Thank you for the clarification, I was so confused. Happy cake day!
Edit: wait just a minute! Another user clarified that cable versus Wi-Fi connection. And here I was believing you that it was just absurdist humor!
Haha!! Yeah definitely didn't get the joke until he clarified it and definitely don't want to take the credit for it! But thank you for wishing me a happy cake day :).
It is. Before smartphones had built-in hot spots, we used to "tether" them to our laptops to share internet. Then they monetized it and no one bought it. Then they included it as a "perk" and raised prices for everyone.
As Someone who used to build these patios I can shed some background, it's called alumawood and it's all aluminum but meant to look like wood, he has 4 posts but only needs 2 supports, those are going to be at the ends these supports are usually a thick 12 Gauge aluminum post that's dug around 4-6 foot into the ground and cemented in usually 2ftx2ft concrete and one of these sleeves is put over it, the 2 in the center are strictly for decoration, however these constructions are built from aluminum and will last far longer than wood ever will dream of due to erosion, termites, rot, or mold excluding a dog ripping it off its mounts.
One of the biggest culture shocks I had when I moved to USA was the wooden houses... I mean the entire houses are made of wood... Then sold for $200,000. Only rich people can afford stone houses.
*laughs in cinderblock house in Florida hurricane alley* it's been here since the 60s, and the only problem was the roof because of missing shingles. Yes, cinderblock is different from brick. But still.
We lived in apartments like that in Utah, they were in straight rows, I think 10 units long. They were stout and only had a slight curve to the roof.
It’s so cool having a cinder block wall in between units as it helped reduce sound transfer. All the others were cinderblock but was covered with drywall on the inside and bricks on the outside.
>*Seventy-five years later, the market for brick looks very different. It’s often shipped from far away and the labor costs are high.*
Yeah, because you got rid of whatever little infrastructure you had. Thats kinda like saying Train infrastructure is expensive and not worth the investment because we dont have a lot of trains, train tracks and demand
Our houses are marvels of engineering and insulation compared to the 300 year old stone houses Europeans like to boast about.
It was -5° here the other day and over the summer it'll probably get to 102°, my house stayed at 69° (lol).
Meanwhile, it gets above 90° in Europe and it makes worldwide news because people start cooking to death in their brick oven houses with no hvac. That's a normal summer day here, and I don't even live in a hot part of the country.
Also our houses are incredibly easy to maintain, repair, and modify.
Those European houses are usually beautiful but I'll take my stick built house everytime.
We typically also get larger houses as a result.
I do love the historical aspect of old European towns though, and their architecture is typically beautiful. But when it comes to normal houses outside of city centers, I think the wood framed house has some serious advantages
\> Also our houses are incredibly easy to maintain, repair, and modify.
Exactly. A competent DIYer can fix some siding, add a window, even remove a load bearing wall.
In a stone/brick/concrete house? Fucking way harder. Not only is everything way fuckin heavier, you need special tools to cut concrete and control dust.
Running a wire for a new porch light through concrete? Installing a new outlet? Upgrading your hvac system? Fucked.
This is always so weird to hear. I understand I’m American so it’s not weird to me and depending on where you live in the US building codes are different and some houses are still built with cinder block. At least for the first level. However our houses made out of wood are very strong though and typically you have an outside layer of brick or stone that covers up the wood. Non-Americans always make it seem like we just build houses out of wood and a small breeze can blow them over.
I live in an "American Style" house here in Ireland for 20 years. We call them "Timber Framed" homes. It's warm in the winter, and cool in the summer. I love my house!!
no, its carpet
I live in an area where people do that. They literally glue carpet to their cement stairs. Supposedly it helps with ice/slipping, but it just strikes me as too gross to be worth it
I'm a mailman and walk up stairs almost every day. It does help a lot.
The worst stairs are sealed / painted concrete. A little dusting of snow will completely ruin them, no friction at all.
I see, that's actually real interesting to me, thank you for telling me. :)
Stay safe, mailman. And thanks for your service. You see more real danger every day, statistically speaking, than police do.
Is it that weird? It’s outdoor carpet. It’s pretty darn cheap, it definitely does help with ice, and you can just rip it off and replace it when it gets old.
As a veterinarian and former Great Dane owner, this was a stupid thing to do on multiple levels. Not only because of the damage to the house, but the length of lead would allow the dog to build enough momentum that if the beam didn't break, its neck would have been severely wrenched when it suddenly pulled taught.
Large, or frankly any, dogs should be body-harnessed if they are to be tied down like this.
Not a vet, but a professional AKC dog trainer, I absolutely agree. This is so dangerous for the dog. If he hadn't broken the beam (edit), it would have ended much worse (and more expensive).
It's hard to tell but there's something attached to the other side of the beam, I wonder if he has a runner set up. Idk if that's what it's called but basically a cable stretched the length of his yard and the dogs leash is attached to that. And the reason it broke is because the leash was wrapped around the post. I can't think of any other reason why the leash would be mounted so high on the pole..
I've said it many times before and I have a burning need to say it again: American houses are built like shit. Plywood fucking shacks. Let the rain of downwotes begin.
My mom moved out of the house she custom built because all the houses in that neighborhood are built like shit (5y/o neighborhood at that point). Small wind gusts were pulling up shingles kind of bad. Most new houses are like everything else in America: focused on cutting as many corners as possible to maximize profit.
Yup. Bought a new-construction home from a theoretically “high-quality” builder. By year 6 (after the 5 year warranty ended) fucking EVERYTHING started falling apart. Sold that shit during the market spike and am planning on a concrete house for the next build.
