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The wonder of modern drywall

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Re: The wonder of modern drywall

#201

Post by quickthrowman »

timc3 wrote: post #148
sorenjan wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wood and drywall is how most houses in Sweden are built as well. Here's a timelapse of a Swedish house being built: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbSm0Zw00Cs

The drywall wall is stronger, heavier thicker stuff and sometimes doubled up. We also often use steel work as the studs (particularly good professionals) as it’s stronger and faster than wood to put up. Then all the wiring is in conduits, and it’s acceptable to put water feeds on the outside of walls in the room for servicing. Then it comes to our bathrooms which are proper wet rooms and usually built to a very high…

Running conduit for electrical wiring in a house is a huge waste of labor and material. PVC insulation and a nylon jacket is just fine for 2.5mm^2 (#14AWG) conductors, which is what 90% of the wiring in a house will be.

The only place that conduit is mandatory in residences in the US is Chicago.

Hell, most office buildouts in the US use very minimal amounts of conduit, most of the lightning and receptacle branch circuits are metal-clad cable (MC cable).

Re: The wonder of modern drywall

#202

Post by ragall »

zarzavat wrote: post #197
Insanity wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never wanted to adapt a house that significantly. But yeah, I much prefer the cinderblock homes and miss them. Something about the wood and drywall houses just feels incredibly cheap, and I don't like the aesthetic (de gustibus et coloribus..) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Little_Pigs

Ultimately houses are built in the way that works for the region they're built in. Europe has few trees and few earthquakes (outside of Romania, Italy, etc). Masonry houses make sense. In California unreinforced masonry is illegal and trees are plentiful. Making houses out of sticks is rational even if it's unsightly. Those asphalt roofs though...

It's not the unavailability of trees. European countries have wisely decides that cities built of wooden houses are prone to massive fires. USians haven't learned that lesson and the Los Angeles fire isn't going to be the last one.

Re: The wonder of modern drywall

#203

Post by quickthrowman »

glitchc wrote: post #122
pibaker wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the prevalence of "flimsy" wood and drywall constructions to be part of the reason why Americans dislike apartment living. They provide little sound insulation, are prone to water damage, have a shorter lifespan than the average person and once they catch fire they burn the entire thing down. Concrete or brick buildings are much nicer to live in, but expensive, so they are not very common among new construc…

Actually apartment buildings are mostly concrete. Strip away finishings like cabinets, drywall and flooring from a unit, and what's left is a concrete cell. Sometimes separating walls within a unit are wood based but that's rare too.

Basically every apartment building built in the last 25-30 years that is 6 stories or less (which is the vast majority of units constructed) will be a concrete base floor and then stick built apartments on top.

It’s called a 5-over-1 and it’s so much cheaper than doing five stories of metal pan and concrete deck that the economics force the decision. You see these everywhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-over-1

Anything over 6 stories will be concrete and steel, or rarely, engineered wood or timber framed.

Concrete and steel apartment buildings do not have vertical concrete partitions or wood stud walls between the units, they have steel stud walls with two layers of double 5/8” drywall on each side to provide a 4-hour fire rating.

I am a construction professional, FWIW.

Re: The wonder of modern drywall

#204

Post by ragall »

encom wrote: post #170
ragall wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have to break open the wall to fix things The best is to build in such a way as to not have to fix them in the first place. European standards mandate passing all wiring through corrugated tubes. Builders add spare empty ones for future expansion, which makes it unnecessary to open the walls in most cases.

>European standards mandate passing all wiring through corrugated tubes. Incorrect. It's usually done, because it's a good idea, but nobody says you have to.

Maybe in your country. In Italy it's illegal not to use appropriate corrugated tubes.

Re: The wonder of modern drywall

#205

Post by bruckie »

buckle8017 wrote: post #193
willis936 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would heightened electricity demand increase the use of the most expensive energy source?

Coal, the most expensive energy source? That's funny, is marginally more expensive than natural gas because natural gas is a byproduct of oil extraction. Coal is vastly cheaper as a 24x365 source of power than anything but hydro and natural gas.

Batteries make that less true today than in the past. Solar/wind + batteries are becoming cost-competitive with coal for energy on most days (24x7).

24x7 every day of the year is much harder, though. Solar/wind + batteries are nowhere near cost competitive for reliability, though. You'd have to build a ridiculous (read: very uneconomical) multiple of typical battery capacity to make it through the long, cloudy, low-wind periods in the winter.

