It's always about cost, stupid. If I spend $20,000 rather than $5,000 on a roof, then I have $15,000 less to spend on other things that my house needs.
Every single decision involves that sort of tradeoff. That's why we do most of our own home maintenance and improvements, except for things that require specialized knowledge or equipment, or things that we are physically incapable of doing.
Cindy Hamilton
I've never seen paint exposed to direct sunlight look "like new" after 50 years.
Bricks were not readily available in many parts of the country. If you look at much of the northeast from Boston to Virginia there are a lot of brick homes. You need clay and kilns to make them. Not readily available in other places so they use what they could get, Just as adobe and igloos, you build with what you have.
I live in a masonry house.
I'm an engineer. Before my husband retired, he was an engineer. We have plenty of money, but no desire to waste it.
It's about optimization. Everybody, everywhere, building anything trades off features or convenience for cost.
Cindy Hamilton
Only because you fools do your houses using cheap and nasty timber and sidings. And even you should have noticed that the timber and sidings don?t actually come from some forest down the road. Iron ore mine in spades.
Everyone has some clay not too far away.
BULLSHIT with the clay and even you should be able to work out how to make a kiln.
Bullshit they do with timber, sidings, stupid shingles etc etc etc.
You don?t have timber, metal, shingles etc, stupid. You move them from where they happen to be to where you need them.
Tad radical I realise.
Such a shame you were not available to show them how to do this economically all over the country. The housing industry would be far different today. With a nuke powered kiln they could knock out millions of bricks.
On Thu, 20 May 2021 23:47:51 -0400, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com posted for all of us to digest...
The Amish will do it cheaper... I don't know how much cheaper. Do you have Amish people down there? Probably not many.
On Sat, 22 May 2021 09:45:31 -0700 (PDT), snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com posted for all of us to digest...
Life is a compromise...
They don?t because so many of you fools go for cheap and nasty timber and siding houses and trailer parks.
It would indeed, and do much better in tornados too.
They could indeed, but you lot are too stupid to build new nukes anymore and build stupid EVs and use stupid shingles instead.
Masonty with it's thermal mass works well in some climates - not so well in others. Stick frame allows for easy insulation - brick veneer makes a durable outer finish that also blocks wind well. Aluminum siding also works good where there are no impact issues - Vinyl is not as durable but withstands minor impacts. Neither require regular applications of paint to protect.
My house is stick framed with brick veneer on the first storey and aluminum siding on the upper floor.
ICF construction has the advantages of high insulation and thermal mass but requires protective coating inside and out - siding and stucco are commonly used on the exterior - also Brick veneer.
No, many areas have NO clay within a reasonable distance - and when forested land was cut to provide farm land there was lots of timber litterally at the doorstep. Many houses were built from chestnut, walnut, maple, birch, ironwood etc where those were the predominant species. In other areas they were built of sprice and pine and hemlock and fir.
Today that is less common - with spruce and pine, commercially grown and cut, shipped in from across the country. Still cheaper than shipping bricks - and less loss from shipping damage.
Many bricks today are "fired" or autoclaved concrete - where clay is not common various aggregates (including recycled concrete) can be used
The homes I grew up in were built with locally produced soft yellow clay brick - produced less than 10 miles from where the houses were built - and locally harvested yellow pine and cedar. (double brick - lath and plaster finish on the inside - timber framed interior partitions, floors, and roof structure) My uncles home out on the sakatchewan prairie on the other hand was built of lumber shipped in by rail from out of province as timber, clay, and gravel aggregate are and were extremely scarce out there. These were houses built between 1870 and 1942.
The home I have lived in for the last 40 years the brick veneer is autoclaved concrete brick manufacturde one city away - less than 30 miles. The original shingles were manufactured less than 100 miles away. The lumber was shipped by rail or truck across the province - about 300 miles or less away. The aluminum siding was also produced (from sheet) less than 150 miles away. It was built in 1974.
