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My two cents from a transplant to Pittsburgh. I visited Pittsburgh many times and was blown away at the amazing neighborhoods of the city. Speaking specifically of Shadyside, Friendship and Squirrel Hill. Beautiful big all brick or stone houses, well maintained, safe, cool areas for eating and shopping. Was so surprised and impressed. I was like wow a city you can actually live in!
When I moved here to live I debated living in the city because of its livability but of course the schools are just much better in the suburbs and of course b/c of kids the suburbs we went. As some have pointed out here about the suburbs of Pittsburgh I was shocked at how different the suburbs are here versus where I came from. I'm coming from the New York area with arguably some of the nicest intact suburban suburbs in America.
There are easily 20 towns in New Jersey that are significantly nicer than the best example from Pittsburgh which is Sewickly. The South Hills are basically on par with Rutherford, NJ which wouldn't make anyone in NJ's top 20 list and towns like Summit, Ridgewood, Millburn, Red Bank, Montclair, Caldwell, Morristown (google street view them and see) are way nicer than Sewickly.
Cranberry and Robinson township and Pine remind me of the affluent suburbs around the airport in Dallas. Google street view the restaurant "Red, Hot and Blue" in Iriving, TX and tell me that doesn't remind you of Cranberry.
Now here is where the Pittsburgh Suburbs rule the day and it's not even close. You need to go out like 20/25 miles from New York into the suburbs for you to escape the urban core / get to somewhere where you have a fighting chance of getting a semi affordable house.
Once you are out there you're commute is 90 minutes into New York on a good day door to desk which is really more like 100+ minutes a good amount of the time. In Pittsburgh I live 12 miles from Downtown and my commute is 40 minutes if I leave early or 50 minutes if I leave during normal rush hour (north hills commute, park at the T stop by PNC park and T it over so it could be quicker if I just drove right into downtown probably). That is absolutely amazing!!! It's literally changed my life.
Not to mention Pittsburgh is an early city which most cities are not. New York is a 9am / 9:15am start time. It has to be just due to the ridiculous traffic and long commute. Pittsburgh is an 8am city so you are home with your family on the couch by 5:45 / 6pm.
Hence you may not have your option of 20 walkable suburban downtowns but you have a better quality of life here in Pittsburgh. Not to mention you can actually use Pittsburgh as opposed to suburbanites who never use New York. It's such a chore on the weekend to head into New York. $16 bucks to enter the tunnel, $40 bucks to Park and it's just a million people and tourists so you never go. If I want to zip down to the Pittsburgh on a Saturday to pick up Peace, Love and Little Donuts. I can get to the strip in 16 minutes, cross the river for free and park for free.
Also my house in New Jersey was 2,400 square feet on .5 acres and it was $560K. My house in Pittsburgh is 2,700 square feet on .8 acres and cost me $413K. My house here also has a finished basement and a 3 car garage vs no finished basement and a 1 care garage. I lived in a very different town in NJ with the only similarity being great schools so it's kind of apples to oranges but my house in Pitt if it was built in NJ depending upon the town it is in would probably sell from $600K (say if it was in Wayne, NJ) to $900K (say Montclair, NJ). So if you can get a decent paying tech salary in Pittsburgh you are basically rich in Pittsburgh while you'd be like any Joe Blow in New York.
Last edited by spoonman109; 04-08-2018 at 07:54 AM..
I can't find exactly when Pittsburgh got indoor plumbing, but NYC got it in 1842, and I would suspect Pittsburgh got it shortly thereafter. The only thing I can find about Pittsburgh's housing is that 53% was built before 1940, 62% before 1950, 75% before 1960. I would presume most of these houses were built since 1850.
Re: electricity- I recall another person, not eschaton, on this forum once defending "knob and tube" electrical wiring. I asked my husband who has a PhD in physics and works in IT, therefore knows a lot about electrical things, about that and he laughed out loud, literally. That's very substandard, yet apparently found in a lot of Pittsburgh houses.
My grandparents weren’t married until 1912 because they had to wait a few years before they could afford a house. There were outhouses in the backyard until just after WWII, which is when they were able to afford the connection from their house to the sewer lines. Just because the municipality ‘got indoor plumbing’ doesn’t mean everybody there got it at the same time. But the family apparently were very proud when they finally got their ‘Pittsburgh toilet’ in the middle of the cellar near the coal furnace.
Knob & tube was pretty much standard and what everyone got back in the beginning, btw. And it’s removed ASAP anywhere it’s found now.
Knob and tube is some of the safest wiring possible until the insulation is removed and it gets incased in insulation, eaten or covered in dust and debris. Most of the problems come from when an old circuit is maxed out and heat is generated because of it.
The biggest risk is people extending a knob and tube circuit so that you don't even know it's knob and tube and then it gets overloaded. If you just have a few circuits running the original lights and a few plugs here and there, it's really not a big deal. Swap in some low wattage LED bulbs and cap off the outlets or install some GFCIs and you're pretty much set.
Barring any crazy remuddling or damage, It's more of a cost thing than a safety thing. If a house is mostly or entirely knob and tube, then you have to pay for new circuits to be run to kitchens, bathrooms, and places where you want to use space heaters, air conditioners, or electronics.
People who aren't okay with that probably just aren't okay with old homes in general. It just comes with the territory, along with lead and asbestos.
Fox Chapel is not a walkable suburb. Aspinwall isn't as nice as Oakmont, Sewickley, and Mt. Lebo. The downside to Aspinwall is the location next to Sharpsburg and the Walmart complex.
