# What is the oldest material in a modern house **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 27, 2019, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-material-in-a-modern-house/844085 "2019-11-27T20:23:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2019, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-material-in-a-modern-house/844085/21 "2019-11-28T15:13:55Z")
Thus illustrating the old adage that Europeans think 100 miles is a long distance, and Americans think 100 years is a long time. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2019, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-material-in-a-modern-house/844085/22 "2019-11-28T15:41:37Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I’m not that familiar with US construction - can a modern brick house not use any concrete? I would think it would require a poured foundation at a minimum. So it will have million-years-old rocks in the aggregate. It would be difficult to build a brick house without a concrete foundation. And very few houses of any kind can be built without some kind of concrete to form a foundation. Even if there’s no concrete somehow the mortar for bricks will contain sand. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2019, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-material-in-a-modern-house/844085/23 "2019-11-28T19:19:26Z")
Yeah, but sand doesn’t \*have \*to be more than a few thousand years old. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2019, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-material-in-a-modern-house/844085/24 "2019-11-29T18:24:23Z")
Virtually every drop of water on Terra existed a few billion years ago so what’s mixed in our modular house’s concrete foundation is a good candidate for “oldest stuff here”. Otherwise… I have some millennium-old pottery. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2019, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-material-in-a-modern-house/844085/25 "2019-11-29T20:33:52Z")
Not really. Water is constantly being recycled, including [spending time in organisms as things other than water](https://what-if.xkcd.com/74/) and [spontaneously breaking up on it’s own](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ionization_of_water). “Water” has been around for billions of years, but specific individual molucules haven’t. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2019, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-material-in-a-modern-house/844085/26 "2019-11-29T21:29:08Z")
Isn’t hydrogen primordial? There’s pounds and pounds of it in a typical house, in water of hydration in any cement or drywall, in wood, in polymeric plumbing and wire insulation, all over. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2019, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-material-in-a-modern-house/844085/27 "2019-11-29T22:32:53Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > Isn’t hydrogen primordial? There’s pounds and pounds of it in a typical house, in water of hydration in any cement or drywall, in wood, in polymeric plumbing and wire insulation, all over. Yes, but the OP asked for “materials”, not atoms. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-material-in-a-modern-house/844085.md?page=1)