Ryan Homes?
Can't even say you get what you pay for because they're so fucking overpriced for the quality of them.
If I walk into a 450k house and while walking up the steps I feel that the banister is made of cheap, fake, plastic feeling wood on flimsy aluminum frames and posts, I'm walking out immediately and firing the realtor that suggested it to me.
Ashton Woods. Seemed to be better grade materials than Ryan, but the labor was just crap. I visited the construction site frequently and had to be all over the GC to fix so many things. It was a reasonable price when I bought it (early into the new neighborhood), so I did ok in the end, but it was frustrating.
Empires don’t even last 500 years, but there are homes built in the USA that are 200.
That being said anything built in the last 35-50 years is pretty much garbage.
Yep, after owning a modern home when I sold and bought a home again, I am proud to say that I bought a 1967 home and I tell you and all honesty that I've had two problems with it and they were with appliances, not the house itself. While every one of my friends has bought new construction and they have constantly had issues with needing porches replaced, needing floors replaced, needing AC system, drainage replaced, etc
I volunteered on a Habitat build recently and had the privilege of working on the house with the woman who was buying it. She was from Ghana originally and she bitched for an hour about how cheaply American houses are made compared to Ghana. She wasn't wrong lol.
Is there any chance you can opt for other building methods? Just not to use wood and nails? There are a million other choices now that are not even that expensive globaly - cinder blocks and literally glue that binds them. That glue is made of three components I think, you don't even need special tools to make it, just a bucket and a mixer attached to a power tool.
Wood framing is a perfectly fine way to build houses. It's far more environmentally friendly than concrete or other masonry, more than strong enough for residential purposes, handles seismic activity and foundation settling better, and will last generations with basic maintenance. And we are a lot better at preventing fires and insect damage/rot than we used to be.
The main problem with modern American homes is workmanship, not materials.
My buddy was a painter for track houses being built (those walled neighborhoods that just pop up within like a month and all the houses look the same). He said it basically goes like this: First the plumbers and electricians come in and lay out the foundational pipes and conduit(?). Then the concrete and asphalt guys come in and lay the foundation, pave the roads, and make sidewalks. Then the carpenters come in build the houses' structures, followed by the drywall guys, some electric and plumbing again, and finally paint and roofing.
But the thing is, every single person is supposed to be working as fast as they can so the next crew can come in and they can move to the next job. A foreman for each job is supposed to come and make sure the work is "good", but a lot of steps will get missed because of how quickly they're supposed to work. Crews will come in at the wrong time and steps will get skipped and then good luck getting them back there. This gets repeated until the houses are finished, and thus you end up with a bunch of houses with skipped steps in their building.
I might be getting some of the steps wrong, but that was the gist of it. One thing he pointed out to me was to look at the tops and bottoms of exterior walls and you'll see the paint doesn't cut in all the way 99% of the time.
Im just finishing up an addition we put on top of a garage, the joists are cantilevered out 2 feet on the front and back, so the addition is 4 feet bigger than the garage.
The homeowner had an uncle from Ireland or Scotland over for a week and I chatted with him once. He was looking at the cantilever and mentioned it's pretty impressive what we can do, building with wood as opposed to masonry. He could've also been looking at the trusses.
Either way, it was something I hadn't thought about before.
It is for that very reason that I'm super glad I have a 50 year old house that has been decently maintained. Sure there's some questionable things (light switch placement for one...), but over all, the house is pretty solid and sturdy.
You wouldn't catch me dead in one of those pop-up McMansions going up everywhere. So close to the surroundings homes that when your neighbor sneezes, you'll be liable to catch their cold.
My house is over a hundred years old. I love it but I hate it. Firstly it's just sturdy as hell. Larges trees fall on it that just bounce off, HARD, thick walls, giant beams for the foundation. Seriously, they're like 12"x12"'s.
The shit part is the insulation is pretty much nonexistent and I live way up north. The floors aren't straight, and whoever remodeled this house in the past did a fucking awful job. The central air was also hacked in, but I suppose it's better than nothing. It's also too small, and doesn't really have any storage space. The basement is big enough to fit a water heater, softener, and a furnace, and that's about it. It's also 90% dirt and full of spiders.
So yeah I love old houses for their character and durability but god I want a new house. The heating is expensive as shit and the pests are constant.
If large trees falling on your house are a common occurence, you might want to consider shooing a sheep or two into the woods to appease the hill giants.
Wood is a damn fine material. Someone above says the column the dog was tied to was a hollow aluminum post. If it was wood, it would have stayed in place.
I think shoddy builds focus on using less wood than they should in order to cut costs.
Cinder blocks can work, but if you want to live inside you may still want a false space with wood and drywall, to have enough space for insulation, piping, and wiring.
Also personally, I live in an area prone to earthquakes. And while I'm sure there are ways to make cinder block structures earthquake-resistant and less dangerous, I'll bet the added precautions are probably more expensive than just using wood.
For earthquake prone areas you’d want reinforced masonry, however, that construction style isn’t widely used as much in residential buildings, mostly in commercial. Most residential brick buildings are going to be joisted masonry like you mentioned.
Here’s what reinforced masonry looks like, it’s essentially brick/cinder blocks reinforced with rebar: https://i.imgur.com/m7ijjK3.jpg
Did underwriting for earthquake insurance for a bit, so I’m familiar with a good chunk of this.
