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Comment by timerol | Hacker News Reader

This article seems to be putting on some strong rose-colored glasses. It appeals to the idea that people in the past all lived in beautiful, long-lasting buildings. The reality is that the long-lasting buildings are the only ones that still exist. The bulk of humanity has always lived in cheap construction. Affordable housing is not a bad thing, especially with modern fire codes.

The last paragraph starts with "For centuries the quality of their buildings and a certain permanence set cities apart". That's a really good joke. The author even points to this earlier with "The sameness [of 1+5s] isn't like East Berlin's "Plattenbauten" (precast concrete buildings) around Alexanderplatz, nor has it the uniformity of some of Baltimore's rowhouse neighborhoods." I'm legitimately not sure whether those cheaply constructed neighborhoods are supposed to be positive examples or not.

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Agreed, there's a bit of survivorship bias. For an idea of poor construction in the 19th century, look at some of the streets pre-Hausmann's renovation of Paris:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann%27s_renovation_of_Pa...

> The Bievre river was used to dump the waste from the tanneries of Paris; it emptied into the Seine.

Even before reading the caption, that picture -- absent any obvious tourist landmarks -- immediately made me think of the same location rendered in one of the Assassin's Creed games... I can't tell whether that's funny, sad, or bizarrely positive. Maybe all three.

A common type of residential structure where I live is the three-decker. They were built of the cheapest construction of their time, and yes, they are quite flammable. Given the comparatively-lax regulations that existed when three-deckers were built, they have achieved residential density that is hard to beat with new buildings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-decker_(house)

Three floors is popular in (western) Europe too for apartments because it's the highest where an elevator is not mandatory (but they're usually not made out of wood here... except if e.g. it's a chalet in the mountains)

In NYC you can find 7th-floor "walk-up" apartments, although most buildings without elevators stop at 5 or 6 floors.

Well, at least you would be fit.

Or never leave your place with modern remote work and anything can be delivered ethos.

I know that you're probably talking a lot older than one century, but as a minor counterpoint:

Our house (in Buffalo, NY area) turned 100 this year, and there are thousands of houses just like it in the Buffalo area. In fact, most of the housing that was built in the late 1800s and early 1900s is still standing:

https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2015/06/28/oldhomes...

I think our house could easily go another 100 years with the proper maintenance.

> In fact, most of the housing that was built in the late 1800s and early 1900s is still standing.

I don't think that the linked article actually says that.

What it does say is that Buffalo has the oldest housing stock in the country with a median construction year of 1954. I would guess that to be mostly an artifact of the declining population of the area, which peaked between 1960 and 1970.

Yeah, I kind of conflated my anecdote with the reference in support of my anecdote. I'll have to see if I can dig up more data on this.

As for population, you have to be careful with the statistics on this because, while the area did lose population since the 70s, there was also a lot of flight from the city to the suburbs over the same time period. So, it is often more instructive to look at the total population of western NY instead of just the city of Buffalo.

the issue with old housing in the end is simply heat isolation. Old houses leak away alot of heat (especially if deep cracks are present in the brick and mortar, which is very expensive to fix). Which in term will mean you pay a significant amount of extra cash to keep the heat on. Renovation is possible ofcourse, but not always worth it?

Many of the older homes here are wood (typically, balloon frame) with a sandstone foundation, so you can reduce the amount of heat loss by making sure that the sandstone mortar is in good shape, making sure that all windows and entrances are properly-sealed, and strategic use of insulation. I say "strategic" here because you have to be careful about making the house too tight, which can cause moisture to get trapped and result in very bad things like sill rot.

The key is that these old homes have very good "bones", so even a gut job can use the original structure intact. Combine that with the fact that Buffalo's real estate is relatively inexpensive still (it's starting to get up there, though), and extensive renovations aren't too bad on the wallet.

Well sure, but at least some houses used to be beautiful and long-lasting; nowadays, even large, expensive mansions are typically built in a cheap, slapdash manner, using techniques and materials that are not nearly as long-lasting or durable as the ones that would've been used to build a nice house a century ago.

For a really obvious example, just look at roofing materials; a good slate roof can last over a century with minimal maintenance, but nobody builds houses with slate roofs anymore. Instead, even high-end homes use asphalt shingles that last 20-30 years tops.

Steel roofing is becoming more and more common. Wonder what the expected life expectancy is on those bad boys.

50+ years.

Driving through Eastern europe and in the Alps I noticed that they are very popular -- was wondering if it was a cost thing or if they are simply better in colder/harsher climates -- my guess is both.

Steel roofs are particularly well-suited to areas that receive heavy snowfall. The snow tends to slide right off, instead of dangerously accumulating on an asphalt roof.

Have steel roof, can confirm. It makes a satisfying sliding then silence then thump noise.

It makes shoveling a path adjacent to the house kind of a pain because you have to shovel it after snow falls and then again after the snow falls from the roof. Shoveling snow is also a lot more interesting when you have to listen for the sliding sound and GTFO or hug the house if you hear it.

Overall 10/10.

Or a popping, followed by an entire-house-shaking moment of terror. This one wasn't actually that bad from a shaking standpoint, but still caught me off guard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjDKoiwUk1M

>So one hard or soft slate for each square foot of your house times $1,500 will be total cost of a new slate roof. Asphalt shingles have a total cost around $200 per square.

