm like 'what are you talking about' and then I see the news and indeed there was 1 earthquake but I think that it was estimated that it has a high probability of a very strong earthquake happening in the next 50 years if Im not wrong
Here in Sweden and Finland wood is abundant, and used to build houses. But unlike the US you can't walk through the inner walls... Even with wood we build sturdy and lasting, we simply have harder building code. Our interior walls are thicker than the standard us exterior wall, and the exterior ones much thicker, and well insulated, and yes we insulate internal walls as well, so sound is dampened. If your home is from the 1920:s it is likely of higher quality and building than what is represented in this video.
Here in Germany, wooden houses aren't completely uncommon either. In fact, my parents live in one, and in last summer's heatwave it was 10 degrees cooler inside than outside at times. No need for AC.
Here in Portugal (Southern Europe) is very rare to find wood houses and stone houses you will just find them in rural areas or in countryside. Also When I was studying, my English teachers all said the same thing, that American houses are made of wood because of earthquakes, wood is a lighter material compared to brick and stone, so the chance for people to survive to the earthquake is bigger.
Yep. Wood is a very good insulator if you use it correctly. German pre-built wooden houses have thick walls. They can still be framework, but the framework is both on the interior and exterior walls and it is filled with isolation. And every interior wall had double planks.
it's mindboggling that anyone would tie themselves into 30-year mortgage payments over a house you can punch holes through. Like, this doesn't make sense to me.
If you look a bit beyond the surface, it's not that mind boggling. You can build a house to last a 100 years, but lets say it costs 2x more to build? If you build cheaper for a shorter life span, you allow for changing circumstances/demographics better. Like 50 years ago there used to be bigger families, with a lot more children, and a house with many rooms would make more sense. Today there are a lot more singles, so more smaller apartments, perhaps tiny houses are needed. If everything was built to last 300 years, this also makes it more difficult to adapt.
@@woutdezeeuw1604 Imagine being able to build a sturdy home, live in it while it accrues value, sell it, move to your new place of employment and see there are already sturdy homes you can buy and do minor repairs in instead of starting from scratch or worry it's gonna collapse around you. If you need a smaller home you can divide a property, my apartment is one of 8 apartments in a late renaissance era manor, my bathroom is older than the US constitution, it's gone trough quite a few remodels but there isn't much damage apart from some minor cracks in the plaster and wooden door paint from thermal cycling which is easily patched.
@@Soken50 If you know the future in advance that might be valid, but for all you know you would have built that house in a random area in Detroit that is dead 30 years later. In down town Paris a long term investment is less of a gamble, but depending on where you live it doesn't necessarily make sense to build for a future that far ahead.
@@woutdezeeuw1604 Oh yeah, sure, let's sink money in a disposable home in the very unlikely case your city is built on a single industry that can't weather the worst economic down turn in history, that's totally not an inconsequential calculated risk in aggregate. No wonder a third of Americans live paycheck to paycheck...
@@Soken50 I'm just saying there are many situations in which you don't need to build for something to last a 100 years (by the way Detroit is in no way an isolated/rare case). Even in my town brick houses are torn down because by today's standards insulation is no longer good enough, ceiling heights are now higher than what they used to be 40-50 years ago, stairs inclines are not as steep as they used to be, average room sizes are bigger, the list goes on. The houses could physically have lasted another 50 years I'm sure, but economically they are not viable for another 50 years. And therefore you can make the argument that these houses were overbuilt, and they are surely not accruing value.
30 years ago, fresh on the US soil, I had a chance to rebuild a house dated 1780s... externally it looked just like another American sticks-and-plywood contraption. Except that the "sticks" were mast-grade logs boiled in tar - no mould, no insect burrows over two centuries despite being exposed to all elements right on the Long Island Sound coastline. The infill was at least 30 centimeters thick, and settling of this infill was probably the weakest point. We replaced the infill and the exterior panels and siding, and voila, good to go for at least another century. Sadly enough, my cheapo house in my home country will last as least as much - as long as the roof holds the water out. And it doesn't need as much heating - the core is passive before ventilation (that is, all the heating needs is to replace losses via ventilation).
I find it fascinating. I’m from Germany and the oldest wall in my house is from 1180 and the newer parts are from the 1580. It’s fun to live in a old house with tons of history in my city. I learned a lot from my city’s history just to be interested in my house. But it’s has big wood beans in it like in the old Fachwerkhäuser in Germany.
There is this renovated water tower in Stralsund that I really wanted to live in, but the rent is astronomical. Imagine living in a 2-story apartment in a tower! Can't get more eccentric than that.
Das zeigt sehr schön, dass nicht das Holz das Problem ist, sondern die Konstruktionsweise. Ich habe auch schon in einigen Historischen Häusern gearbeitet. Die Qualität der Holzkonstruktion ist auch nach Jahrhunderten immer noch beindruckend.
I always laugh when in American movies people protect themselves from danger in their homes with a little chain on the door. It is not necessary to enter through the door in an American home, it is enough to kick any wall!
Or just fire one of their guns from outside. CHances are that you will hit somebody. Or use a flamethrower/molotov, place goes up in smoke withing an hour.
Obviously you are just joking but it is a lot harder to go through a wall than you might think. While dry wall on its own is easy enough to break through it becomes stronger when braced against wooden studs, you end up putting smaller sized holes in the wall instead of breaking through the entire sheet. And that's if you don't hit a stud, it once got a boxer break hitting a wall stud hard enough to break bone.
@@theunhappygamer1744 No, no, I'm not kidding. I have seen enough images of how houses are built in the USA and I assure you that in five minutes I can enter any of them. I mean, of course, those that are built with wood and drywall. It's not hard to tell where the studs are. And I don't even tell you if instead of kicking I decide to use the car... In a minute I go through the whole house. It's unbelievable that even in Tornado Alley people who lose their homes build their homes the same way. It's crazy. With how easy it is to make bricks! Do you lack clay in the USA? And stone?
the insulation thing is true. My grandma house is very old (over 300 years as far as I know) and back then people used to build really thick brick walls with small windows in order to insulate the inside from the outside. Inside her house there's almost always the same temperature (around 15-20° C both during summer and winter), no matter how hot or cold it is outside. She tells us that back when she was a kid it was actually really cold during winter, as windows were made of wood and didn't keep the cold air outside, but now, with modern windows frames, she almost doesn't need the heating. I need to add that the structure is over 300 years old and still standing, with the last renovation of the roof made in 1917. I seriosly doubt that a wooden structure would be able to last even half of this time.