On the bright side, enhanced geothermal is starting to look like it may be economically competitive in the near future. If it pans out, it could repurpose a lot of the technology and labor force from the oil and gas industry to instead produce clean power. And who knows—maybe the current nuclear push will pan out and we'll have another option for reliable base load.

Re: The wonder of modern drywall

#206

Post by ragall »

retired wrote: post #187
ragall wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have to break open the wall to fix things The best is to build in such a way as to not have to fix them in the first place. European standards mandate passing all wiring through corrugated tubes. Builders add spare empty ones for future expansion, which makes it unnecessary to open the walls in most cases.

That means everything in your house is literally set in stone. Sometimes people want to redecorate, have plumbing in a different location or a TV on a different wall.

Sometimes people want stupid things. It's not difficult to hire masons that will redo internal walls. It's just a bit more expensive.

Re: The wonder of modern drywall

#207

Post by lazide »

anonymousDan wrote: post #178
jandrewrogers wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concrete or brick buildings are effectively illegal in much of the US because they aren’t safe. Large parts of the US are prone to earthquakes far more severe than any in Europe, a fact learned the hard way. It destroyed all of the prior masonry and brick buildings in the US so that type of construction is no longer allowed. Your choices are pretty much wood-frame or steel-frame construction. That said, plenty of ste…

Very interesting perspective, thanks. One of the other comments mentioned that in Tokyo they heavily use concrete blocks. Not sure how accurate that is but how does their approach differ to the US?

Not concrete blocks, reinforced concrete. There is a major difference. Tokyo is mostly high rises.

It’s also quite expensive.

Normal Japanese construction has always been wood frame.

Re: The wonder of modern drywall

#208

Post by ragall »

lazide wrote: post #184
ragall wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have to break open the wall to fix things The best is to build in such a way as to not have to fix them in the first place. European standards mandate passing all wiring through corrugated tubes. Builders add spare empty ones for future expansion, which makes it unnecessary to open the walls in most cases.

Eh, people have a terrible time renovating or adding anything in housing in Europe. A lot of construction doesn’t have those tubes. It’s hard to articulate how wildly different habits are in Europe vs US around things like ‘what electrical appliances I have’ partially because of this. Housing tends to be a lot smaller too, largely due to population density differences, but also overall differences in economic earning…

It's not any different from having to renovate a 40's house in the US. You'll have to redo all the plumbing and electrical system to current code. Corrugated tubes have been common since the 90s and mandatory shortly thereafter.

Re: The wonder of modern drywall

#209

Post by retired »

Insanity wrote: post #192
CalRobert wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having owned a couple European houses they’re horrible to alter and mediocre on energy. I miss nice adaptable wood structures. Bizarrely Europeans seem to think their cinderblock homes are nicer…

I've never wanted to adapt a house that significantly. But yeah, I much prefer the cinderblock homes and miss them. Something about the wood and drywall houses just feels incredibly cheap, and I don't like the aesthetic (de gustibus et coloribus..) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Little_Pigs

Houses change over time. A house could have been build in 1920 without a toilet or central heating. Then over time it got a fireplace on the second floor, an indoor toilet, indoor bathroom, then central heating with gas, extra insulation, a couple decades later double paned windows, hybrid heating with a heat pump, then full electric heating, underfloor heating, solar panels, home battery.

Houses change a lot over time, it is nice to be adaptable and not need to carve out stone and concrete every time you add a feature to a home.

The most beautiful homes I have been inside in Europe were wooden cabins in Sweden. The exposed wood ceiling beams, the unpainted wooden panels everywhere, the little details. I never had that with stone or brick buildings. Mainly because they got plastered and painted over, you almost never see the raw materials on the inside.

Re: The wonder of modern drywall

#210

Post by retired »

ragall wrote: post #206
retired wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That means everything in your house is literally set in stone. Sometimes people want to redecorate, have plumbing in a different location or a TV on a different wall.

Sometimes people want stupid things. It's not difficult to hire masons that will redo internal walls. It's just a bit more expensive.

My father grew up in a home without central heating or an indoor toilet. Last time that home was listed on the market it had underfloor heating, two bathrooms, triple paned glass, an extension on the roof and various other modern amenities. Times change, houses should too. We are not longer pooping in an outhouse anymore.

I guess at one point people would wonder why you would want to poop inside the home, and call it "sometimes people want stupid things".

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