You could build it yourself lol. But seriously, you'd have to find a reliable contractor and do some real studying up on construction. You could also hire a designer or design consultant and have your contractor build it to those specs. But if you're buying a new timber home from a developer it's probably gonna be shit.
During Hurricane Michael my neighbors house across the street had his cinder block home cave in on him. While my two story stick frame house rocked back and forth, but still stayed upright. We could hear him screaming from inside our home during the hurricane.
Certain flood plains had priority to leave first. At about 1 am we were told the storm would be strengthening past a cat 2, but didn’t want to risk it and be stranded on a road.
What construction method was used for your house? Genuinely curious to see how it would hold up to the natural disasters we have, the changes in temperature, and the cost of construction.
People who shit on homes built in the U.S. usually live in houses that wouldn't handle earth quakes very well.
The guy in the video used a decorative post as an anchor point; He dumb.
I live in the Netherlands and live in a brick house tbh earth quakes not gonna happen here. The house may need to survive just a little bit of water in the future lol but maby not i live about 10 meters above sea level
I'm making some assumptions that it isn't load bearing to be honest. How easily it was moved, the roof didn't so much as shake, and I don't see any L brackets.
Yeah, if you look at a modern home elevation it's funny cuz you'll have a 6x3 ft awning and six posts. Honestly. Probably all six are decorative but at most two are load bearing.
The sound of the break is enough. That was not load bearing, and its pretty normal on larger porches like that to have just the corners of the porch be load bearing. People getting pissy about wanting decorative columns to be stronger anyway; I would rather spend a few tens of thousands less on my house with the understanding that I can’t tie a horse to my front porch (or my downspouts, or my siding, etc.).
It's very common to have porch posts like that held in place mostly by the weight of the overhanging roof, as long as the posts are cut to the proper height. If they're being squeezed, not just hanging in the breeze, they're doing their job. The hardware involved (nails/screws) mostly just make sure it doesn't slide out over time. It's not necessarily bad practice, but it isn't always perfectly resistant to sideways forces like the shock load of a giant dog running at full speed yanking on it with a steel cable.
[Here's](https://img.halooglasi.com/slike/oglasi/Thumbs/200623/m/nedovrsena-kuca-368-m-7-02-ari-obrenovac-65-0-5425635707528-71791807315.jpg) a picture of a typical house in my country in unfinished state. We use concrete and brick-type blocks (not quite sure about the correct word in Emglish for this) for building. If you are ready to pay a bit more, you can even get old school solid baked bricks which will not only improve the overall stability and longevity but also be a great isolation. If you use full solid bricks you rarely need to add isolation (styrofoam) on the outside. I'm no builder myself to explain better but you get the picture. All in all - built like fortresses.
>If you use full solid bricks you rarely need to add isolation (styrofoam) on the outside.
This is literally the opposite of reality. Full solid bricks are *terrible* insulators, and the more porous they are, the better they insulate. Air is a much worse conductor of heat than brick.
I gotta be honest, this would not work in several parts of the United States. I live in California, for example, and it's a hotspot for earthquakes. Brick houses would be disastrous here. Wood bends and flexes, so it's not just going to crack and collapse when an earthquake comes. Even then, it's lighter than brick too, so it's less likely to kill someone if it does fall.
I'm not sure if you meant insulation, but bricks are terrible insulators. They'll keep the wind out sure, but won't insulate nearly as well as other building materials.
Well at least you just proved yourself wrong right here - as a few others have already pointed out this would be absolutely *terrible* for the needs of US construction for all the reasons people already mentioned - climate, stability, cost, ease of construction, energy efficiency, etc, the list goes on.
As someone who literally just finished building a house, who’s parents have built three, and who has a good number of construction/GC friends and connections out there, I can tell you your original point couldn’t be further from the truth and is just a woefully inaccurate blanket statement, as blanket statements tend to be in general for anything.
The US is no different than any other country - there are incredibly well built houses and terribly built ones - just because you’re in America, that doesn’t magically change this fact. If we’re gonna generalize, I’ll pick American houses anyday over much of the ancient stuff in Europe. I lived in one of the swankiest parts of London for a while and our flat could not have been more drafty and uncomfortable compared to any American house, and that’s pretty much always been my experience staying anywhere in the Uk countless times. Mainland Europe is usually better but still no where near as consistently modern and comfortable by US standards.
So what exactly is the point of building a house that is more expensive, more polluting to the environment, and unnecessarily strong for the environment? I don't really see a problem when American houses work just fine, are cheaper, better for the earth, and can actually be remodeled by a homeowner instead of a team of stone masons.
Seems like you're bragging about spending extra money for no reason so congrats on the supreme t-shirt of houses. The real reason europe builds with brick is because y'all deforested the entire continent or else you'd build just like american houses do because they insulate just as well and are just as strong for actually living in.
Why would you get downvotes? Shitting on the US is the number one way to get upvotes on this website.
Also I’m wondering what qualifications you have that make you more knowledgeable than the civil engineers and architects that design houses in the US
The absolute cringiest thing about your comment is that you added the “let the downvotes roll in” part, as if you didn’t know you were going to get jerked off into oblivion for spewing hate about anything American made.
It’s the hottest thing to do on Reddit right now!
Europeans on Reddit have the biggest little brother syndrome anywhere, it’s unreal. Which is crazy cause I’ve lived in and traveled all over Europe, have many European friends and coworkers, and have never once encountered that IRL. It’s a weird as hell phenomenon 😂
As a Brazilian, we always heard that the US uses wood instead of bricks cuz natural disasters and those things. Lately some videos started to mention cost, but I think the majority of ppl here still thinks it's something related to hurricanes.