There is a wooden house from the 13th century near me, It was extended in the 17th and occupied until the 1950s. The extension is brick. Part of my parents house was Victorian. The exterior (and formerly exterior) walls were 2' thick and solid. The windows were quite large, but after they were replaced by double glazed ones that part of the house would stay warm with little heating,. If left to cool down it would take a long time to heat up though.
A friend of mine moved to US (New Hampshire) to work at Boyd's and the first thing he did was buying a house and then insulate it properly (to Swedish standard), his energy consumption shrunk to less than half the projected consumption, his point was that insulation don't only keep warmth in, it also keeps it out when it's hot...
It's so weird to me that people don't insulate their homes because insulation material like rockwool isn't even expensive. And it's amazing material to wrap your house with. Not only does it insulate from cold in winter and from hot in summer it also dampens sound, helps prevent mold, it blocks fire, and it will prevent infestation of bugs/mice/etc.
@@jensv874 10k for all the benefit it comes with is really not that much. How much for the construction of the entire house ? If money is issue then usually there are some other aspects to cut on for instance build a smaller house.
@@jensv874 maybe if it was 15 years ago probably all the money that you didn't pay for cooling and heating already covers way more than 10k imagining you would pay 1k each year for cooling and heating (so 83€ per month) you would have already have more 5k than if you choose to not insulate
As a Scandinavian now living in Texas it's definitively not the wood, but this video resonated a lot. Houses are generally constructed very cheaply here, that's for sure. And many just doesn't seem interested in taking care and maintaining their homes either. There are definitively less regulations in place to ensure a properly built houses, and there are less safety mechanisms built in to avoid things like a bathroom leak causing major flood damage. Overall you can see the windows, doors, and materials are of the cheapest types, with gaps and inaccuracies everywhere. I'm sure it varies a bit, but one other major difference is the use of drywall which cracks and breaks as the house matures. My house was constructed in the late 2000s but the design and material choices makes it seem so much older. Not to mention it came with a gray, generic carpet in every room. I thought carpets went out of fashion in the 70s! You can visibly see many places how the ceiling or walls are crooked. It's "hidden" by applying "orange peel" texture absolutely everywhere. In Scandinavia, people want hardwood floors and flat, straight surfaces - which naturally takes more time to get right. The roof has shingles that lasts 10-15 years, vs roof stones that lasts 30-40 years in Europe. Naturally many things are also different due to different climates and other things.
In Europe there is Plenty of Earthqyicks and Tornades, thought still less than other places in World. Why you dont hear about them is reason,that they do not make quick work of our civilization, Houses here are sturdy. Last time Tornado made harm here was that it destoyed farmhouse and raked some other buildings lightly, but as it reached a Town it Died out. I Felt a Earthquik few year back, If Force was 8,3 and was actually suprised by its Force, but i made public damage only by 6000 euros.problematic thing here is Floods they weaken the Earth itself and dosent matter how quality house is made it will do alot of damage. So people usually also Thing where they want to build they home considering Topological and Weather impacts. In Estoniamy Home country most used building material is Stone, It is followed by Log Buildings Then comes Brick and then comes Wood.
In Estonia we have over 50% of territory covered with Forests and its enought to build whole citys of Wood, thought we also have Harsh Regulations what regulate how many m3 Forest can be Cut is Year to keep it sustainable and also protect Nature Mating and Nesting period.WOod is usually used here For Furniture, Heating and extracting Chemicals like cellulose
Here in Portugal (Southern Europe) is very rare to find wood houses and stone houses you will just find them in rural areas or in countryside. Also When I was studying, my English teachers all said the same thing, that American houses are made of wood because of earthquakes, wood is a lighter material compared to brick and stone, so the chance for people to survive to the earthquake is bigger. Here in Portugal, about 5 years ago, prefabricated houses started to be made, but in my point of view and in the point of view of many people, prefabricated houses are more expensive than buying land and building your own house made of brick.
@@fabiosoares7660 It may look cheaper because you can buy it for many years, literally laying one brick at a time. You are just spreading the cost through the years. Also helps that you don't pay other people to build it for you.
Brick and concrete houses also take much longer to build, which further adds to construction price. The oldest house I lived in was from the 12th century. Walls were made of 50 cm (~20 inch) thick granite stones. I couldn't get phone signal inside the house.
@@j59of2 That's better. Still thinner then walls in my houses. One has about 2m (empirically measured during installation of heat pumps) and the other about meter (funnily old farm house too and likely quite bit older than the first one).
The house of my grand parents is more than 600 years old and it will certainly stand 600 more years. The walls are made of stones and are almost 1 meter thick...
you have never seen a house made of wood that is 600 years old, because it rots away under your butt. good for the earth becomes fertilizer again, but never for generations in the long run.
@@baramuth71 I prefer stone materials in most kinds of buildings, but in Sweden we still got many houses from the 1600s and 1700s that were made out of timber (and some planks too, of course).
I'm in the UK and have only moved once. My parents house was about 150 years old and was still in fantastic condition. I'm sure i'll move again as I don't view this as a 'forever home' but I'm sure this house will still be here long after I'm gone. As Al Murray says, we don't get tornadoes and earthquakes here because we don't deserve them 😆
@@vikinnorway6725yeah on average our houses are some of the smallest in Europe, I think it’s down to being a tiny island with a massive population, land is really expensive here
No... the UK is the country with the most tornadoes per unit area in the world: around 40 to 50 tornadoes occur there each year, but most of them are weak. Southern England forms the western part of a European "tornado alley" with the highest number of such events. While on the other hand in total: *Germany* had the most T's in Europe. *Also >>* Peterson (1992) notes that during the *early twentieth century there was actually more interest in tornado research in Europe than in the United States.* ;)
@@aw3s0me12 Yeah, we do get some tornados in Germany. Only in the North though. Our houses are concrete though, so uh just stay inside and don't stand near any trees. They have a habit of smashing people and cars standing under them during storm season.
Living in a European semi-detached brick home... - Can't hear my doorbell, when I'm two stories up... - Can't hear trains passing by, less than 200 ft away... - Can't hear my neighbors, whilst they have two teens and a 3 year old in their house... All inner walls and roofs are build from bricks or concrete, not from drywall. I would dare to say that my insulation is on point! 👍
A lot of houses in europe are build or remade in the 1950s not because of storms or earthquicks but because between 1910 and 1945 we had a big problem with high explosives
Here in Brazil almost every house is made of brick and cement. When I was a kid I couldn't wrap my head around how people in movies could punch holes in walls - didn't know the concept of drywall, thought houses were made of bricks everywhere.
