I have made a conscience effort on my many trips to Alaska (Anchorage and Matanuska Valley area) to see a brick house. I am assuming that there are probably one or two but I have yet to find them. I’ve never seen a house with aluminum siding either, but I am guessing it is due to the damage that would be caused by harsh weather.
Why are there no brick houses?
You turn me on. But maybe it’s because I just spent 20 years in the jungle, getting it on with anything I could attract with a piece of fruit.
In an environment like alaska, a lumber mill is an easier business to start than a brickyard. Local wood is MUCH cheaper than delivered bricks, so wood and concrete become the norm.
stoli
Well, blessed is just about everyone
with a vested interest in the status quo,
as far as I can tell.
I had taken that into consideration, and yeah, it does make sense. However, even the very large summer homes of the rich and famous, assuming they would be more elaborate with cost not being a factor, are made from the cheaper looking wood as opposed to brick.
You turn me on. But maybe it’s because I just spent 20 years in the jungle, getting it on with anything I could attract with a piece of fruit.
Could be foundations. You have to deal with permafrost and a freeze-thaw action that could wreak havoc with the mortar joints of a brick house. Wood has enough flexibility to withstand some shifting of foundations and the ground the foundation is on. Brick houses would start to crack around the mortar with relatively small shifts of the foundation or the ghround under the foundation. Concrete would be poured all in larger sections or even all at once allowing fewer oppurtunites for cracking since the cracking usually occurs where two dissimilar materials meet.
This is all just my WAG though.
Perhaps a conscious effort, or even a conscientious effort. I try not to use my conscience. I’m saving it for sometime when I might really need it.
I have relatives in Anchorage and formerly in Fairbanks. I’ll do a poll and see if their experience is any different than yours. IIRC, the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, where I spent a little time, has brick buildings. Not a home, obviously, but an indication that brick buildings are occasionally erected in our northernmost state.
“Cheddar?”
“We don’t get much call for that around here, Sir.”
I just love spell checker, especially when I don’t pay attention. No watt eye mean?
I have only been as far south as Seward and as far north as Talkeetna, but I have noticed that all the houses are wood siding. I am not sure what it is like near Fairbanks.
I did see one or two businesses that were cinderblock or brick, a strip mall on Muldoon Hwy and Walmart. Other than that, I didn’t see any.
Jeesh, I sound like a weirdo with so many beautiful things to see in Alaska and here I am looking for brick.
You turn me on. But maybe it’s because I just spent 20 years in the jungle, getting it on with anything I could attract with a piece of fruit.