# Why are American houses built so cheaply/poorly? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 3, 2019, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460 "2019-07-03T17:51:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/201 "2019-07-18T03:18:42Z")
> [@Taggerung](#): > > Looks nicer, more fire resistant, more sound deadenning, more solid and long lasting. Plaster lasts for 100’s of years even if it gets a little wet. Drywall is just paper and chalk and damages very easy. You can put a tiny dent in drywall with your thumbnail. You can punch plaster with all your might and you’d just end up in a world of pain. Yes, you can punch a hole in drywall - and then go and repair it. It isnt that hard. After katrina I saw houses that had been flooded. The cut out the all the wet drywall up to around 4 feet and let the studs dry out (along with everything else). They put new drywall back on. Pain yes, but can be fixed and the houses still sold for a profit. ---
**Author:** ![Daylate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/202 "2019-07-18T18:41:01Z")
We live in a house built in 1965. There is not one crack in the walls in all that time. And several decades ago we decided to have the kitchen cabinets refaced, as they were getting to look a bit grungy (Looked OK to me, but NOT to my wife!). Anyway, the contractor doing the work told me that the cabinets we had were much better than were being installed now - and this was 15 or 20 years ago. He said that many times he had to turn down a job because the cabinets were so shoddy that refacing them would be wasted money. It’s a bit interesting to note that we bought the house for $26,500 in 1965. It’s value (based on comparable neighborhood houses) now runs around $880,000. Unfortunately, the tax assessor is well aware of this. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/203 "2019-07-19T12:17:16Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > What about settling? many homes settle and get cracks in the walls and the basement then leaks like crazy. All homes go through a period of settling. In my experience, settling occurs in homes that are relatively new - any settling my house went through probably happened 130 years ago. My friend’s new house, by comparison, got plaster cracking within a year or two of it being built. Incidentally, I’ve just had a front wall/bay window replastered to fix a small damp problem. When the plasterer stripped off the old plaster, he found it was original. So this is the first major work that wall has had to have in 140 years. Not bad. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/204 "2019-07-19T12:21:07Z")
Answer: A disease known as “Greed”. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/205 "2019-07-19T18:50:27Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > Answer: A disease known as “Greed”. One point to remember is that way back when, hardwood lumber was cheap in most of the US. Wanted redwood for your deck and old-growth oak for your dining room? These were readily available and priced to be affordable. Then we cut down most of the trees. The great old-growth forests of Wisconsin and Michigan, Arkansas and Appalachia, are mostly gone, replaced (if replaced at all) by plantations of quick-growing softwoods. “Good lumber doesn’t grow on trees anymore,” to quote one lumberyard employee; while not strictly accurate, it conveys the idea. What is readily available and priced to be affordable now isn’t anything like the quality of lumber available to our forebears. ---
**Author:** ![awldune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@awldune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/awldune)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/206 "2019-07-19T23:02:58Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > One point to remember is that way back when, hardwood lumber was cheap in most of the US. Wanted redwood for your deck and old-growth oak for your dining room? These were readily available and priced to be affordable. > > Then we cut down most of the trees. The great old-growth forests of Wisconsin and Michigan, Arkansas and Appalachia, are mostly gone, replaced (if replaced at all) by plantations of quick-growing softwoods. “Good lumber doesn’t grow on trees anymore,” to quote one lumberyard employee; while not strictly accurate, it conveys the idea. What is readily available and priced to be affordable now isn’t anything like the quality of lumber available to our forebears. Another factor is that many hardwood species have been absolutely devastated by introduced species such as chestnut blight and the emerald ash borer. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2019, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/207 "2019-07-22T12:25:52Z")
> [@Taggerung](#): > > Looks nicer, more fire resistant, more sound deadenning, more solid and long lasting. Plaster lasts for 100’s of years even if it gets a little wet. Drywall is just paper and chalk and damages very easy. You can put a tiny dent in drywall with your thumbnail. You can punch plaster with all your might and you’d just end up in a world of pain. Actually, technology in drywall has moved on - you can buy specialist sound-resistant and fire-resistant boards (as well as water-resistant, vapour resistant, thermal and on and on). You can even buy drywall which is designed to resist hard impact - they use it in hospital corridors and prisons. There’s even one now that’s used on the outside of buildings for external sheathing. If you think drywall is just paper and gypsum, [you need to update your knowledge](https://www.siniat.co.uk/en/products-and-systems/products?cc=%2FProducts%2FWebsite%2FInternal+Boards&q=page%3D1%26page_size%3D20). ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2019, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/208 "2019-07-22T17:31:25Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > This seems to be true for many types of purchases - Americans prioritize price (and often size) over quality. Ever compared German or Japanese office supplies to American equivalents? You can’t buy quality pencils and erasers in the US unless you specifically looked for imports from Germany or Japan. Same for clothes - go to a department store in Japan and buy towels or socks, they’ll cost a lot more than in the US but will be noticeably higher quality. > > Of course there are exceptions - Apple products are as good as any Japanese or Korean brand, for example. It’s actually the opposite though in Japan when it comes to expectations about houses. They are expected to depreciate to zero value within 20-30 yrs and be torn down. This is an example of an article discussing it but others also have and I’ve seen this. Construction standards for standalone houses in the ROK seem similar. > **[Raze, rebuild, repeat: why Japan knocks down its houses after 30 years](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusable-housing-revolution)** > > Unlike in other countries, Japanese homes become valueless over time – but as the population shrinks, can its cities finally learn to slow down and refurb? I think in general topics like this might be affected by the bias of, not exactly anti-Americanism, but tendency to single out for criticism and complaint US things that’s typical in particular parts of US society and which foreigners are naturally not likely to object to. I agree with an earlier post noting the lack of objective data saying that US house construction standards are particularly low in terms of how long houses actually last or ‘life cycle cost’ of doing the renovation when needed to keep them going. IOW keeping it focused on practicality in how cost saving measures get the job done as opposed to tendency to class what’s different than past as automatically inferior. Our house is a 1901 stone/brick row house. It’s obviously a lot thicker/heavier everywhere than modern peak roof wood frame houses. However I’m not sure my parents’ suburban ca. 1925 wood frame peak roof house was so superior in build quality to reasonable quality new wood frame peak roof houses. And there’s a selection bias in comparing decades old houses _that are still around_ to the whole cross section of build quality now. There have always been higher/lower quality houses built at any give time, lower quality ones more likely to get torn down of virtually so in very extensive remodeling. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460.md?page=10)