LMAO. Aspinwall is much nicer than Oakmont.... and what there is of it certainly compares favorably with Mt Lebo. The most absurd thing you've written (in fact a new low for you) is your suggestion that Aspinwall suffers due to its proximity to Sharpsburg. You obviously haven't spent any time in either community. Try getting out more before you spread more disinformation.
I was going to drop this "knob and tube" business, but since someone else has revived the discussion, here are some websites I found that have good information in them.
Knob and Tube Wiring | Old House Web
"Dear Home Inspector: Our home inspector recommended replacing the knob and tube wiring in our home. But my father-in-law says there's nothing wrong with leaving it alone. What is your opinion of this type of wiring?"
Doesn't this sound familiar? An "old-timer" (and I'm one of them these days with two married daughters), says the old way is just fine.
Here's part of the answer: "When installed correctly knob and tube wiring was, in some ways, superior to current wiring practices.
Unfortunately, this system is rarely intact after 80 or so years of use. Things that happen well after the original installation can cause major problems. For this reason, I agree with your inspector."
It goes on.
Here's another one: https://www.carsondunlop.com/home-in...-need-to-know/ "The fact that the wire is older and has been in service for many years is a disadvantage of knob-and-tube, of course. Another is the absence of a ground wire, which creates an emergency path for stray electricity that helps avoid shocks. Modern cable has a ground wire, knob-and-tube does not.
Some of the other common problems you may come across with knob-and-tube include:
Poor Connections: Problems with knob-and-tube wire almost always result from amateurish connections made after original installation.
Damage: Knob-and-tube wiring is invariably old and may have been subjected to multiple handymen, mechanical abuse and wear and tear over the years.
Brittleness: As mentioned earlier, the rubber insulation on knob-and-tube can become brittle. The wire will often become brittle in high heat areas, including connections above ceiling light fixtures.
Circuits Extended: Since older electrical systems had few circuits by today’s standards, the chances of each knob-and-tube circuit having been extended over the years is very good. This increases the possibility of poor connections."
LMAO. Aspinwall is much nicer than Oakmont.... and what there is of it certainly compares favorably with Mt Lebo. The most absurd thing you've written (in fact a new low for you) is your suggestion that Aspinwall suffers due to its proximity to Sharpsburg. You obviously haven't spent any time in either community. Try getting out more before you spread more disinformation.
Yeah, I was going to reply to this, but I try and not engage with Mr. Grumpy Bear.
Aspinwall is objectively more desirable than Oakmont when you consider things like property values. For better or worse, school districts matter a lot for suburban municipalities. Fox Chapel Area ranks as one of the best in the county, whereas Riverview is seen as middling and on the decline.
I'd give the edge to Aspinwall in terms of walkability as well. Aspinwall has a smaller business district - it's a smaller municipality after all - but what exists is pretty compact and cohesive (even if split across two business districts a block apart). In contrast Oakmont's mile or so of commercial activity is really chopped up, with a few blocks of residential on Allegheny River Boulevard north of the library. The Allegheny Avenue side of the business district is even worse, with industrial businesses, surface lots, suburban-style buildings, etc.
IMHO only Aspinwall, Sweickley, and Mt. Lebanon are in the "walkable and highly desirable" grouping. I put Oakmont in the same category as Dormont, Carnegie, Bellevue - walkable streetcar/railroad suburbs with a lower level of desirability. You could argue about tiers here, but given Pittsburgh has so few municipalities of these types I think it's splitting hairs.
I was going to drop this "knob and tube" business, but since someone else has revived the discussion, here are some websites I found that have good information in them.
Knob and Tube Wiring | Old House Web
"Dear Home Inspector: Our home inspector recommended replacing the knob and tube wiring in our home. But my father-in-law says there's nothing wrong with leaving it alone. What is your opinion of this type of wiring?"
Doesn't this sound familiar? An "old-timer" (and I'm one of them these days with two married daughters), says the old way is just fine.
Here's part of the answer: "When installed correctly knob and tube wiring was, in some ways, superior to current wiring practices.
Unfortunately, this system is rarely intact after 80 or so years of use. Things that happen well after the original installation can cause major problems. For this reason, I agree with your inspector."
It goes on.
Here's another one: https://www.carsondunlop.com/home-in...-need-to-know/ "The fact that the wire is older and has been in service for many years is a disadvantage of knob-and-tube, of course. Another is the absence of a ground wire, which creates an emergency path for stray electricity that helps avoid shocks. Modern cable has a ground wire, knob-and-tube does not.
Some of the other common problems you may come across with knob-and-tube include:
Poor Connections: Problems with knob-and-tube wire almost always result from amateurish connections made after original installation.
Damage: Knob-and-tube wiring is invariably old and may have been subjected to multiple handymen, mechanical abuse and wear and tear over the years.
Brittleness: As mentioned earlier, the rubber insulation on knob-and-tube can become brittle. The wire will often become brittle in high heat areas, including connections above ceiling light fixtures.
Circuits Extended: Since older electrical systems had few circuits by today’s standards, the chances of each knob-and-tube circuit having been extended over the years is very good. This increases the possibility of poor connections."
Plus much more.
Not only would knob and tube or some sort of electricity have had to be installed in these homes, the old gas lighting fixtures and their plumbing would've had to have been removed. I have pipes sticking out of the walls in my house in a few places where old gas fixtures were located.
As for the water plumbing, I've seen two examples of homes in my neighborhood (Lawrenceville) that still have their original outhouses in the back yard, albeit converted into sheds at this point.
have pipes sticking out of the walls in my house in a few places where old gas fixtures were located.
When I was down in Savannah for vacation the other week, I saw several historic homes which still had working gas lights on either side of their front door. I don't think I've ever seen that in Pittsburgh.
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