@@therealnancybee710 idk about Brazil, but in Greece, yes, even the inside walls are made of bricks, if not, it's piled up boulder or stone, but that's more expensive since it's also natural insultation, but besides that, the outer walls have thermal insultation and sound proofing (modern houses at least) in both the inner and the outer side.
In many German cities, all houses were built of wood until the late Middle Ages. However, there were often devastating fires in the narrow city centres and houses began to be built of stone or brick, depending on what was locally available. Nowadays, there are even regulations that forbid the building of wooden houses in some places, as they do not fit into the townscape.
Tornadoes are less of a problem in Europe ( we still have them tho) but earthquakes are a HUGE problem in many areas, Italy and the balkans especially!
Trees can’t be the only reason that wooden homes aren’t as common in Europe. I live in an old house. The original section built in 1580 was built of stone. It was doubled in size in the 1700’s out of hand made bricks and we doubled the whole building again about 12 years ago from new bricks but my point is that we have large ancient woodland very close which wasn’t used for the bulk of any of the builds and believe me, the people that have lived here have never been wealthy it’s wasn’t about money.
My house was built in 1750 and the large supporting beams in the main downstairs rooms were salvaged from an old Ship so they could be another 50+ years old. This house is built to last and should survive another few hundred years easily 😂 They certainly don't build them like they used to.
@@MrProthall ill take my cement and stone house over your log house any day basically my place is still solid and its seventy five year's old and will still be around for over another hundred our two and yes i hace central heat radian floors ect.ect 😂😂😂
Wooden houses are not actually made out of only wood. Modern wooden houses often have double layers of drywall on each wall which makes them very stiff, soundproof, fire resistant and the core of the walls is very well insulating. And for the ground floor, of course it has floor heating and is made out of concrete.
Ryan - a bit of history. In Europe we built wood frame houses and used up all our wood, particularly oak. In my country of England we are famous for our black and white oak beamed house. We also used up our wood for ships. They gradually filled int the spaces with bricks as brick making was cheap. Eventually houses became all brick. My own house though is built with concrete blocks 40 years ago, new when I moved in. Roof is timber frame and has had some outside bits renewed but on the whole is solid. It is warm in winter, cool in summer and quite cheap to run. But will admit it is tiny. Now north of the border in Scotland they built of stone and their houses are still standing despite awful weather.
I suspect the lower availability of wood wasn't as much of an impacting factor as the higher availability of flames in cities where homes are build closer together.
It's both, really. Wood frame houses have been banned in Paris and London for years yet they were still built, simply because there was little effective enforcement of the laws. The reason you no longer see those houses is because they rotted away, were burns and replaced by stone buildings or were razed. The thing is that many European countries did ran out of wood. France passed legislation and bought large forests as early as the 17th century to ensure a safe supply of wood - for warships. (If you ever visit France and see a sign in/near a forest saying "Forêt Domaniale" that's a State-owned forest). On the other hand European houses used less wood overall because most would use wattle and daub and similar methods of building a frame and fill the frame with different materials. Tho of course this may varies depending on the place.
@@Moribax85 And to be frank, most European traditional "wooden houses" aren't just coating mounted on frames, but frames filled with clay or similarly subtantial materials. So even those are solid walls.
Practically all brick buildings constructed in Northern Europe, have thick insulation between two brick or concrete walls. It keeps the building energy effective especially during the winter. Also, some European nations only allow clean water to enter buildings via the plumbing - 100% drinking water quality whether it comes out of your tap or flushed out in the toilet.
A method used in the German speaking corner (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) is actually just one inner wall of brick or concrete, than a thick padding of insulation on the outside, which is then covered with thick plaster. It gives that characteristic style where the windows are recessed, while they rest on the inner wall, where with a double wall, they are flush with the outer wall.
@KurtFrederiksen We have water treatment centres. They didn't stop running because of brexit. I'm not too sure what memes you are getting your information from.
Europe is located in the interior of the Eurasian Plate, which is surrounded by other plates such as the African Plate, Arabian Plate, and Anatolian Plate. These plate boundaries are characterized by relatively low seismic activity compared to plate boundaries where subduction or significant plate interactions occur, such as the Pacific Ring of Fire.
We do have earthquakes sometimes (Austria-Switzerland border), strong enough so you can feel them and sometimes your stuff rattles. Also i've seen avalanches following those little quakes. But certainly nothing that destroys houses or streets like in other parts of the world.
I have never got why people in tornado-prone areas build houses out of wood that is easily destroyed rather than build a more sturdy home and maybe replace the windows and the roof after a tornado. Certainly, the ladder would be easier than rebuilding the whole house
What IS fascinating is, I'm in Norway. On the smal farm I live we still have 4 large buildings built in the 1640's...still standing. And for the 12 years we lived here we haven't had to do one single repair on them. They are made from whole timber though.
I wonder if the climate there helps wood last longer - colder temperatures? Also I think Norway is less densely populated than many other European countries so fires couldn’t spread as quickly, so there was less risk of losing them - especially on a farm
Same with my family house. It's built in 1620 and still standing. The house itself have been expanded a lot since then. But the logs from when it was built is still 100% intact.
Northern and eastern Europe uses a lot of wood especially in the countryside even log-houses that have really nice sound blocking capabilities built in, but climate dictates thicker walls , more isolation and more attention to sound isolation, plus less demand for quick construction kind of leads naturally for more quality builds. Also stick-framing has took about 100 years to get insulation materials that can actually deal with how thin the walls are and block sound good.
We have a lot of 500 / 1500 year old houses and the big difference with the younger and older buildings is the hardness of the timber used! Almost all of the old wooden hearted housing have used Oak timber throughout they have lasted in a way stone and brick buildings have. Also it is quite difficult to get oak houses to burn down quickly giving enough time to quench the fire out and rebuild using the original frame work. The US seams to have used treated soft woods as building materials. This is why Europe has not got anymore forests because they were all mostly Oak forests and these were always used for ship building for NAVAL use, now they are mostly gone!
I'm from Italy. My house is a stone building from 1420. Not even the oldest in the road where i live. And when we build wood house they are actually more expensive then brick, cause they are made properly and last for a very long time.
