How to build a house alone [video]

This guy is building a cathedral on his own:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justo_Gallego_Mart%C3%ADnez

A house like that will easily last over a century if you take care of it and do routine maintenance. Obviously that's assuming it's not destroyed in a direct hit by a tornado or a once in a century nearby massive earthquake (such a risk applies to a super tiny fraction of all US housing).

A friend of mine purchased a hundred plus year old wood house. The standards back then were non-existent, boards placed wherever, seemingly constructed stupidly in every possible regard, and it managed over a century regardless through routine maintenance. Keeping in mind that's starting from ~1900. Starting from the standards today, you should easily get over a century. Use a metal roof, replace it every 40-60 years depending, and just take care of it.

Back in the 50s, my great grandfather built the house where my mother and my grandmother grew up in all by himself. It took him 6 years, but he had no help. He started digging into the ground with a shovel. He was a carpenter and bricklayer and used his spare time and skill to do it. This house is still standing and my grandmother still lives in it.

This is him with his wife, my great grandmother: https://i.imgur.com/y7sXvaa.jpg

It was his greatest achievement. But unfortunately he only lived in it for a meager year before passing away.

The US has, for practical purposes, an unlimited supply of cost effective, renewable timber (domestically + Canada). It makes tremendous economic sense.

Also consider the renewable + cost + timber supply factor, when it comes to population. Germany's population has barely increased since 1970. The US population has increased by ~55% in that time, adding over 100 million people. Rarely building new structures for a stagnate population base is a very different consideration vs building for a population that has been quite expansive for over a century. Just on the environmental concerns alone, I don't think you want the US to rebuild all of its housing with concrete.

The median US house is between 50% and 100% larger than the median house in developed Europe, at half the price or less per sq metre. The median US house is generally the first or second largest in the world.

Maintenance is not dramatic for wood structures, assuming they're properly built. Once they're enclosed, if properly maintained, you should have to do relatively little work to the core structure of the building over many decades. As it pertains to heating & cooling, high quality insulation today means there's little concern for external weather, whether you're in New Hampshire or Arizona.

Did an extension of my house last year, let the experts to the important stuff like the foundation and electricity, but i did the rest by my self... by learning from YouTube. :)