# 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:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![eschrodinger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschrodinger/32/122_2.png) [@eschrodinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschrodinger)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2019, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/141 "2019-07-09T17:06:53Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > No, on unreinforced masonry not falling during the many 5.Xs we have every year. 6s are thankfully rare (one every few years), but 4s and 5s are routine and the one time the whole country went “OMGGGGGGG!!! A falling tile killed someone in an earthquake!!!” it was from a building which was already known to be falling down. The way some of the Americans in this thread talk about brick, you wonder how did anybody ever manage to have a brick house anywhere between Mesopotamia and Portugal, both included. You appear to be off by an order of magnitude. There are many sub-5.0 earthquakes in Spain every year. A 5.x happens every few years, and 6.0 or higher are much rarer than one every few years. [https://elpais.com/elpais/2015/02/24/inenglish/1424772434\_047041.html:](https://elpais.com/elpais/2015/02/24/inenglish/1424772434_047041.html:) > [@](#): > > Yet each year, between 1,200 and 1,400 tremors are recorded in the Iberian peninsula. Usually they measure no more than 4.9 on the Richter scale, while one registering 5.0 or above occurs once every three and a half years or so. > > The last time a major earthquake was felt in Spain was February 28, 1969, when a 7.8-magnitude tremor in Cape St. Vincent, in neighboring Portugal, knocked down several buildings in the southern Spanish province of Huelva. > > On Christmas Day in 1884, a 6.5-magnitude quake beneath Arenas del Rey, in Granada province, killed 839 people, destroyed 4,400 buildings and damaged 13,000 others. > > And on November 1, 1755, an 8.5-magnitude quake that also originated southwest of Cape St. Vincent created a 15-meter tsunami that hit Western Europe and northern Africa, marking the greatest quake-related tragedy recorded in Spain, according to the IGN. This event went down in history as the Lisbon earthquake because of the destruction it caused to the Portuguese capital, where an estimated 15,000 people lost their lives, but the Spanish provinces of Huelva and Cádiz were also affected. Those magnitude numbers are on a logarithmic scale. A 6.0 has 31 times the energy of a 5.0. A 7.0 (the recent primary California quake was 7.1, with a 6.4 foreshock, and many \>5.0 aftershocks) has 1000 times the energy of a 5.0. The coming 9.0 that the Cascadia zone has to be prepared for is 10,000 times bigger, and a million times stronger in terms of energy. [https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/calculator.php](https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/calculator.php) No amount of skill or quality of materials can make a stiff unreinforced masonry building be able to flex in a very strong earthquake. It is very well established that URM buildings are prone to collapse in earthquakes. What can make them not collapse, is reinforcement, which makes them not be unreinforced masonry any more. Some things can be done to make them less dangerous, like making the connections between distict elements stronger, like strong fasteners between the facade and the inner structure. (See, e.g., [http://www.seismicresilience.org.nz/topics/strengthening-strategies/strengthening-commercial-buildings/unreinforced-masonry/](http://www.seismicresilience.org.nz/topics/strengthening-strategies/strengthening-commercial-buildings/unreinforced-masonry/)). Importantly, when URM buildings fail, they also tend to fail catastrophically. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2019, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/142 "2019-07-09T18:46:52Z")
Cost is the primary factor. You can purchase a home in the US with all the features described by the OP but it will cost you more, than one with shingle roofs, OSB sub floors, etc. The US culture is that owning your own home is part of the American dream. So in order to make more homes affordable, they have to be made with less expensive products. I believe that on average the market price per square meter of home in the US is significantly less than prices of other developed countries for the reason I stated above. Many tract homes put the garage on the front façade of the home, because you can make the lot size smaller, and developers can fit more homes on a similar tract of land. Again, to reduce the costs. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2019, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/143 "2019-07-09T18:55:29Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/144 "2019-07-10T03:09:59Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > Of course there are exceptions - Apple products are as good as any Japanese or Korean brand, for example. Are you of the opinion that Apple products are made in the US? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/145 "2019-07-10T03:22:58Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > with the garage displayed prominently on the front as if it were the most important room in the house. If your neighborhood doesn’t have alleys, as with many modern tracts, then you pretty much have to put the garage in front for practical reasons. You need an inside door from the garage into the house, which often opens into a laundry or mud room. Putting the garage in back would mean a longer driveway in order to reach it, and that means devoting more of the outdoor space to moving and parking cars than you really need. I’ve seen old houses with garages in the back, but they’re usually unattached. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/146 "2019-07-10T03:33:33Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > You know why we don’t build in brick? Ten minutes ago, that’s why! > > Felt that all the way in Las Vegas. 7.1 magnitude is serious business. My wood-framed house is still standing. Following some early 20th century schoolhouse fires, a state law dictated that schools must be built of concrete or masonry, and old wooden school buildings were to be replaced. Then of course much of this new construction was damaged in several major quakes from 1933 to 1994, and this is why so many L.A. area school buildings are ugly modern replacements. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/147 "2019-07-10T03:40:24Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > “shingles” in much of the US mean [asphalt shingles,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asphalt_shingle) not slate. Or shingles can be of wood, which was the traditional material. Slate shingles are found only on the houses of the one percent. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/148 "2019-07-10T11:49:05Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Are you of the opinion that Apple products are made in the US? My whole post was about what American consumer preferences. Nothing to do with where the products are made. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/149 "2019-07-10T11:54:07Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > The US culture is that owning your own home is part of the American dream. Home ownership is an obsession in Greece, Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica, France, the UK, Sweden or Italy as well; what’s rare is countries where renting is generally viewed as preferable (for example Switzerland). Not a relevant point. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/150 "2019-07-10T13:44:56Z")
No one has really presented any objective evidence that American houses suck. ---
