Not when your country imports oil and you have a negative impact on its trade deficit (and/or environment).
Shouldn't I be regulated as to when I can open my windows then too? (as in, not in winter)
Well, "should" or "shouldn't" can get too complex to analyze.
There's no god given set of rights -- what we get to do is what the era/society/legal system we live in allows us.
And what's moral/good to do even outside or against what's allowed, is a matter of philosophy.
People expected to be able to smoke even on an airplane in the 70s. Nowadays not so much. Asking someone not to smoke "within 30 ft of this building's entrance" (a common sign), would seem as ridiculous to them as the regulation of heating to you.
> Low ceilings minimize material costs and maximize profits. They also minimise heat loss, which is strictly regulated in the UK. Hence that other annoying feature of many modern build - tiny windows.
Why is heat loss regulated? Shouldn't I be able to heat my home as much or as little as I want?
It's a the result of new of building code, which has minimum energy efficiency requirements. Residential energy efficiency is projected via heat loss calculations among other things.
Generally true. The relative cost of wood vs brick also varies from country to country depending on local availability.
wood is definitely cheaper than brick but i have a hard time believing that a brick building will be more expensive than one made of steel and glass. the architecture, engineering, transport, etc. is where most of the cost comes from, not the building materials.
Depends a lot. If you can just install prefabricated elements large elements, steel is not that expensive.
On the other hand every brick has to be laid by hand. Good bricklayers are scarce because brick has not been in fashion. And therefore they are expensive. Bad bricklayers are slow.
Are you 100% sure its 7'? There are a number of people [if small percentage wise] that are 7'.
Seriously. And it's not just the seven-footers who'd have issues. I'm 6'3, and I'd feel claustrophobic in a home with 7' ceilings. I'm above average in height, but, like, not wildly so. I certainly don't think I'm an outlier or anything.
Assuming you are a male in the USA you are in the 95th percentile [0] by height. And if you are 7 feet tall then you don't need to worry about low ceilings in council housing because you are probably an NBA [1] player.
Survivorship bias is a really important caveat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias Many cheap brick buildings from 100 years ago are gone, where the high quality ones are more likely to remain. Also, steel Lintel are often used over windows in brick buildings. They don't last as long, but are fine for cheap construction that is not expected to last. AKA the kinds of building that are unlikely to be aroun…
Not when it comes to this particular issue: build quality between 1800s and today has declined. If anything, a whole bunch of perfectly decent old buildings have been torn down. Because they were no longer of any use (prolonged vacancy is the worst for any building), not because they were falling apart. Somewhat of a tangent. Good architecture has three properties: it's useful, it's robust, and it's beautiful. That's…
> the godless machine age
Which began in the 1700s or earlier, with the Dark Satanic Mills.
I think one thing is buildings are now are built closer to their required engineering tolerances. In the past many building were massively over engineered, while modern buildings seem to be built for their exact expected lifespan. The one thing I really hate about most modern buildings here in Australia is the ceiling height has been reduced. A lot of modern buildings have ceiling heights around 7’ while old building…
Are you 100% sure its 7'? There are a number of people [if small percentage wise] that are 7'.
As I sit here in a rather old house (1920's) though never very expensive house I would say there are good and bad things about it.
There's very little insulation, the heavy exterior is only a couple inches from some sort of plaster board on the inside causing many electrical boxes to be shallow. They really didn't care about the price of heating the house when they built it or maybe they did it to be cheap, but in any case that cost has gone way up.
I do like an actual wood floor and heavy beams used in the construction of the basement and such.
The plumbing is sometimes far more creative then is easy to fix now and I've found myself just cutting sections out and replacing it. I actually have some pipes made from lead going out so they can be bent in curves. Terracotta drains in the yard probably need to be replaced.
The wiring was the first thing I replaced, knob and tube without grounds was just scary. O, and since the entire house was painted (yes they painted the formed bricks, not exactly like in the article though still bricks) with lead paint I certainly wouldn't eat something grown close to the house. Also I have steam heat which is interesting all by itself. So all in all, a not super expensive old building tends to be a lot of work these days and I would rather have a newer even if flimsy construction next time. I think I'll go along with the commenter who said the surviving old buildings are a bias because they are generally the best of the best of what was built in that time period.
The quality of modern construction (not necessarily brick) is a big pet peeve of mine and something I keep looking for answers. The way I see it, some time right after WWII, people in US suddenly decided to live in a poorly built and ugly looking dwellings regardless of their income level. It is especially easy to see when looking at NYC buildings, some rentals are even explicitly advertized as "pre-war". Examples of…
> The way I see it, some time right after WWII, people in US suddenly decided to live in a poorly built and ugly looking dwellings regardless of their income level.
You could extend this to a lot of other things. Pre-war and post-war America look way more than five years apart.