As a European (Irish as it happens) who spent a while in maerica,I have to say the completle different style of houses over there did quite throw me. What I have to wonder is - is there anywhere in the US (outside a city) where house constructed from concrete blocks are the norm? And is there a good reason why wooden houses are so popular there, and completely unknown here in the British Isles?
I’ve a feeling it may have to do with the fact that even in the heat of summer it’s a lot more humid here than in America - is this a valid point?
Well, on the west coast of america, We have frequent earthquakes. Brick houses don’t fare well. It’s certainly not wise, and probably illegal, to build them out here. I can’t speak for the rest of the country though.
On trips to the east coast, I noticed plenty of brick/stone houses, altho they were mostly older dwellings.
Perhaps wooden houses are more plentiful here because we had so many trees. I live in Virginia and there are many brick houses here, old and new. Out on the plains pioneers made their houses out of sod, that’s big bricks of dirt cut from the earth. In the west many of the houses are made of adobe, mud. If you travelled all over our country you would see many styles of architecture and the use of many different types of building materials.
I would think lumber would be quite a bit more expensive in British Isles due to relatively small supply of available forest land in comparison to North America.
Oh and I almost forgot there is nothing more humid than a Virginia summer. That is unless you go a little farther south like North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana. The building materials of these houses sometimes does not have as much to do with keeping them cool as the design. The farther south you go you will see in the older homes, before air conditioning of course, that the houses were designed to make maximum use of the breeze.
In the Northern Virginia area, their are lots of older brick subdivisions. These were built on the cheap side to provide quick housing for the military personnel that were flooding the area.
Also in Old Town Alexandria, there are colonial-era homes made of brick that are maintained for historic purposes.
Hmmm. Here’s a lot of facts, ideas and WAGs. Maybe if I throw enough, some of them may stick…
As stated by Needs2know, we’ve always had lots of forests in the US. Except for maybe Hawaii and a few of the plains states, there are national forests in every state, which are used and maintainedby the timber industry. This may be wrong, but I have the impression that the forests of Ireland and Great Britain were depleted over a century ago.
My impression is that post and beam was the standard for home construction in the US until (I think) the 1904 Worlds Fair in St. Louis, when stick framing was introduced. 2X4 framing was lighter and more easily fitted than heavy beams. This allowed less experienced workers to build the houses. FYI, stick homes were sold, in kit form, through the Sears and Roebuck catalog for families to assemble.
Today, it may be that stick construction is economically the best system for mass production. There may be other systems that have lower materials costs or lower labor costs, but 2X4 construction offers the lowest total cost. Besides, I know from experience that a rookie crew can frame a garage in two days (hey, the roof slowed us down.) It probably helps that a homebuilder can get the house built shortly after someone agrees to buy it (I’m sure you noticed that, along with living in wood houses, we’re pretty impatient over her. )
By the way, I can’t find concrete blocks over here. All I can find are cinder blocks, which are made of fly ash instead of rock and have a reputation as not being very strong. Besides, the cost of materials is comparable between a block wall and a stick wall, and it’s a lot easier to hammer 2X4s together than it is to stack, line up and butter bricks.
Brick homes are more expensive to build, and there is less profit in them for the builder.
Personally, I wish we would get away from using wood products in construction, and give our forests a break. I’m all for concrete and brick construction (at least in areas not prone to tremors).
Also, has anyone seen these homes made out of old tires? Those things fascinate me. They look great, too, at least the ones I have seen on TV. (The tires don’t actually show in the finished home – they are stuccoed over).
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