**Author:** ![SmellMyWort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SmellMyWort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmellMyWort)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/151 "2019-07-10T14:42:25Z")
> [@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. Pencils and erasers? What a stupid example of the clearly ignorant perspective on American consumerism. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/152 "2019-07-10T15:05:25Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Or shingles can be of wood, which was the traditional material. Are those still legal anywhere, at least if not massively treated for fire resistance? Back in the 1970’s, I lived for a while in a house with a wood shingle roof in bad shape. The company that owned the house was persuaded to fix the roof; they pulled off all the wood shingles and replaced them with asphalt shingles. That house also had a wood stove for heat. We used those old wood shingles as kindling. When we found out what absolutely fantastic kindling they made, we were very glad to have them off the roof. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/153 "2019-07-10T15:17:04Z")
> [@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. I would not disagree, but I would elaborate on this. You certainly CAN find and buy high-quality in the US stores. One big difference is that the US has the space for huge (big-box) stores and that makes a big difference in marketing. If I have a small store in an urban area and I want to stock socks, I will have to make some decisions about what socks I carry. I have limited display and storage space. It makes sense that I would carry good quality socks and charge more for them. I might make a profit of $1 on each pair. (My figures are obviously made up out of thin air.) BigMart\* out in the burbs has a virtually unlimited amount of space and they can carry many more types of socks and a much larger number of socks. They are perfectly happy to sell cheap socks and make $0.25 a pair. OTOH, they don’t necessarily want to carry any good-quality socks at all, because the people who come to get a good deal on cheap socks aren’t interested in the better socks. TL;DR version: People in the US can buy nice products, if they choose to. But there’s a good reason that there are lots of cheap ones available. \*Not meant to be representative of big-ass stores in general. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/154 "2019-07-10T15:39:45Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Are those still legal anywhere, at least if not massively treated for fire resistance? > > Back in the 1970’s, I lived for a while in a house with a wood shingle roof in bad shape. The company that owned the house was persuaded to fix the roof; they pulled off all the wood shingles and replaced them with asphalt shingles. > > That house also had a wood stove for heat. We used those old wood shingles as kindling. When we found out what absolutely fantastic kindling they made, we were very glad to have them off the roof. Yeah, I’m old enough to remember the Bel Air fire in the 60s. Lots of those expensive homes had wood shake roofs, and those shingles became airborne projectiles spreading the fire. It took a while after that, but they’re either completely banned now or they have to have serious fire retardant treatment. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/155 "2019-07-10T17:41:08Z")
Where I am in the southwest Spanish tile roofs are very common. They’ve been making something of a comeback because they are now a lot cheaper to install. The new tiles are made from formed concrete rather than clay. I love mine - it’s a better insulator than asphalt shingles and should last basically forever, less the occasional replacement of a broken tile. The downside is that it makes installing solar panels significantly trickier. Unlike asphalt, you can’t just drill directly through into the rafters to screw in your mounting hardware. I have a perfect roof geometry for solar (big flat part faces exactly due south with no obstructions) so I’ve been looking into different solutions for managing it. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/156 "2019-07-11T14:03:11Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > No one has really presented any objective evidence that American houses suck. Well to be honest, we havent had time to totally find out. Most homes I know of are less than 100 years old and have been upgraded a lot. Those houses in europe - well stop a second. Are they REALLY as strong and "built to last"as you say? Lets say a home is 100 years old (or older). How much of the original house is still there? Havent they upgraded the plumbing, windows, ceilings, roofs, electrical system and so forth? Newer homes in Europe, arent they built with wood and drywall the same as in the US? ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/157 "2019-07-11T14:19:27Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Where I am in the southwest Spanish tile roofs are very common. They’ve been making something of a comeback because they are now a lot cheaper to install. The new tiles are made from formed concrete rather than clay. I love mine - it’s a better insulator than asphalt shingles and should last basically forever, less the occasional replacement of a broken tile. > > The downside is that it makes installing solar panels significantly trickier. Unlike asphalt, you can’t just drill directly through into the rafters to screw in your mounting hardware. I have a perfect roof geometry for solar (big flat part faces exactly due south with no obstructions) so I’ve been looking into different solutions for managing it. Something like this work? [https://www.tesla.com/en\_CA/solarroof](https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/solarroof) ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/158 "2019-07-11T17:50:56Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Newer homes in Europe, arent they built with wood and drywall the same as in the US? Most of Europe doesn’t have any wood. The parts that have managed to not completely deforest themselves, like Finland and Sweden, do have robust timber-framing and stick-framing construction ecosystems. (It helps that it gets cold there, too.) Most of the rest of Europe predominantly builds with concrete and brick. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/159 "2019-07-11T17:56:02Z")
> [@swampspruce](#): > > Something like this work? [https://www.tesla.com/en\_CA/solarroof](https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/solarroof) It would have to _exist_ first, and in any case would require replacing the whole roof, which is not something I have any interest in. There are other ways to do regular solar panels atop tile roofs that don’t require such wasteful destruction. The stupid way is to strip the tiles off under the solar panel area and replace it with asphalt shingles. Don’t do this. The correct way is to strategically remove the tiles from the points where the mounting hardware needs to be fastened to the roof and then fill that spot in with an expanding outdoor sealant. Then leave the rest of the tiles undisturbed. This takes a bit more effort. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2019, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460/160 "2019-07-11T21:34:18Z")
Keep in mind, too, that the only houses that are hundreds of years old are the ones that were built solidly enough to last a couple centuries - you _don’t_ see the structures built at the same time that have since collapsed/burned/rotted/etc. So there is a selection process going on. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-american-houses-built-so-cheaply-poorly/836460.md?page=9)