I (euro) visited my wife's expat, grandfather in southern California a couple years back and noticed that the tiles in the bathroom were loose in the flooring. I just figured that it wasn't caulked correctly or something so I lifted the tile to go show him and saw that no sealing layer was below the tiling. The tiles were coming loose because the bare wood flooring below the tiles was expanding due to exposure to moisture. I told him right away to call the contractor that did the bathroom renovation to demand compensatory damages. He told me he cheaped out on the "option" to add a sealing layer and the insurance won't cover damages, so he's been procrastinating paying up for it.
This blew my mind. So you pay for a new bathroom that becomes disgusting and imho unusable in less than a year? Why would you do that. I always thought the 'muricans had their economical thinking straight.
I remember watching the show where they make over houses for people, and my husband being a carpenter kind of being in shock at how they build it! To us it kind of looks like cardboard walls on a fragile tree sceleton 😂😂😁
Dude tree houses in Europe are twice as strong as your house. My father with my grandfather made a tree house for us children and around 10 years down the road when we got older and left he decided to keep it because it was very sturdy with a good size so he transformed it into a smaller regular house with some minimal modifications. BTW there are some crazy storms in the mountain village where they are and that little house never had a problem in about 7-8 years after the transformation.
....We didnt cut down all the trees, we simply deemed that there are better uses of wood than try to make houses out of it^^. Tree count has actually gone up in the last 50 years in europe, because we WANT to have more forests (great for the ecosystem, for recreation/relaxation, air quality....). The main reasons why we use bricks/stones for houses used to be cultural. Tradition and legacy are much more important things in Europe than in the US, and were even more important historically. If you know that your family has lived in a specific part of the country for 100 years, you kinda want to make sure they can last the next 100 as well. And building a house that wont collapse if you fart on it too strongly is a good start for that. Yes, up to the end of the middle ages, using wood was normal. But that was mostly because mass production of things like bricks or concrete hadn't been invented yet. The moment those option became available for the majority of people, it became the standard for building any type of structure.
In The Netherlands we used to build houses in wood until the city fires which destroyed many houses. Also our houses needed to be built on wooden stilts/piling and foundations (otherwise they would sink in the moor and peat grounds) and the coal mines needed to be reinforced by wooden studs. All the wood that was left in our country was used for piling, window frames, wooden floors and mine studs. What felt short was imported from Scandinavia and the Baltics. On the other hand we had a lot of rivers bringing free clay, so brick was used for foundations and house facades more and more. And after concrete was invented, floors and foundations were made of (reinforced) concrete. With pvc and aluminium window frames, the wood is fading out of new houses. Sometimes the inner wall of the cavity walls are a prefabricated timber frame with window frames and all. The outer wall (facade) is still in brick. So the row houses (the most common form of housing in our country) are, what we call wind and water proof. Which means the finishing works (inner walls, door frames, stucco, tiling, installations, painting) inside are done in climatized conditions. The pitched roof construction is still in wood with ceramic or concrete roof tiles. To make the roof storm resistant, the roof tiles can be screwed (more expensive) instead of loosely laid.
I live in Italy and I've always seen wooden houses in American home-building TV shows and never questioned them, until just a few days ago when I saw a comment on the internet about houses being made of wood, and I was like "wait a damn minute, your houses are made of wood?? Mine sure isn't?? Nor are any houses around me". The only wooden houses I see are the ones in mountainous regions. Edit: I'm stupid, where I live most roofs actually have wooden beams lol. But yeah the rest is made of bricks
There’s nothing wrong with houses built of wood, it’s more the way they’re built 😊 In Norway most houses are built of wood, and they are much more steady than American homes 👍 You can buy wood houses/log houses from the 17 - 18th century that are better than houses built today😊
Here in Portugal (Southern Europe) is very rare to find wood houses and stone houses you will just find them in rural areas or in countryside. Also When I was studying, my English teachers all said the same thing, that American houses are made of wood because of earthquakes, wood is a lighter material compared to brick and stone, so the chance for people to survive to the earthquake is bigger. Here in Portugal, about 5 years ago, prefabricated houses started to be made, but in my point of view and in the point of view of many people, prefabricated houses are more expensive than buying land and building your own house made of brick.
@@lillm6874 Here in Ireland we have masonry built houses that are crumbling after a few years. Yes it is certainly how they are built. If you go cheap and cut corners, expect bad results.
@@eliasgamper3313 I know, I always see them in South Tyrol, they're so pretty, but I assumed it had more to do with being in the mountains where there's an abundance of wood. Also, I'm stupid, because come to think of it, where I live most roofs actually have wooden beams lol
Recently I wanted to mount a wall bracket in my home. To do this I needed to drill numerous holes for screws. The wall I was attaching the bracket to is so hard that I burnt through two proper masonry drill bits before I had drilled two holes deep enough to accommodate a wall plug. This is just how hard and thick house walls are in the UK. Especially in older houses.
@@theoteddy9665 no, we use regular sawn timber, say 220x45 maybe for framing the outer walls, and 70x45 for interior walls. But usually a thicker layer of plywood/OSB and plasterboard on the inside than I've seen used in the US. That makes all the difference for sound transmission and fire resistance.
@@StevenQ74 We have a harsh climate, though. Heavy rain and moist, hot summers, winters with snow, ice and cold, and on the coast, strong winds. Most countries don't have to account for a 60-70°C temperature difference when building houses, but we do. We have to build in a way that makes it possible for materials to expand and contract, and that's also a reason why brick and mortar with any significant amount of humidity in it is usually not the best option. Dry, impregnated wood works better, and some old cabins with wood impregnated with tar last for hundreds of years as long as it has a working roof.
As a Finnish, I found this very interesting too, I always wondered how the heck those American houses always fly away with tornadoes =D No windpower can rip off sturdy brick house off the ground. And we have very harsh winters, we have to build them extremely well insulated to keep nice +20 C inside at winter when it can be -20 C (that would be -4 F for you). And they're built to last (mostly, minus post-war houses which were supposed to be temporary, but still standing and people fix them).
Tornadoes are a force of nature. They will rip apart even concrete houses. They will literally suck you out of a basement if the door isn't, like, a metal safety door with a barring mechanism. That said, most of the houses torn down by hurricanes in Florida would still stand if they were built with European methods.
Wood was used to build fleets of ships in the 1500/1600 centuries which allowed the European nations to rule the world. Hense no forest's left to build house's out of wood.
Here in Poland, we sometimes have tornados. They are rare but happen because of climate change. And what is different than in US, our houses are usually brick/stone, and if a tornado destroys something then it's a roof. The wind can take a roof but not the whole house - in comparison to US where houses are destroyed to the ground. And about reasons why we don't build wooden houses more often. Maybe it's because of lack of wood but in my opinion it's also mentality. Wooden houses are considered like something temporary and cheap, you can have a wooden hut in a wood for holidays, but the home for the whole family? In my opinion they will need to be much cheaper than the normal ones for people to buy them.