These distances would all be considered pretty much "local" by Australian standards, no????
Trivial to move the finished bricks from where they do to where the house is.
- and when
And that isnt how stick houses are done anymore in the entire USA.
Tents are even cheaper to shit but for some odd reason few do actually choose to have one instead of a house.
No bricks are lost to shipping damage when shipped properly.
Yep, my house is much bigger concrete blocks, shipped from 250 away because they were much better from there than the locally made ones.
That last isnt common at all in the USA anymore.
Neither is lath and plaster either. The world has moved on.
But easy to ship bricks and that's a small part of the cost of the bricks even a semi is used.
And the world has moved on just a tad since then.
And a metal roof would have lasted a lot longer.
But the aluminium would have come far further.
Nope, not with the state capitals. But with those the lumber does move much further than the bricks do. The aluminium vastly further when you count the bauxite. The steel for what is now almost universally used for the roofs too. Most used to be clay or concrete tiles for decades but they arent common at all anymore.
The roofs are colorbond which even Trump recognised. Last much longer than stupid shingles.
Concrete block is the go to material for houses these days here. It is easier to get to the 150+ MPH wind code with CBS. Brick would come from 600 miles away and is far more labor intensive than block. You also have trouble with the wind code. You probably just use the brick for a decorative coating on the block walls. Tile roofs sound great but the reality is they don't seem to hold up much better than top grade shingles and they are far more expensive to fix when a coconut hits it at 100 MPH. They are still real popular with the northerners who come down and think that is the "Florida Style". Zorro ain't from Florida. The only problem with metal is the price. It is at least twice as much as the best shingles and 40-50% more than tile the last time I priced it out. These days you need the same membrane under all of them (like "Ice and Water")
Really? 400+ tons of brick is "trivial" to move?
Good thing. That would be a waste of good wood.
Go for it.
Breakage is fairly common but not a high percentage.
Ugly!
Good thing. A friend has horse hair plaster. What a mess.
Who cares? I won't be around in 50 years.
Aluminum is dumb. Even smallish hail will completely destroy it, not to mention a little wind. One of the purposes of rocks on shingles (or membrane, for that matter) is weight.
Again, who cares?
It isnt anything like 400+ tons for a house, just one semi load, not even a B double.
Bullshit it is.
Its zero actually.
Bullshit.
And horse hair is a bit thin on the ground now too.
Those who inherit or buy the house, that's who.
Just as true of a tent.
Oh bullshit.
More pig ignorant bullshit.
Still cheap and nasty. Like a tent is too.
Anyone with even half a clue, that's who.
Tents do better than stick houses too. They do have a few downsides tho.
I didn't know it was masonry until after we signed the papers. It never occurred to me to ask; I assumed it was stick-built.
In retrospect, I would have preferred a stick-built house. For one thing, I'd be able to insulate the exterior walls so I wouldn't have R1 walls. For another, we wouldn't have to rent a diamond-bit core drill every time we want to make some kind hole in the house.
Why should I pay a premium for a steel roof when shingles will outlive me anyway?
Cindy Hamilton
Building is not for wimps.
You probably don't even have a wind code but how do you do uplift protection with bricks? With block you can pour the top 16" solid concrete with four #5 rebar in it that is rebar tied to the foundation steel via poured cells in the block.
You must not be looking.
Uh huh.
You really build cracker boxes down there don't you?
And light the house.
40x60 house (2400ft^2) x 9' x 38lbs/ft^2 is 34+ tons (slipped a digit). Still not "trivial" to move hundreds of miles.
You're lying again. ...or simply stupid.
Stupid.
And I care, why?
I said, you can live in a tent. I like my house just as is and it's not UGLY block.
Yep. Stupid.
Are you really Speedie's sockpuppet?
You seem to like tents. Have at it, Rodie.
I knew you weren't in full control of your faculties. Nice that you admit it. It is the first step.
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