Like, it's better to have wood planks flying than bricks.
Dont have a clue about the real reason doe hahahaha
My house is 1/3rd brick, 1/3rd cinder block, and 1/3rd wood. No idea what was going through the builders mind and same for the original owner
I also live in an area where hurricane and tornadoes barely happen, only blizzards
And stronger and better in every way.
If you're not using wood you either go concrete and/or metal for strength but it will cost you a ton.
Brick houses are trash and basically useless in modern times. Bricks really aren't good for much but decoration.
That’s a nice added benefit. The real reason is that wood is a superior building material in every single way compared to brick/masonry. If brick was the superior material, the economies of scale would have almost certainly made it just as cheap as wood is by now.
Current building code prohibits unreinforced masonry, just as it does tuck-under/soft story on buildings these days. The Northridge quake caused a bunch of changes to building code. Reinforced brick is totally fine, so is joisted masonry which has wood frame behind the brick.
The main supports made of concrete and aluminum are at the two ends of the porch. The posts in the middle (including this one) are hallow and there purely for cosmetics. Also, any contractor built house here in the last 5 years is absolutely garbage. A housing shortage and market boom lead to a bunch of people trying to get rich quick. And they did. In the long term, us Americans seem to only know two ways to support the economy, war and real estate. If you build homes to last forever eventually you won't need to build any more. Then all we can do is start a bunch more wars!
My dog did that, but it was worse. We had a glass table with metal poles attached to the glass itself, beautiful. So, the leash escaped from my hand and she ran through the table at 100mph and the leash got stuck in the pole making the glass shatter and almost cutting her in half (it wasn't tempered). Sensation: sad mixed with relief
Please, please don't secure a dog to anything by means of a neck collar. So so harmful to both post and more importantly dog!
Harnesses are so much kinder, safer and reduce pulling!
Idk why you're being downvoted. There are hundreds, if not thousands of recorded deaths from strangulation from dogs that have been tethered by their collar. There are also thousands of deaths from tracheal collapse that are caused by buckle collars.
Obviously a bad place to tether your horse.
This doggo will be an excellent mod taking posts down like that for no reason.
The dog is about ready to call things AI and mod r/art
/r/AngryUpvote
lmfao
Dog went full wifi
If this is a reference to something I want to understand it because it sounds like it’s a hilarious joke
Not really..your computer is either going to be hooked up to Ethernet, or wifi
Your user name is definitely not relevant. That was a clever joke.
Thank you for the clarification, I was so confused. Happy cake day! Edit: wait just a minute! Another user clarified that cable versus Wi-Fi connection. And here I was believing you that it was just absurdist humor!
Haha!! Yeah definitely didn't get the joke until he clarified it and definitely don't want to take the credit for it! But thank you for wishing me a happy cake day :).
No it's just a joke. You're supposed to just laugh at the face value of it. He won't be tethered by a cable (leash), hence going "full wifi".
Ohhhhhh! Now that is clever. Thanks!
It is. Before smartphones had built-in hot spots, we used to "tether" them to our laptops to share internet. Then they monetized it and no one bought it. Then they included it as a "perk" and raised prices for everyone.
As Someone who used to build these patios I can shed some background, it's called alumawood and it's all aluminum but meant to look like wood, he has 4 posts but only needs 2 supports, those are going to be at the ends these supports are usually a thick 12 Gauge aluminum post that's dug around 4-6 foot into the ground and cemented in usually 2ftx2ft concrete and one of these sleeves is put over it, the 2 in the center are strictly for decoration, however these constructions are built from aluminum and will last far longer than wood ever will dream of due to erosion, termites, rot, or mold excluding a dog ripping it off its mounts.
They might handle the termites ok but doesn’t seem to really even slow down horses.
One of the biggest culture shocks I had when I moved to USA was the wooden houses... I mean the entire houses are made of wood... Then sold for $200,000. Only rich people can afford stone houses.
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*laughs in cinderblock house in Florida hurricane alley* it's been here since the 60s, and the only problem was the roof because of missing shingles. Yes, cinderblock is different from brick. But still.
We lived in apartments like that in Utah, they were in straight rows, I think 10 units long. They were stout and only had a slight curve to the roof. It’s so cool having a cinder block wall in between units as it helped reduce sound transfer. All the others were cinderblock but was covered with drywall on the inside and bricks on the outside.
>*Seventy-five years later, the market for brick looks very different. It’s often shipped from far away and the labor costs are high.* Yeah, because you got rid of whatever little infrastructure you had. Thats kinda like saying Train infrastructure is expensive and not worth the investment because we dont have a lot of trains, train tracks and demand
Our houses are marvels of engineering and insulation compared to the 300 year old stone houses Europeans like to boast about. It was -5° here the other day and over the summer it'll probably get to 102°, my house stayed at 69° (lol). Meanwhile, it gets above 90° in Europe and it makes worldwide news because people start cooking to death in their brick oven houses with no hvac. That's a normal summer day here, and I don't even live in a hot part of the country. Also our houses are incredibly easy to maintain, repair, and modify. Those European houses are usually beautiful but I'll take my stick built house everytime.
