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If a house is concrete block without brick veneer and sheetrock or something on inside walls, would be the epitome of tackiness, imo. It would resemble ground level storm cellar. I wouldn't mind having a concrete block fence, though. Perhaps the blocks would also work in the making of a dwelling build into the side of a hill and even used with stone in the design.
Poured concrete or concrete block is substantially more $$ here in the North East. Its very labor intensive to build that way, and labor is expensive here. Think about it: first you build the house out of wood (formwork) then out of iron rods (reinforcing) and then you pour the concrete, after which you have to strip the forms. But you're not done yet because you now have to build the house again on the interior with furring, insulation, and plaster/drywall. Concrete block (CMU) is a little cheaper but you have to lay it up one by one, and then reinforce and fill some of the cavities. Then its furring/insulation/plaster on the inside . In stick construction there are fewer steps. They build with concrete in continental European countries, but those houses are easily twice what we would spend here on a stick built home.
There is also a tradition of wood houses here that goes back to the early 18th century, so the durability argument is hard to make, assuming proper maintenance.
Would I like a concrete house? Yes, sure. It definitely gives a home a sense of permanence, as well as being more energy efficient. What I think will be more the norm however (and already is for larger multi family dwellings) is stick built with steel studs. That makes a lot of sense I think.
Has anyone looked at pix's of these new apartment complexes being built all over this country, at this time?
Shocking! Concrete floor at the base, concrete floor on the 2nd floor, and then wood construction on up! Many new hotels/motels built likewise!
I saw the most shocking pictures of some apartment buildings being built in Southern California, where, incredibly, they stack 4-5 floors of wooden construction on top of that 2nd floor concrete floor!
Oh-----My-----God!!! Who on earth allowed this madness!
Imagine!!! Being on the 5th or 6th floor of one of these buildings and a fire breaks out!!!
And they have the gall to call these "luxury apartment buildings"!
I read of enough apartment building fires, occasionally, here in Las Vegas, people being displaced in the middle of the night by a fire and we have an aging population on the horizon! Seniors with early stage of dementia, forgetting to turn the stove off, grease fires, etc. And it doesn't take just seniors to do that either!
How easy it will be if anarchy comes to this country, with arsonist running amok, throwing molotov coctails, to burn this country down!
That will leave the powerful lumber companies in this country grinning ear to ear, and of course, in a hurry to rebuild, wood-wood-wood!
Don't tell me, for one minute, we don't have great sources of concrete hidden somewhere in the U.S.!
I live in the Florida and my entire home is built out of concrete. Even the roof s-tiles are concrete. Total overkill if you don't live in a hurricaine prone region. Check out Little Havana in Miami.
Still have wood in the house though - need to hang the drywall on something.
We have construction that is typical in perhaps 90+% of Florida houses. CBS (concrete block stucco). There's nothing particularly expensive about it (when we built in 1995 - it was about 5% more expensive than stick). Or particularly ugly about it. Here's our house: House | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
We do have firring strips (metal) that the drywall is attached to (and there's insulation between the block and the drywall).
We live in a somewhat unusual area of the country. Have hurricane risk - as well as earthquake risk (we're at the periphery of the earthquake fault that hit Charleston SC bad in the late 19th century). But - building techniques that are sound for windstorms aren't exactly the best when it comes to earthquakes. So we built for windstorms (highest risk) and buy earthquake insurance (very cheap).
Once you get away from extreme risks like windstorm and earthquake - I think the main reason builders don't use CBS construction or similar construction now is they're building cheap houses for cheap (ignorant) buyers. The kind of buyers who think more about Jacuzzi tubs in the master bath than they worry about mold/mildew/termite damage (especially in the SE). People may not get hit by a windstorm - but termites are forever (and especially prevalent now that the EPA has banned every effective termite treatment). Robyn
If a house is concrete block without brick veneer and sheetrock or something on inside walls, would be the epitome of tackiness, imo. It would resemble ground level storm cellar. I wouldn't mind having a concrete block fence, though. Perhaps the blocks would also work in the making of a dwelling build into the side of a hill and even used with stone in the design.
I think you have to look at what's being done these days. For example:
Poured concrete or concrete block is substantially more $$ here in the North East. Its very labor intensive to build that way, and labor is expensive here. Think about it: first you build the house out of wood (formwork) then out of iron rods (reinforcing) and then you pour the concrete, after which you have to strip the forms. But you're not done yet because you now have to build the house again on the interior with furring, insulation, and plaster/drywall. Concrete block (CMU) is a little cheaper but you have to lay it up one by one, and then reinforce and fill some of the cavities. Then its furring/insulation/plaster on the inside . In stick construction there are fewer steps. They build with concrete in continental European countries, but those houses are easily twice what we would spend here on a stick built home.
There is also a tradition of wood houses here that goes back to the early 18th century, so the durability argument is hard to make, assuming proper maintenance.
Would I like a concrete house? Yes, sure. It definitely gives a home a sense of permanence, as well as being more energy efficient. What I think will be more the norm however (and already is for larger multi family dwellings) is stick built with steel studs. That makes a lot of sense I think.
There's a difference between poured concrete - and concrete block. I don't think that concrete block is more labor intensive than stick. The materials are somewhat more expensive - but not a whole lot. You're likely to save the extra cost in reduced insurance premiums in just a few years (even if you're only dealing with fire insurance). The extra cost of building concrete block over stick where I live was about 5% on the basic cost of the structure when we built our house (in 1996).