Yeah but you can't compare american's 1200 tornadoes per year with strength up to F5 category with our 5 per year with F2 category TOPS and write "oo we have brick houses, they last" - seriously, it's plain stupid. For half of the US territory building something that lasts is asking yourself for financial trouble.
We had tornado nearby like 3 yrs ago. It was like mentioned not that big bu it still destroyed a lot of buildings. None was torn apart, but after roofs and trees, some bricks also went flying i saw some attic were leveled to the floor/ceiling . And if roof is not present in the storm it doesn't end well. Most of these homes were soked with rain meaning they had to get some serious rework of the walls if they didn't want cracks and mold in them. We don't have any earthquakes and part of Poland that do have them (Silesia) often have serious problem with walls cracking or foundations losing stability over time. If someone wanted to prepare their home from huracanes, they wuld have basicly live in a bunker, our brick houses don't stand a chance
Actually, "tornadoes happening due to climate change" is a common myth. It (the climate change) has its influence on tornadoes' strength, ect., however, we have historical records of strong tornadoes dating all the way back to 1600s and further (e.g. the Lublin 1931 F4, Rawa Mazowiecka 1958 F3, Oleśnica 1535 F4, ect.). Poland has up to 30+ tornadoes a year, and they should be taken seriously. The reasons why it seems as if we're getting barely more than 5 tornadoes per year are that: 1) most Polish tornadoes are weak, and usually only 1 or 2 (if any) are rated F2 annually. The last F3 tornado in Poland occurred almost 11 years ago. 2) they go underreported in the mainstream, as the coverage they get on major news sites and in news papers often is just small, not well informed articles that most people simply glaze over, thinking "oh, that's scary" or something similar, and then move on, forgetting that it happened at all in about a week. You won't get much information about a certain event unless you're specifically looking for it. If you're interested in researching more about Polish tornadoes (and European tornadoes in general), ESWD is a pretty good starting point. Also, and I'm saying this just for the sake of safety, even if most tornadoes here are weak, they still can be deadly, as shown by e.g. the Kraków February 17, 2022 tornado, which killed 2 people and injured 2 others.
Rare Tornadoes are common in some US states. If you think a Polish wood house could withstand the strongest tornadoes the US gets, it just shows how little you really know of tornadoes. They can destroy brick homes too and even roads.
In France, we have more sort of steamrollers than tornadoes( as in 1999 for the most violent) , although since the beginning of the 2000s the number of tornadoes has been increasing in frequency and strength little by little, for the moment it is still easily manageable nothing comparable with the U.S.A., or japan when it comes to building more in stone than in wood, it was in the Middle Ages and still is, for fire safety issues among others and because stones are more resistant to projectiles launched from catapults and other siege weapons including incendiary projectiles, but also that the wood was used to make frames, boats and siege weapons, summing up greatly
I'm from Hungary and my mom and uncle built a twin house (2 separate houses that share a wall in the middle), the building was over 3 years and it's mostly bricks, cement and concrete. The only thing that has wood is the roof.
4:16 You don't hear anything about earthquakes in Europe because the USA is a country that doesn't care what happens outside of it. 2016 Italy, earthquake measuring 6.5 on the richter scale with more than 100 deaths. February 6 of 2023 Turkey and Syria, 7.8 earthquake with 55,190 dead and 129,490 injured
I am from Europe, I was taught at school that all countries that face frequent natural disasters tend to make houses out of wood. It makes sense, since they are much cheaper to rebuilt. In case of brick houses, they wouldn't be completely wiped by a disaster, but they might just get damaged enough to be rendered unsafe, or have some irreparable cracks in the walls.
Some wood construction is actually pretty earthquake-resistant, more so than stone or concrete structures. It can flex when designed right, and it can be pre-tensioned. Stone or concrete building usually also needs sturdier foundation. But as with everything, there's a bias when you look at old houses and how they've endured the elements, because bad construction has been destroyed and dismantled and usually rebuild already. All the old buildings you see in any country MUST be of good construction and well maintained, otherwise it wouldn't be there for you to see :)
Well I am from EU as well, but I think why USA used lot of wooden houses is because back in the day they had lot of empty land and there was influx of immigrants (during WW2 and after WW2), so they had to make big number of houses fast, so they used wooden "montage" houses to quickly set them up. In Europe, houses were mostly made out of bricks, sometimes stone blocks. Also lot of houses are quite old and several generations lived in such houses.
It's really the other way around. If you have a week house, you will face a lot of disasters. Whe did you last hear about a guy in a field that died.of a earthquake..never. because its the house that will kill you. It's the bad buildings that are the disaster. Not to say that Europe. Specially Germany is immune. Building loads.of buildings on flood plains, and get flooded. Natural disasters really don't exist. It's code is not up to nature disaster.
@@nookiedrivein6153and homes here often last up to 100 years. People often say they last 30 years but I’ve seen a neighborhood of houses older than that in the USA.
Norway here - and we build wooden houses mostly. Having watched some US construction videos, they are similar, but ours are thicker (to allow more more insulation). US houses looks a bit more like how we build garages and similar things. Of course most people doesn't move around as much, so the houses are normally well maintained. Adding to the Norwegian climate that lends itself to staying indoors large parts of the year, most people spend a lot of time and money on home improvements.
I live in Portugal, here about all the houses are made out of brick, stone or cement. Only in the last decades pre fabricatdd wood houses have appeared . I can say that even when we had a forest fire that burned out some village houses, the walls remained standing. Here we listened to the story of the 3 little pigs😅😅. Joking aside Portugal is a country that has a lot of stone and even today people buy houses oved a 100 yrs old and just restore the inside.
Yep! My parents remodeled my grandparents' house some 20 years ago, from the outside it looks like a modern house. Only the walls were left standing, 80 cm thick walls, like those of our castles, everything inside was modernized. I'm sure it'll still be here long after I'm gone.
Hello, I live in a region in France known for its half-timbered houses. There are still many, especially in the city where I live. But entire neighborhoods have been replaced over the centuries by stone or brick houses, and the reason is quite simple: the fires that reduced entire neighborhoods to ashes in a very short time and with many victims. Today the town center still existing in half-timbering is very closely monitored and the teams and especially the means of the firefighters are always ready...