Well, yea slate roofs cost 7X as much. No wonder people don't.

Well yeah, nowadays contractors can charge through the nose when hardly anyone even has the necessary skills to maintain existing slate roofs anymore, much less install new ones. It didn't always used to be like that, though. The material cost is more, of course, but not nearly 7X more.

So you oppose the democratization of luxury?

Haha I think the point is you can’t democratize luxury. That’s a shill, an oxymoron. What you get is literal vuglarity.

That's an overload of the term luxury. Is air conditioning a luxury? Depends on what you mean by it.

What I mean by it in this case is, we are able to support economically many more people having mansions than we used to. The trade-off is they rightfully earn the prefix of Mc.

> we are able to support economically many more people having mansions than we used to

I don't think that's true... the environmental cost of supporting this is huge and already unsustainable. Air conditioning is a great example of this.

is this actually true though? Most older long-lasting buildings seem to either be build for industrial/economic use or are goverment/public project kind of works.

Also, most normal housing was of dubious quality all throughout history, there is a reason many european cities decided to level vast parts of their working class housing districts after ww2. Mainly because it was far easier to start over (thanks to ww2 damage) and because most of these housing where simply to cheap to be worth restoring.

Yes, absolutely. I live in a city with a ton of old freestanding houses that were built around 1900, and they're incredibly sturdy. You can see this all throughout the construction:

The frames are built from really thick wooden beams that can take a beating. I had a large tree fall on my house earlier this year, and the trunk bounced/slid off, doing only superficial damage to the roof and siding; I talked to multiple contractors and insurance people who said a newer house built using modern construction standards would've been flattened, or at least suffered serious structural damage.

Things like windows are built to last too. The original wooden sash cord designs are still functioning 100+ years after they were built, with the exception of a couple windows that needed the cords replaced, but that's relatively cheap and easy. I expect the same windows will continue to work another 100 years as long as they're cared for and maintained.

This isn't about "the democratization of luxury", as another commenter suggested. Cheap construction costs more in the long term. This is about a cultural shift toward favoring short-term over long-term thinking. Long-lasting wood sash cord windows would not be expensive to build in this day and age, and they could be quite energy efficient too with modern glass and weather stripping, but people don't think or care about the long term the way they used to, and so they'd would rather settle for cheap, shiny vinyl windows that yellow and crack and fall apart in a matter of decades.

Slight rant, but those types of windows were one of the first things that bugged me when I moved over from Europe. IMO, not only are they not as practical, but they also leak more energy than what we had in Germany. You can't poke your head out all the way and need to bend over awkwardly to get some fresh air. It would be one thing if it was only on older houses, but new ones use them as well. By contrast, even my grandparent's house, built in the 50s, had windows that swung open like a door or leaned inwards at ~10°, if you only wanted a little bit of a breeze. They even had windows built into the roof that could be opened either in the middle or from the top, thanks to dual hinges. Best part, the "Rolladen", aka roll-up blinds built into the walls that helped with heat-retention in the winter, provided sound-dampening, and could be automated by a timer. Maybe it's just the area where I live, but I get the feeling that for many architectural features in the states we decided about 100 years that everything is good enough as it is and the only continued innovation was geared towards cutting corners and getting cheaper materials to work. /rant 0 https://goo.gl/images/QS5oJj https://goo.gl/images/1nRYHt https://goo.gl/images/kDVPkv https://goo.gl/images/TfDtoK

> Long-lasting wood sash cord windows would not be expensive to build in this day and age

They'd be relatively expensive because they require more labor to install, and these days labor is the biggest cost. Older homes had better craftsmanship because labor was much cheaper back then, even highly skilled labor.

Engineered, cookie-cutter building materials are a substitute for labor. They're also a substitute for the fact that high-quality, old-growth lumber is gone, so if you want dimensional stability and moisture resistance you have to rely on engineered solutions.

I have 90-year-old sash windows in my house. I think they're great aesthetically and mechanically but previous owners didn't properly maintain them (because labor is expensive!) so they're nearing their useful life. Equivalent replacements will be quiet expensive, not to mention the labor to make sure they're installed properly, modern or not.

Tile is also a long-lasting option that's cheaper than slate. The issues are not purely material costs though but supply, specialized labour, environmental factors, etc.

Isn't tile a problem in an area that gets hailstorms?

I think the author's annoyance stems from the fact that these buildings attempt to look stylish and high class, but are made cheaply. It's kind of upper-class annoyance that lower-class people are getting something that looks nice.

Ultimately, like certificates of authenticity on diamonds, the upper class will settle on some easily identified but hard to fake styles for expensive homes, and the cycle will repeat.

Biologists call this "honest signaling." Cryptocurrency advocates call it "proof of work." Essentially wasting resources to prove that you can.

> The bulk of humanity has always lived in cheap construction

Yes, but when older homes were built labor (even highly skilled labor) was comparatively much cheaper and lumber came from old-growth trees.

Most homes built today (cheap or not) will literally begin to fall apart in months if they're not kept temperature and humidity controlled.

To build a house today using a mix of modern technology (electrical, plumbing, foundation, etc) with the quality of wood and finishing used in older homes would be very expensive compared to typical construction, even in high-end developments.

Quality construction still occurs... You just need to pay for it!

Sameness at scale.

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