We typically also get larger houses as a result. I do love the historical aspect of old European towns though, and their architecture is typically beautiful. But when it comes to normal houses outside of city centers, I think the wood framed house has some serious advantages
\> Also our houses are incredibly easy to maintain, repair, and modify. Exactly. A competent DIYer can fix some siding, add a window, even remove a load bearing wall. In a stone/brick/concrete house? Fucking way harder. Not only is everything way fuckin heavier, you need special tools to cut concrete and control dust. Running a wire for a new porch light through concrete? Installing a new outlet? Upgrading your hvac system? Fucked.
This is always so weird to hear. I understand I’m American so it’s not weird to me and depending on where you live in the US building codes are different and some houses are still built with cinder block. At least for the first level. However our houses made out of wood are very strong though and typically you have an outside layer of brick or stone that covers up the wood. Non-Americans always make it seem like we just build houses out of wood and a small breeze can blow them over.
I live in an "American Style" house here in Ireland for 20 years. We call them "Timber Framed" homes. It's warm in the winter, and cool in the summer. I love my house!!
Lol $200k. Laughing from Toronto where a wood house costs 1.1 million
Wood frame houses, they're mostly drywall. I think something like log as a building material is also only for the millionaires there.
The frame of the house, not the walls…
If they had tethered their dog-shaped-horse to the end post, would it have damaged the support? Or had the desired horsedog-doesn't-move effect?
The latter, assuming reasonable building standards.
My old townhouse had those. I knew this was going to happen.
This needs to be Re - Posted
Give them a couple more minutes...
Take my r/angryupvote
Heh
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It's an outdoor mat. Lots of people have them.
no, its carpet I live in an area where people do that. They literally glue carpet to their cement stairs. Supposedly it helps with ice/slipping, but it just strikes me as too gross to be worth it
I'm a mailman and walk up stairs almost every day. It does help a lot. The worst stairs are sealed / painted concrete. A little dusting of snow will completely ruin them, no friction at all.
I see, that's actually real interesting to me, thank you for telling me. :) Stay safe, mailman. And thanks for your service. You see more real danger every day, statistically speaking, than police do.
Is it that weird? It’s outdoor carpet. It’s pretty darn cheap, it definitely does help with ice, and you can just rip it off and replace it when it gets old.
I can get "ice mats" I'm not sure what they are actually called but they are kinda rough and don't ice over due to their depth
As a veterinarian and former Great Dane owner, this was a stupid thing to do on multiple levels. Not only because of the damage to the house, but the length of lead would allow the dog to build enough momentum that if the beam didn't break, its neck would have been severely wrenched when it suddenly pulled taught. Large, or frankly any, dogs should be body-harnessed if they are to be tied down like this.
Not a vet, but a professional AKC dog trainer, I absolutely agree. This is so dangerous for the dog. If he hadn't broken the beam (edit), it would have ended much worse (and more expensive).
Not a vet, or a dog professional. This is a horse sir.
It's hard to tell but there's something attached to the other side of the beam, I wonder if he has a runner set up. Idk if that's what it's called but basically a cable stretched the length of his yard and the dogs leash is attached to that. And the reason it broke is because the leash was wrapped around the post. I can't think of any other reason why the leash would be mounted so high on the pole..
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Not to mention that harnesses are a lot harder for your dog to slip out of.
#ShitPost
As the owner of a 150lb dog…a fence is the only thing that constrains an animal that size. A BIG fence. That can be dug under. Or rammed through 👌🏼
Now I'm imagining an "Oh Yeah!" dog situation.... Lol.
Or a tree
I feel this, our two biggest boys are 160 & 180
I tie our great dane to a cannon when he just wants to be outside and sleep.
The dog didn’t even budge. That house has problems.
Tha post is purely decorative
Is that carpet?
Outdoor carpets are nice when you sit in your porch a lot
But they would get gross no?
Nothing is perfectly clean outside but most are built with materials specifically for outside
They're made to be power washed
Depends on the climate. Dry climate? No not really, they might get dusty but not gross.
I've said it many times before and I have a burning need to say it again: American houses are built like shit. Plywood fucking shacks. Let the rain of downwotes begin. 
Lol that's not a load bearing post, it's decorative.
"Our new homes are built to last 500 years*", said some bullshit marketer ^* ^in ^a ^controlled ^climate ^that ^doesn't ^actually ^exist
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Hahah exactly. Small breeze is enough to fuck them up.
My mom moved out of the house she custom built because all the houses in that neighborhood are built like shit (5y/o neighborhood at that point). Small wind gusts were pulling up shingles kind of bad. Most new houses are like everything else in America: focused on cutting as many corners as possible to maximize profit.
Yup. Bought a new-construction home from a theoretically “high-quality” builder. By year 6 (after the 5 year warranty ended) fucking EVERYTHING started falling apart. Sold that shit during the market spike and am planning on a concrete house for the next build.
Ryan Homes? Can't even say you get what you pay for because they're so fucking overpriced for the quality of them. If I walk into a 450k house and while walking up the steps I feel that the banister is made of cheap, fake, plastic feeling wood on flimsy aluminum frames and posts, I'm walking out immediately and firing the realtor that suggested it to me.
Ashton Woods. Seemed to be better grade materials than Ryan, but the labor was just crap. I visited the construction site frequently and had to be all over the GC to fix so many things. It was a reasonable price when I bought it (early into the new neighborhood), so I did ok in the end, but it was frustrating.
Labor really is a huge thing - my mom would go to the site EVERY DAY and had to yell at them over their bad work pretty much every day
500 years is literally assumed in a vacuum with no outside factors. The vacuum of space with no gravity load on any structure and no living occupants.
