Hacker News Reader

Most of the houses in Seattle are wood. Seattle has a very similar climate to the UK including tons of rain. Many very old houses. Besides, with wood siding, you can just replace it, it comes right off and you put more on. My house was built in the 70s. It's cedar siding. The siding is fine.

View on HN

But why is that better than brick, and (it being a lot harder to, sure, but) not needing to?

Brick in Seattle is not great because we get earthquakes and brick tends to crumble.

There are some brick buildings, and there are some things you can do to reinforce them in preparation for an earthquake. But in general, wood is better.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com