When someone says "tradition" - I hear "that's the only way we know how to do it" or "we can build cheaper stick and sell for as much as concrete block and make a bigger profit". We got around that issue (and other money issues) with our builder (who was a "block builder") simply by asking him up front what he wanted his profit to be. He said X - and we said fine. His profit was actually one of the cost lines in our contract.
FWIW - I live in a somewhat unusual part of Florida. Where stick houses are the norm. No way I would ever build/buy stick here. Even if we never have a storm - the termites are awful. And current termite treatments are very ineffective. Things have changed somewhat in favor of block here - but at least 80% of our new construction is still stick.
Note that we built with metal studs (again for termite reasons). We would have built with metal roof trusses too - but our builder (who did single family residential stuff) was quite honest in saying he didn't know how to do it. The metal studs do have one downside. Walls holding cabinets have to be reinforced before the cabinets are hung. It isn't a big deal - but it's something to keep in mind.
BTW - why do you say that block is more energy efficient? I don't know whether or not that's true (we were determined to build a block house regardless of energy efficiency). We did audit a contractors' CE course on "building energy efficient" before we built (the course was sponsored by an energy company and members of the public were welcome - I think my husband and I had to pay $25/each). Our professor taught that the most important thing in terms of energy efficiency in a north Florida house is making sure all your duct work is sealed properly (a lot of the seals are often done poorly - resulting in a lot of leaks). He also went through lots of other things that were supposed to save energy - but didn't really make sense in terms of what the things cost - versus how much energy would be saved. This type of analysis is of course very area/climate dependent. Although we live in Florida - it's north Florida - and our heating bills in the winter can be as high or higher as our cooling bills in the summer if we're having a cold winter (we don't often get cool summers ). Robyn
Has anyone looked at pix's of these new apartment complexes being built all over this country, at this time?
Shocking! Concrete floor at the base, concrete floor on the 2nd floor, and then wood construction on up! Many new hotels/motels built likewise!
I saw the most shocking pictures of some apartment buildings being built in Southern California, where, incredibly, they stack 4-5 floors of wooden construction on top of that 2nd floor concrete floor!
Oh-----My-----God!!! Who on earth allowed this madness!
Imagine!!! Being on the 5th or 6th floor of one of these buildings and a fire breaks out!!!
And they have the gall to call these "luxury apartment buildings"!
I read of enough apartment building fires, occasionally, here in Las Vegas, people being displaced in the middle of the night by a fire and we have an aging population on the horizon! Seniors with early stage of dementia, forgetting to turn the stove off, grease fires, etc. And it doesn't take just seniors to do that either!
How easy it will be if anarchy comes to this country, with arsonist running amok, throwing molotov coctails, to burn this country down!
That will leave the powerful lumber companies in this country grinning ear to ear, and of course, in a hurry to rebuild, wood-wood-wood!
Don't tell me, for one minute, we don't have great sources of concrete hidden somewhere in the U.S.!
Concrete isn't exactly worth it's weight in gold .
And I'm glad to see I'm not the only person shaking my head at this kind of stuff - even though I live thousands of miles away from California. I have watched a new apartment complex going up next to an area shopping mall I frequent. It is 5 story stick (the only concrete thing is the slab) . Of course advertised as "luxury living".
When we were in Stockholm in September - we went to an architecture museum. And there was an exhibit that went through a history of building techniques. One part dealt with a current trend - building cheap stick mid-rise apartments that were allegedly "fire-safe". Quite frankly - the exhibit - despite all its bells and whistles - didn't convince me.
In all honesty - I don't think I've lived in a stick place since I lived in the last 2 story single family houses chopped into rental units that I occupied when I was a student over 40 years ago (one was in Ithaca NY and the other was in Cambridge MA). Even my first dumpy low rise apartments in Miami and Philadelphia in the early 70's were all concrete/concrete block. Robyn
Concrete isn't exactly worth it's weight in gold .
And I'm glad to see I'm not the only person shaking my head at this kind of stuff - even though I live thousands of miles away from California. I have watched a new apartment complex going up next to an area shopping mall I frequent. It is 5 story stick (the only concrete thing is the slab) . Of course advertised as "luxury living".
When we were in Stockholm in September - we went to an architecture museum. And there was an exhibit that went through a history of building techniques. One part dealt with a current trend - building cheap stick mid-rise apartments that were allegedly "fire-safe". Quite frankly - the exhibit - despite all its bells and whistles - didn't convince me.
I just got back from a trip to L.A., riding their light rail lines, and saw a number of these "luxury apartment buildings" under construction, a half-dozen of them under construction or completed, in the Chinatown area. There's one there, I counted, 6 floors of wood stick on top of that 2nd floor concrete slab!
What next!!! A skyscraper built out of wood or wooden freeway bridges?
Not only the fire dangers, but I know they have termites in L.A., and how can they conrol the termites muching away on of these buildings?
No way, Ho-Zay, would you get me to move into one of these buildings!!! In my eyes, they're nothing more than modern-day tenement dwellings!
Back at the turn of the century, when Chicago had their great fire, which swept a good part of the city, after the fire they finally dictated all new buildings to be built of brick. Perhaps this is what they're waiting for, one of these to go up in flames some day, and only then will they dictate more permanent or better-quality construction!
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Concrete floor at the base, concrete floor on the 2nd floor, and then wood construction on up! Many new hotels/motels built likewise!
, they stack 4-5 floors of wooden construction on top of that 2nd floor concrete floor!
). Robyn
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