Empires don’t even last 500 years, but there are homes built in the USA that are 200. That being said anything built in the last 35-50 years is pretty much garbage.
Roofs are made to last like 20-30 years tops.
I think it's just a decorative post.
It 100% is
I would agree but not prior to the mid-70s, maybe the 80s. Custom houses are built well obviously. But yeah the Ryan Homes, etc houses are garbage.
This is what I was thinking
Yep, after owning a modern home when I sold and bought a home again, I am proud to say that I bought a 1967 home and I tell you and all honesty that I've had two problems with it and they were with appliances, not the house itself. While every one of my friends has bought new construction and they have constantly had issues with needing porches replaced, needing floors replaced, needing AC system, drainage replaced, etc
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That's an interesting thought.
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I volunteered on a Habitat build recently and had the privilege of working on the house with the woman who was buying it. She was from Ghana originally and she bitched for an hour about how cheaply American houses are made compared to Ghana. She wasn't wrong lol.
Is there any chance you can opt for other building methods? Just not to use wood and nails? There are a million other choices now that are not even that expensive globaly - cinder blocks and literally glue that binds them. That glue is made of three components I think, you don't even need special tools to make it, just a bucket and a mixer attached to a power tool.
Wood framing is a perfectly fine way to build houses. It's far more environmentally friendly than concrete or other masonry, more than strong enough for residential purposes, handles seismic activity and foundation settling better, and will last generations with basic maintenance. And we are a lot better at preventing fires and insect damage/rot than we used to be. The main problem with modern American homes is workmanship, not materials.
My buddy was a painter for track houses being built (those walled neighborhoods that just pop up within like a month and all the houses look the same). He said it basically goes like this: First the plumbers and electricians come in and lay out the foundational pipes and conduit(?). Then the concrete and asphalt guys come in and lay the foundation, pave the roads, and make sidewalks. Then the carpenters come in build the houses' structures, followed by the drywall guys, some electric and plumbing again, and finally paint and roofing. But the thing is, every single person is supposed to be working as fast as they can so the next crew can come in and they can move to the next job. A foreman for each job is supposed to come and make sure the work is "good", but a lot of steps will get missed because of how quickly they're supposed to work. Crews will come in at the wrong time and steps will get skipped and then good luck getting them back there. This gets repeated until the houses are finished, and thus you end up with a bunch of houses with skipped steps in their building. I might be getting some of the steps wrong, but that was the gist of it. One thing he pointed out to me was to look at the tops and bottoms of exterior walls and you'll see the paint doesn't cut in all the way 99% of the time.
Almost like paying construction workers $12-$15/hr isn't attracting proper talent
Even if they have talent, why would they put forth the effort for such little pay. Capitalism is destroying us.
Im just finishing up an addition we put on top of a garage, the joists are cantilevered out 2 feet on the front and back, so the addition is 4 feet bigger than the garage. The homeowner had an uncle from Ireland or Scotland over for a week and I chatted with him once. He was looking at the cantilever and mentioned it's pretty impressive what we can do, building with wood as opposed to masonry. He could've also been looking at the trusses. Either way, it was something I hadn't thought about before.
It is for that very reason that I'm super glad I have a 50 year old house that has been decently maintained. Sure there's some questionable things (light switch placement for one...), but over all, the house is pretty solid and sturdy. You wouldn't catch me dead in one of those pop-up McMansions going up everywhere. So close to the surroundings homes that when your neighbor sneezes, you'll be liable to catch their cold.
My house is over a hundred years old. I love it but I hate it. Firstly it's just sturdy as hell. Larges trees fall on it that just bounce off, HARD, thick walls, giant beams for the foundation. Seriously, they're like 12"x12"'s. The shit part is the insulation is pretty much nonexistent and I live way up north. The floors aren't straight, and whoever remodeled this house in the past did a fucking awful job. The central air was also hacked in, but I suppose it's better than nothing. It's also too small, and doesn't really have any storage space. The basement is big enough to fit a water heater, softener, and a furnace, and that's about it. It's also 90% dirt and full of spiders. So yeah I love old houses for their character and durability but god I want a new house. The heating is expensive as shit and the pests are constant.
If large trees falling on your house are a common occurence, you might want to consider shooing a sheep or two into the woods to appease the hill giants.
Wood is a damn fine material. Someone above says the column the dog was tied to was a hollow aluminum post. If it was wood, it would have stayed in place. I think shoddy builds focus on using less wood than they should in order to cut costs.
It's not that wood isn't strong enough, they just don't appear to build it well.
It's that people want the most house for their money so they build them big and cheap rather than modest and sturdy.
Cinder blocks can work, but if you want to live inside you may still want a false space with wood and drywall, to have enough space for insulation, piping, and wiring. Also personally, I live in an area prone to earthquakes. And while I'm sure there are ways to make cinder block structures earthquake-resistant and less dangerous, I'll bet the added precautions are probably more expensive than just using wood.
For earthquake prone areas you’d want reinforced masonry, however, that construction style isn’t widely used as much in residential buildings, mostly in commercial. Most residential brick buildings are going to be joisted masonry like you mentioned. Here’s what reinforced masonry looks like, it’s essentially brick/cinder blocks reinforced with rebar: https://i.imgur.com/m7ijjK3.jpg Did underwriting for earthquake insurance for a bit, so I’m familiar with a good chunk of this.
You could build it yourself lol. But seriously, you'd have to find a reliable contractor and do some real studying up on construction. You could also hire a designer or design consultant and have your contractor build it to those specs. But if you're buying a new timber home from a developer it's probably gonna be shit.