Brick house doesn't need to have airconditioner because the bricks work as a termoregulator. Same in the winter, if you stop heating, the mass of walls keeps the temperature same. Wooden houses overheat in summer and cool quickly in winter.
I guess you have never been to spain then? Definitely need an AC in summer and heating in winters. They are so awfully leaky that temperatures become freezing when temperature drops towards 10c outside.
Thanks for the great video reaction! In Europe, the type of housing can vary greatly depending on the country. For example, here in the Czech Republic, our history has been quite diverse. From ancient times, we used stone (mostly for sacred buildings and castles) as well as wooden huts and log cabins. The climate also played a role, as we needed homes that provided good insulation against the cold in winter and prevented heat from entering during the summer. Therefore, even though wood was commonly used, it was often combined with masonry to ensure proper insulation for at least parts of the house using materials like clay or bricks. We lost a significant amount of forests during the Middle Ages, mainly due to clearing land for agriculture. From the Baroque period onwards, stone and brick constructions became more prevalent. In recent times, concrete has been widely used for its faster construction. However, if you cross the border to Slovakia, you will see a much greater prevalence of wooden houses. It's truly a very diverse situation.
IN america, People just get robed. In estonia When person wants a new house, First he Faunds a architect and tells them exactly what he needs, How thick should be walls and what tilt roof should have and also discuss materials to be used. Then he Finds a company who will fulfll contract or build it self with his family. Yes it is more Huzzle for Aquiring building materials but belive me House will be much cheaper. Most costly thing in Estonia House building is Workforce. And ofcouse we have module houses here what have lower quality and they cost more. I Think It would be also true Forr americans if they lets ARchitect Design house on they will and build it self or Hire Company it would be much cheaper and better quality
Here in Portugal (Southern Europe) is very rare to find wood houses and stone houses you will just find them in rural areas or in countryside. Also When I was studying, my English teachers all said the same thing, that American houses are made of wood because of earthquakes, wood is a lighter material compared to brick and stone, so the chance for people to survive to the earthquake is bigger. Here in Portugal, about 5 years ago, prefabricated houses started to be made, but in my point of view and in the point of view of many people, prefabricated houses are more expensive than buying land and building your own house made of brick.
@@asjaosaline5987 I know a Czech family who built their house themselves over a period of 25 years. It is beautiful, large and all their own. During that time, they lived in a 1 bedroom flat, which is also still theirs.
you need geological features to make a tornado, thats why the region is called tornado "walley". Same goes for earthquakes, you need tectonic plate interaction. We do have very limited earthquakes as the plate itself is pretty large and the most violent earthquakes are on the southers edge (greece, turkey, ect...). Tornadoes are starting to appear due to more temperature swings, with more energy the wind does not need so specific features to form.
New Zealand uses a similar method of construction to the USA, but there's some solid reasons behind it. For one, earthquakes are a thing down here, and anyone who thinks building in stone is a good idea would be welcome to look at what happened to the Christchurch Cathedral back in 2011. I'm writing this, sitting in a brick-and-tile, wooden-framed home which my parents brought from new, going on 50 years ago.
as they say, wood is NOT necessarily a bad construction method. I am carpenter and civil engineer. The use of wood does not make a house flimsy. I live in a combination of both methods. The inner load carrying structure of my house is wood framing as well. Only the outer shell is made of bricks to withstand the influence of water (rain) and wind much better. BUT we use much thicker inner frame walls with bigger sections and with much more insulation. My house e.g. has 260mm insulation in the walls and even 300mm in the roof. The windows are made of Triple insulation glazing. yes, 3 glass panels with air inbetween. I can literally heat my home with some candles.😂 The outer walls are nearly 50cm thick overall. in comparison, many walls of american homes are about 10cm (4inch) in thickness and very often only single glazing is used. THAT makes them flimsy in my opinion.
The thin walls and single-pane windows are probably the cause of the high energy consumption of American homes. To my knowledge, an American home uses about 11,000 kilowatt hours yearly, while German single-family houses uses between 4 and 5,000. One reason it's probably the intense use of air conditioning which would be much more effective if the houses were insulated better.
One factor not covered is selection effect: The thousand year old buildings all over Europe are those buildings built to last a thousand years - whatever the material stone, brick, timber and plaster infill, cobb/adobe - there might have been 10 flimsy wood houses on that plot before but once someone build a really solid house, it's there for centuries. Walk through the main streets of somewhere like Winchester and it's a gallery of the best put together buildings from about the last 1200 years and when we see a 200 year old stone building next to a 400 year old timber and plaster one we don't stop to ask what happened to whatever was there before the 200 year old one - assumedly something was because that's prime land in the middle of of a prosperous town.
The oldest building near me (not counting the ruins of the castle) was probably not built to last a thousand years. It was a cruick built longhouse. Dozens of such houses from before 1600 survive. The one near me is from before 1300. It was occupied and maintained until the 1950s, having been extended in the 17th century.
Clearly it was built to last 700 years (even if not intentionally) because it did. I'm not under any delusion that whoever built the cob (clay, dung, straw) house down the road from where I grew up planned for it to last 500 years, but due to luck and the fact they did a good job, it has. The selection effect still applies you see the dozens of surviving longhouses, but not all the ones that didn't.
On using wood for house building we actually do that a lot in Europe too. The frame is almost always made of wood. But the outer walls are typically bricks in most countries. In places with large amounts of timber close by like the Swedish and Norwegian forests you also still see a lot of wooden houses. When it comes to the energy cost the major difference I think is better insulation of the houses. We still do have some houses with bad insulation here in Denmark. But you can get cheap loans from the banks for fixing that because basically the investment to put in a layer of isolating material like Rockwool is recovered by the energy savings within five years of investment. In the worst cases even less than that. If your energy bills are significantly lower than the $340/month mentioned in the video the insulation could be why. If your house is from the 1920's it's from before balloon framing became widespread. So it's probably just built of thicker wood which leads to better insulation.
It's always been fun for me. In my country, when there is such a hurricane that the government sends text message warnings to residents to stay at home, the worst thing that can happen is a tree will fall down ... but it doesn't matter. If it falls on a house, there will be minimal damage. Just need to replace a few tiles. In the US, a spring breeze can blow away an entire neighborhood. The problem is not building with wood. Many places build wooden houses. The problem is that in the US all the walls are built in the style of Japanese interior walls. From toilet paper, rice and unfulfilled dreams.
No American houses are built using toilet paper or rice, my house is made with a Brick on the outside and the inside frame is a combination of heavy wood and concrete and I’m from the US.
