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Comment by mcast | Hacker News Reader

Not all coastal areas have the same strict building code. Homes not built with concrete exteriors and hurricane tie down anchors have a strong risk of being demolished in strong hurricanes. South Florida revamped their building codes after Hurricane Andrew wiped many of the homes and infrastructure in the 90s. However, not all coastal houses in northern Florida or on the gulf are built with concrete or on stilt foundations.

A secondary threat is prolonged flooding which can submerge entire homes with salt water for weeks at a time. That's very costly and not preventable with existing homes in flood zones.

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This I never understood. Other countries didn't need building codes mandating such things - people always built houses that were intended to stand for many decades and that are suited to their local environment[1].

It defies comprehension that despite being somewhat poorer and enjoying milder weather, Europeans built their houses from brick and mortar while the US insists on erecting cheap cardboard boxes that even if they're not blown away or flooded, will probably rot away within the lifetime of their owner.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/Y678tV7.png

this isn't the three little pigs. Brick is not automatictally stronger. Wood houses have advantages as well, and can be just as strong.

I did not use the word "wood" once. I don't think houses with walls you can kick holes in qualify as wood houses. They're closer to cardboard than wood.

Anyways, the point isn't the materials - the point is that the houses are fundamentally unsuited to the environment they are in.

Are you just constantly kicking your walls or something? I don't get why it's such a big issue. I've only accidentally made a hole in a wall once and it was about an hour fix.

Drywall walls have never been a problem for me, in fact they're pretty nice. It's really easy to modify the walls. Need to do a new Ethernet run? Want another power run? Feel like moving a lightswitch? Install new access points on the ceiling or change up light fixtures? Easy to drop down the void and cut a new box. Want to redesign the layout of a room? Often not a problem, easy to change.

Meanwhile a concrete wall is a massive pain to modify. You get the runs you get. Good luck redoing a layout. Say goodbye to having good wireless coverage.

> good wireless coverage

We were talking about houses blowing away and falling over but sure.

Even in places with lots of hurricanes the odds of the house "blowing away and falling over" are pretty slim. I speak as a person who grew up in a place that gets a lot of hurricanes. The biggest impact is usually flooding and roof damage.And now, once again, as someone living in a highly tornado-probe area, it's mostly roofing damage. The odds the tornado will destroy your house is still incredibly slim.

So do you spend significantly more for construction for a failure that's still extremely unlikely? Y'all are acting like every time there's a thunderstorm all the houses just blow down. You're entirely disconnected from reality of the actual risks versus massive increase in costs.

Very few houses are a total loss in the average hurricane. Indeed during most hurricanes there’s just lots of minor damage that you might see during a particularly bad thunderstorm, and people even continue to go to work.

Major hurricanes are a different story. But even then total loss is relatively rare except for storm surges unless you’re in the path of the eyewall.

There is no construction that can withstand storm surge, which is the biggest and most destructive hurricane impact. Even if the structure is intact, everything has to be ripped out of it. Most of them do survive winds short of tornadoes, though roof damage is very typical for major hurricanes and tree falls can cause problems.

We’re talking about the wind blowing up to 30ft of saltwater _miles_ inland. Given the comparative rarity of a major hurricane in any given geographical location and the oddities that determine the storm surge and where it comes in, the damage usually is worst in places it’s never flooded before - because places where it has are indeed required to build higher.

The US used to build using brick and mortar. It was abandoned because it was unsafe, most of those buildings were destroyed by environmental hazards that Europe does not have. Consequently, most housing in the US for the last century or more primarily uses wood, which does survive the hazards endemic to the US.

In most of the US, only wood or steel frame construction is safe. Wood houses last centuries.

Wood is used primarily where wood is plentiful. Northern Europe uses wood to build, especially Finland. Japan uses wood to build, although they import from Canada these days. Australia also uses lots of wood.

Wood holds up better in earth quakes and tornadoes than brick, but you could probably build safe buildings with bricks in the USA, they would just cost more and require similar or more maintenance.

The earthquake retrofits for brick buildings seem to essentially install a structural steel frame to which the brick is fastened. At which point it is not really a brick structure but a steel one. New “brick” construction is almost entirely brick facades over a steel/wood frame.

While steel-reinforced masonry can be made safe, it isn’t obvious to me that actual brick-and-mortar can be.

Europe really use brick construction. Germany and France don’t have alot of earthquakes. They also don’t have many trees.

Materials availability / cost is the driving force.

America has lots of wood and lots of gypsum, and that's what we build our houses with.

The design problem is more complex than you are portraying. I don’t need my house to last for 200 years if it comes at the cost of not being able to modify it (walls, windows, openings, floor plan) as infrastructure needs change.

Do you notice the awkward protruding wall plug, seemingly used by the lamp, on the photo you linked? It doesn’t have to be that way - I have put a receptacle or switch in to the perfect spot as a one day project many times, and we have reworked wall layout in several places.

And, the photo looks like it has single pane windows with snow outside? They might not have had functional multi pane windows when the home was built?

Needs and technical capabilities change, and a design that is less committed to mass walls has important flexibility.

> And, the photo looks like it has single pane windows with snow outside? They might not have had functional multi pane windows when the home was built?

That's water outside. After a storm. That's a waterproof house in a coastal area of Germany that tends to flood during storms.

Needless to say those windows are designed with another problem than just insulation in mind. I can't tell you whether they're multi pane. All I know is that they open towards the outside rather than the inside for obvious reasons.

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