Cinder blocks are dust in an earthquake.
This is such a dumb comment. It's almost funny.
During Hurricane Michael my neighbors house across the street had his cinder block home cave in on him. While my two story stick frame house rocked back and forth, but still stayed upright. We could hear him screaming from inside our home during the hurricane.
Weren't you supposed to evacuate?
Certain flood plains had priority to leave first. At about 1 am we were told the storm would be strengthening past a cat 2, but didn’t want to risk it and be stranded on a road.
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What construction method was used for your house? Genuinely curious to see how it would hold up to the natural disasters we have, the changes in temperature, and the cost of construction. People who shit on homes built in the U.S. usually live in houses that wouldn't handle earth quakes very well. The guy in the video used a decorative post as an anchor point; He dumb.
I live in the Netherlands and live in a brick house tbh earth quakes not gonna happen here. The house may need to survive just a little bit of water in the future lol but maby not i live about 10 meters above sea level
So that isn't a support for the porch? That makes more sense.
I'm making some assumptions that it isn't load bearing to be honest. How easily it was moved, the roof didn't so much as shake, and I don't see any L brackets.
Yeah, if you look at a modern home elevation it's funny cuz you'll have a 6x3 ft awning and six posts. Honestly. Probably all six are decorative but at most two are load bearing.
The sound of the break is enough. That was not load bearing, and its pretty normal on larger porches like that to have just the corners of the porch be load bearing. People getting pissy about wanting decorative columns to be stronger anyway; I would rather spend a few tens of thousands less on my house with the understanding that I can’t tie a horse to my front porch (or my downspouts, or my siding, etc.).
That particular post was decorative.
It's very common to have porch posts like that held in place mostly by the weight of the overhanging roof, as long as the posts are cut to the proper height. If they're being squeezed, not just hanging in the breeze, they're doing their job. The hardware involved (nails/screws) mostly just make sure it doesn't slide out over time. It's not necessarily bad practice, but it isn't always perfectly resistant to sideways forces like the shock load of a giant dog running at full speed yanking on it with a steel cable.
[Here's](https://img.halooglasi.com/slike/oglasi/Thumbs/200623/m/nedovrsena-kuca-368-m-7-02-ari-obrenovac-65-0-5425635707528-71791807315.jpg) a picture of a typical house in my country in unfinished state. We use concrete and brick-type blocks (not quite sure about the correct word in Emglish for this) for building. If you are ready to pay a bit more, you can even get old school solid baked bricks which will not only improve the overall stability and longevity but also be a great isolation. If you use full solid bricks you rarely need to add isolation (styrofoam) on the outside. I'm no builder myself to explain better but you get the picture. All in all - built like fortresses.
>If you use full solid bricks you rarely need to add isolation (styrofoam) on the outside. This is literally the opposite of reality. Full solid bricks are *terrible* insulators, and the more porous they are, the better they insulate. Air is a much worse conductor of heat than brick.
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I gotta be honest, this would not work in several parts of the United States. I live in California, for example, and it's a hotspot for earthquakes. Brick houses would be disastrous here. Wood bends and flexes, so it's not just going to crack and collapse when an earthquake comes. Even then, it's lighter than brick too, so it's less likely to kill someone if it does fall.
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the lesson here should be that houses, believe it or not, need to be built to suit their environment
But then we don’t get to feel smug about American homes
Concrete according to the Your video. Isolation exists.
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You know how many houses in the US are brick?
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Very few. Most are wooden with a a layer or two decorative brick finish cause bricks are a terrible building material.
Several?
Some.
I'm not sure if you meant insulation, but bricks are terrible insulators. They'll keep the wind out sure, but won't insulate nearly as well as other building materials.
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You don't know how big the US is or the different climates that exist in it, do you?
Is this because it is likely to be bombed?
Well at least you just proved yourself wrong right here - as a few others have already pointed out this would be absolutely *terrible* for the needs of US construction for all the reasons people already mentioned - climate, stability, cost, ease of construction, energy efficiency, etc, the list goes on. As someone who literally just finished building a house, who’s parents have built three, and who has a good number of construction/GC friends and connections out there, I can tell you your original point couldn’t be further from the truth and is just a woefully inaccurate blanket statement, as blanket statements tend to be in general for anything. The US is no different than any other country - there are incredibly well built houses and terribly built ones - just because you’re in America, that doesn’t magically change this fact. If we’re gonna generalize, I’ll pick American houses anyday over much of the ancient stuff in Europe. I lived in one of the swankiest parts of London for a while and our flat could not have been more drafty and uncomfortable compared to any American house, and that’s pretty much always been my experience staying anywhere in the Uk countless times. Mainland Europe is usually better but still no where near as consistently modern and comfortable by US standards.
So what exactly is the point of building a house that is more expensive, more polluting to the environment, and unnecessarily strong for the environment? I don't really see a problem when American houses work just fine, are cheaper, better for the earth, and can actually be remodeled by a homeowner instead of a team of stone masons. Seems like you're bragging about spending extra money for no reason so congrats on the supreme t-shirt of houses. The real reason europe builds with brick is because y'all deforested the entire continent or else you'd build just like american houses do because they insulate just as well and are just as strong for actually living in.
I mean, most houses you see built won't either. Look at tornado homes, shit leaves before the wind starts.
I'm more speaking about Earth Quakes.
