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Comment by RDaneel0livaw | Hacker News Reader

ENTIRE vinyl villages of McMansions will be unlivable. They aren't even built to last the standard 30y mortgage because the builders know the initial buyers will sell and move on. Cheapest possible 2x4's with worst insulation ever known, all covered up in plastic siding. But hey, it's 10k sq ft right?

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That's a bit hyperbolic. Inspections are a thing, and modern houses are generally built just fine. And nobody uses plastic siding on a brand new house (well, almost nobody, you can probably find rare examples). A modern house uses hardieplank fibercement siding probably 99% of the time. These days vinyl siding is mostly a retrofit choice, not new construction.

The cheap 2x4s are the most significant point of failure. The houses will twist and warp to many extremes during their lifetimes. The first symptom of doors that won't open/shut properly usually shows in the first 10 years of these houses. In a 1920s home built with domestic timber, that process would take a lifetime. After 30 years, this contributes to all sorts of creaks and leaks. Repairs are questionable and don't last as long because the frame of the structure is unstable.

I had a suspicion you would be downvoted for telling the truth here :-). It's an unfortunate choice between being truthful and being popular.. As I understand it, part of the difference between US and Europe is that US has massive access to cheap lumber, which makes it very cost-effective to build with balloon framing, which is not much used in Europe. US saves a lot on construction this way, but it has consequences for durability.

> with worst insulation ever known,

What are you talking about?

Lots of "luxury" housing is made with crap materials by unskilled freelancers. There is a ton of skimping on hidden details like missing flashing around doors and windows. You can't trust any home built within the last 25 years.

I'm asking specifically what insulation product they are referring to because I'm unaware of any product that fits that description.

In my case, the insulation was mostly just air. There is zero insulation at all in my garage in a place with harsh winters and there is no insulation between my garage and the house. My attic also did not have insulation, but that one was cheaper and easier to resolve than all the wall cavities.

Have you checked what the building code in the area requires? If the builder was negligent and you're they first owner they may be liable.

Unfortunately we aren’t the first owners. I know some of the issues we are seeing is from shitty diy or contracting from the previous owner, but most of them are from the original construction. One example of shitty DIY is the hardwood floor on the main level that we are currently replacing. The newly installed floors were a bit lower than the original floors so they just covered all the gaps with corner round all around the baseboards. Looks super tacky. But is a fairly minor issue all things considered. We are replacing that with another layer of sub flooring and engineered wood floors to try to reduce the amount of movement you can feel in the floors.

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