@@friedrichhayek4862 dictatorship? where did you get that from? sturdy house that doesn't fall from wind? how is that political ? i think your comment gave me a stroke.
@@KurtFrederiksen True! I don't know if we all agree on Turkey being a European country, but anyway there was suppressed criticism about criminal neglect of the building rules: "The collapse of many newly constructed buildings caused public anger and doubts about the Turkish construction and contracting industry following seismic codes.[524] After the 1999 İzmit earthquake, new building codes were enacted to make buildings more resilient to earthquakes.[525] The quality of the concrete is often a factor in collapse, especially in older buildings, but the engineering and design of newer high rise buildings, and improper placement of support columns and beams, may contribute to collapse.[526] The building codes, last updated in 2018, required quality standards in engineering design, construction and material.[526] There were complaints that the building codes were poorly enforced." This quote is from a comprehensive wiki-article about what happened at the Turkey-Syria border in February this year: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Turkey%E2%80%93Syria_earthquake
There are tectonic plates throughout southern Europe. Earthquakes are relatively common although most, not all are at a depth that causes little damage. I live on one of the Spanish Canary Islands (off the coast of west Africa) where between 400-500 earthquakes are registered yearly. I suppose you could call the sea quakes as most are between the islands. In 2021 there was a volcanic eruption on the islands of La Palma. The most active volcano in Italy is Etna
I can just compare my German wooden house with an American one. It's the thickness of the studs, the amount of insulation in and outside the house. It's just way more massive, but also more expensive. For example the inside drywalls are backed with thick particle board. This gives a huge amount of strength. They are full of mineral wool for sound dampening. Our windows and doors are all double seamed to be air tight. The list goes on and on.
Here in Greece the old houses were constructed from rocks and mud but newer ones from reinforced concrete pillars with ceramic hollow brick infill (with external insulation) to meet earthquake regulations. The old houses had roofs constructed with wooden beams and ceramic tiles but newer houses have a flat, reinforced concrete roof - sometimes with a false tiled roof above. Fires can still cause damage but the risk of collapse is extremely low.
In india almost all houses are exclusively made of bricks and cement. When I came to US I was shocked to see how flimsy houses here are. Wooden finishing is also inferior to concrete and steel. I wanted to buy a house here but just doesn't make any sense. It's a shame.
In my country (Slovakia) wooden houses were part of folk history and it´s comming back in modern design. It´s just made very good and you can´t just punch hole into a wall... Btw earthquakes are very common in Italy for example.
I like to watch "Love it or list it" on Tv, they renovate homes in a couple of weeks and it's always funny to my european eyes to see internal walls made of wood laths, outer walls made of wood... they seem like playhouses to me, and the renovation looks quicker and cheaper... but when I hear "Oh this house is oooooold, it was built in the sixties!!" I fall out of my chair... here in Italy I don't think I ever heard "old" about a house built less than a century ago.
Here in Europe, there are different building traditions, often regionally different even within the same country. In the Czech Republic we have the oldest buildings made of stone (100-1000 years old) and bricks (up to 800 years old), but also regions with folk architecture of log houses (up to 500 years old), special type of "Upper Lusatian houses" (Umgebindehaus) and marginally half-timbered houses, which are more typical for Germany in general...
The material was not the point in the story... We use wood but thats because we have cared for our forests while most of Europe didn't. Wood aint the problem its how you build with it. I have renovated 200+ year old houses and the wood inside em was sturdy as any newer wood, felt bad for tearing the old stuff down but that is what the ones with money like to do only leaving the outer shell so that it still looks like an old building.
@@amadeuz8161 im confused...u chopped down trees..bc u care..but we use cinderblocks..to build which doesnt involve cutting down trees...so we dont ??..
@@artsycosmie887 You are confused because you dont understand that we have in Europe countries with 60%+ forest coverage and those 30% or less ones. So the point that we dont have trees only applies to the ones that have removed the forests(yes there was vast forests in Europe before human started to cut em down to make room for something else). Wood aint what makes the USA houses weak, its the way of using the wood. So I'm from a country with 75% coverage so here we have to fight with the forest so this year I had to fell down about 10 cubic meters so that the trees wont overtake the house. Would have had to take close to 20-30 cubic meters but when 10 cubic meters is almost 3 years of firewood it would be wasting it because birch only lasts for a year and after that it looses energy value(I would never fell the trees to make money, only to supply myself with firewood). So what you really see in lets say south america when they burn down the forests to make room for crops. That is what they did in Europe many many years ago and in some countries they let the forest grow back and in others they didn't. So the ones that let their trees grow back also uses em for building more than the ones that dont have em. We 200+ year old houses made out of wood only and you cant take down a wall by stumbling like in USA.
Used to live in a centuries old house in the historic downtown area in my county town in southern Germany. The family living in the apartment underneath us had a small kid but due to the thick walls we never heard her crying. Also we were able to run the ashing machine in the middle of the night without them hearing it at all
This is so funny, because when I was in the US 30 years ago, one thing that I noticed was that the front doors of houses always seemed terribly flimsy to me. People there are terribly afraid of burglars and intruders and then their doors are so flimsy that anyone can just kick them in. That's also because the doors there always seem to open inwards. Here in Finland, I don't think you can kick a door in from the outside because 1) it is so sturdy that you'll probably just break your foot trying, and 2) front doors always open outward so that if someone kicks it from outside, they are just kicking it against the doorframe. (Doors open outward for fire safety reasons; in case of fire, people need to be able to get out easily and it is easiest when doors open outwards. If the fire department needs to come in through the door, they have tools for it.) As for wood being a flimsy building material, I completely disagree with that. Here in Finland 70% of this country is covered by wood so that it is used for building a lot, both historically and nowadays. Builders have developed building methods so that the fire safety of new wooden buildings is comparable to other materials. Also, the heat insulation is just as good as in other houses. However, it is true that buildings that are 150+ years old tend to be brick or stone. Older wooden buildings that have survived to this day are usually churches and other places that have been specifically protected. As for earthquakes and tornadoes and other natural catastrophes, we don't have any. There's some flooding in coastal areas but the worst that I ever heard of is that someone got a foot of water in their house and their insurance company refused to cover it. There are also storms that cause some material damage (especially to forest owners, if a large swathe of trees gets felled by a storm) but we don't have the sort of natural catastrophes that kill people.