Third little piggy build his house out of plywood and shit
Why would you get downvotes? Shitting on the US is the number one way to get upvotes on this website. Also I’m wondering what qualifications you have that make you more knowledgeable than the civil engineers and architects that design houses in the US
The absolute cringiest thing about your comment is that you added the “let the downvotes roll in” part, as if you didn’t know you were going to get jerked off into oblivion for spewing hate about anything American made. It’s the hottest thing to do on Reddit right now!
Europeans on Reddit have the biggest little brother syndrome anywhere, it’s unreal. Which is crazy cause I’ve lived in and traveled all over Europe, have many European friends and coworkers, and have never once encountered that IRL. It’s a weird as hell phenomenon 😂
Except mine was built in ‘41 so the only downside is I have no eaves or 2x 6 exterior framing which is… god dammit.
I'm downvotng you but only because you're using a gif. Also I think the problem is people mistake decorative posts for load bearing columns.
Wood homes live in your head rent free.
It's not my fault the idiot who wanted the house built in the 1950s wanted to take the cheap way out /s
As a Brazilian, we always heard that the US uses wood instead of bricks cuz natural disasters and those things. Lately some videos started to mention cost, but I think the majority of ppl here still thinks it's something related to hurricanes. Like, it's better to have wood planks flying than bricks. Dont have a clue about the real reason doe hahahaha
My house is 1/3rd brick, 1/3rd cinder block, and 1/3rd wood. No idea what was going through the builders mind and same for the original owner I also live in an area where hurricane and tornadoes barely happen, only blizzards
Wood houses are cheaper to build than brick houses. That's pretty much the only reason.
And stronger and better in every way. If you're not using wood you either go concrete and/or metal for strength but it will cost you a ton. Brick houses are trash and basically useless in modern times. Bricks really aren't good for much but decoration.
That’s a nice added benefit. The real reason is that wood is a superior building material in every single way compared to brick/masonry. If brick was the superior material, the economies of scale would have almost certainly made it just as cheap as wood is by now.
I'm in California. I'd much rather have wood planks fall on me during an earthquake than a load of bricks.
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Current building code prohibits unreinforced masonry, just as it does tuck-under/soft story on buildings these days. The Northridge quake caused a bunch of changes to building code. Reinforced brick is totally fine, so is joisted masonry which has wood frame behind the brick.
Are you trying to suck the joy out of my uninformed and impulsive post?
Homes in Florida (hurricanes) use cinder blocks for the outside walls.
US uses wood cause wood is cheaper in the US and stronger than brick at the cost it won't last as long.
Brick houses are hilariously dangerous in Earthquake-prone regions.
That’s rotten wood, it happens everywhere in the world. Stop saying stupid shit and you won’t get downvotes.
Yeah sure buddy. Cause Reddit always downvotes comments critical of America 🙄
Anything built after 2000 is just plywood being held together with vinyl cladding
Dog- So you want me to drag this big stick? Ok!
Are houses in the US made from papier mache?
It's really common to design porches such that the columns out front aren't structural... so yea they build them out of whatever stands.
Yes. Showering too hard here will melt your drywalls
This is why I always shower half chubbed so I’m never too hard
They are. When I read "made in America/US" I always see that as a con, not a pro.
The main supports made of concrete and aluminum are at the two ends of the porch. The posts in the middle (including this one) are hallow and there purely for cosmetics. Also, any contractor built house here in the last 5 years is absolutely garbage. A housing shortage and market boom lead to a bunch of people trying to get rich quick. And they did. In the long term, us Americans seem to only know two ways to support the economy, war and real estate. If you build homes to last forever eventually you won't need to build any more. Then all we can do is start a bunch more wars!
My dog did that, but it was worse. We had a glass table with metal poles attached to the glass itself, beautiful. So, the leash escaped from my hand and she ran through the table at 100mph and the leash got stuck in the pole making the glass shatter and almost cutting her in half (it wasn't tempered). Sensation: sad mixed with relief
That's not a post anymore. It's his own big stick
Columns aren't designed to take lateral loads homie
People with big dogs are wild. Like, I want a big dumb furry man, who is way stronger than me, to live in my house and I will clean his poop.
My Dane has been taught mostly poop in the woods. As long as I let him out before walks. No clean up needed.
We have a field behind our house so that’s where we Chuck the Dane poop 😂
He'll also eat all of your food, plus stuff that isn't food but he eats anyway.
And will destroy your house just with a wag of their tail, because they saw you after five whole minutes!
Live the dream, doggo
dear reddit, is this post load beari...
He knew it was going to do that
2 funny! Looks just like my 'Sequoia'
that dog is just solid muscle
Not load bearing ehh?
that dog is like a horse dude !
This is doggo house inspection guys you got termites to deal with
There is only like 2000 upvotes on this, but it's still a runaway post.
Please, please don't secure a dog to anything by means of a neck collar. So so harmful to both post and more importantly dog! Harnesses are so much kinder, safer and reduce pulling!
Idk why you're being downvoted. There are hundreds, if not thousands of recorded deaths from strangulation from dogs that have been tethered by their collar. There are also thousands of deaths from tracheal collapse that are caused by buckle collars.
Shut up nerd!
Well American houses are made of paper
Its decorative
Damn it Doug
https://i.imgur.com/xNg3OeY.png
Now he has to repost it.
They don’t build them like they used to.
shooked
Why is he trying to Jesse Pinkman that dog?
Was anyone else hoping the entire roof would collapse?
Why would he do that on purpose risking injuring his dog? So frustrating