...and before anyone starts nitpicking: *technically* we do have earthquakes here, the institute of seismology measures hundreds of them every year. But since most of them measure less than 2 on the Richter scale, it's not something that people would even notice. So earthquakes here are of interest to only... um... the people at the institute of seismology, I guess. It may be interesting from an academic point of view, but not in any practical sense.
@@nellitheretrogamer8666 i agree to the doors in the US being thin, thin as paper in my opinion. as my grandpa once said "American things are cheap" my door is 3" thick / 78mm with steel reinforced core and from the hinges i have bolts going thru the inside of the door to prevent break ins and the door frame is 6" thick with 5" large screws and steel core
It's always, for many centuries at least, the case that people tended to use the most abundant building material of their local area. In the Alps, granite, slate, limestone were common, topped off with roofs supported by wooden beams, but then again covered in shingles of the appropriate material. The further north you go in Germany fired red brick becomes much more predominant as clay was abundant. Roofing was either red roof tiles, or in some areas straw or other grasses or reeds. For all of the relatively heavy weight atop the roofs you needed some sturdy walls. With forests often being directly owned by some aristocrats or kings you simply couldn't go logging. The territory of Europe was already owned by people of the same military and technology level not so easily displaced as native Americans. So just shoving out some indigenous people to grab their resources wasn't as easy as in North America. So you were forced to build with what you had on hand in abundance.
Bricks provide insulation. I couldn’t imagine how hot my house would be here in Western Australia if made with small bits of wood and paper! I guess we’d just pay more to the government in electricity for aircon.
I am 46, moved 23 times, this includes moving 5 times between countries and 3 times between continents so far. I travel a bit, last year visited 14 countries including Ukraine. The most impressive buildings that I have seen are in Austria, Vienna and in Hungary, Budapest but also in Manhattan)
I'm Italian, in Italy almost all the houses are made of concrete and bricks and are usually able to accommodate several generations of families. As an example, my grandmother is 90 years old and still lives in her mother's old house. I personally would prefer to have a brick home due to the fact that they require less maintenance, insulate against humidity and temperature, can stand for hundreds of years, and have a very high resale value. Furthermore, modern building materials have a much higher quality than those of a few centuries ago, so the life expectancy of a brick house built today is even greater
Both my houses (the one in the city and the one on the mountains) were built before the Declaration of Independence was signed, in the eighteenth century. The house I lived in before buying my first house was built in 1300 and there was a Roman street passing through the basement. Yes, our houses last…
My aunts farmhouse here in Austria is ~300 years old, made of wood, except for the basement which has a 4ft natural stone wall, and still is mostly original. They only replaced the windows with energy saving ones and renewed the sealant between the gaps of the woodwork. I am curious how the US cardboard houses look after that time. 😅
In Sweden we do use wood, as other mentioned. So the "flimmsyness" is not due to materials. Its down to the use of the materials. in Scandinavian countries houses built is highly regulated. Youre not allowed to build any way you want or where you want. Its often more time consuming seeking legal clearings for houses, then acctually building them. While this makes building a slow process over here, with lack of houses a real thing, it also garanties a certain quality of the houses built. I have a feeling in the US its much more of a "I have a plot of land, lets build me a house" sort of thing. Something witch I guess makes lack of houses unheard of in the US, but also makes for a certain flimmsyness of your houses.
Around my place of residence here in Germany there are houses from before the world wars. Let me tell you that some of these buildings have walls that are about a meter thick, so yes, these do a good job of keeping the summer heat and winter chill out of your living spaces. Of course, in the next big city in my area that had and still has a defense industry, there are several above-ground bunkers that had anti-aircraft installations on top of them, and those walls are no crap. Some of them have walls over 3m thick
Europe hardly ever gets hurricanes and if they get one, it's usually a very weak, local one. Hurricanes normally form above the ocean, where the water temperature is over 26°C, which is very rarely the case in the Northern Atlantic. Only the East Pacific and the Tropical Atlantic regularly surpass this threshold. As for earthquakes, we do get some in Southern Europe, but very rarely in Western or Northern Europe. Just look up a map with the tectonic plates and it'll all be clearer.
Here in Austria, wooden houses are quite common as prefab houses etc. In the last century, after WWII wooden houses were built for poor people, because they were much cheaper. Today wooden houses are build as so called passive houses, what means, thesy are that good insulated, they don't need active heating or cooling. Wooden houses are getting more and more market share because of the better energy balance, and the fact that growing wood binds CO2 instead of producing it in the process of making cement or fired bricks. Here in Styria (the federal state where I live) the areal percentage of forests is about 56%
@@hello_help isolation norms and such ;), we can't just have hollow wall, regulation dictate to fill up with a minimun thickness in insulation at the outside :) . in Belgium I am pretty sure a mostly wooden home is more expensive insteat about the same as a brick house :).
@@JeroenJA probably we in Europe build houses differently alltogether. We also do not move as much I think, let alone moving with leaving all the furniture behind. Also, we live - compared to the US - far more north so such whimsy cellars and floors are not possible.
Yes, what the interior walls are made from really makes a difference. I spent most of my life in Sydney on Australia’s east coast where the typical modern house has wood or steel framing with brick exterior walls and plasterboard interior walls. Steel framing has been gradually replacing wood framing over the last few decades. The plasterboard interior walls have very little soundproofing effect. When I moved to the west coast I found Perth homes were more likely to be brick walls for both exterior and interior with just the roof joists made of timber or steel. Not only were those houses cooler in summer but quieter inside, noise didn’t travel from one room to another in the same way as in plasterboard walled houses. The difference was quite noticeable.
He says his house was build in the 1920s but wood frame houses only boomed since the 40s. He could very well live in a house that isn't built with wooden frames.
My grandparents house was wooden framed with wooden lathes but instead of dry wall on the inside it was plaster and the outside was largely mud built up against the wooden frames. Lots of houses like this still survive and can be seen around, not only in Britain but also in Europe. Oh, and my grandparents house was built in the 1300s and is still standing and inhabited today.
Well a lot was lost because houses were in fact made of wood and even stone houses are not completely immune to fire. The Great Fire of London happened in 1666 not thousands of years ago.
Living in Sweden, we do build wood framed houses with drywall, but it is normal to repaint it whenever small cracks in the paint are about to show up. this way the water won't destroy the houses, there are like nothing but trees over here. And Insulation in my house is 50 cm (1 inch is 2.54 cm) houses last for over 100 years, it is more that one don't like the looks of the old house that make people tear it down. Oh yea, geothermal heatpumps has been used here for about 45 years, just about everyone has been using them for the last 30 years. Good sales people is the reason i bet.
