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Our first house was built in 1978, and still has the original double pane aluminum windows, I think. Our present house was built in 1980 with double pane wood windows; we replaced them last year with vinyl (wood frames on the inside, though). There certainly are regional differences. I grew up in W. PA (near you JR_C) and my parents had two very old houses that had the type of screens and storms you took off/put on at different times of year. DH's parents in Omaha, NE had the same thing. Most homes in Champaign Il had double pane windows when I lived there in the early 70s. We were surprised in moving to Denver in 1980, that storm windows were just becoming standard on new homes. Even in higher end homes, people didn't even have the put on/take off kind. (Our first house was in metro Denver.)
The old houses we see today by definition, are durable, because otherwise they would not have survived to this day. The flimsy ones fell apart long ago. We'll have to wait 50 years a see what fraction of today's new housing will survive.
I think a problem with modern homes is that as raw material prices have increases, builders have substituted cheaper, less durable materials. Lumber is a lot more expensive now than 80 years ago, so the wood that goes into houses today is a lot more pine than hardwood, and smaller cross-sections. Solid oak doors have been replaced by hollow-core plywood doors. Wood trim has been eliminated or replaced by plastic. Plaster is replaced by drywall. Nails have been replaced with glue. Screws have been replaced with nails. Brick exterior has been replaced by vinyl on three sides. Sure it looks nice brand new, and will probably outlast the residency of the original owners. How will it look 20-30 years from now?
Sukwoo makes a good point, as did stormcrow about the old houses we admire.
High-end houses still have solid core doors, wood trim, brick or wood siding, etc. The low end houses of 100 years ago didn't have that stuff either. My mom grew up in a converted log cabin in Wisconsin. DH grew up in a tiny bungalow in Omaha. There was nothing fancy or ornate about these houses.
As you will see when you read it, there were several models of homes, most streets had sidewalks; there were schools, churches and a shopping center in the community from the very start. It wasn't a bad beginning. It is served by public transportation.
the Suburban homes in my city arent cookie cutter, they are all mostly different.
That is ridiculous and false. Get real. I grew up in west Omaha and could walk into any of my friends' homes and the layout was exactly the same. The exterior colors might have been different and a few very minor details but a tract home is a tract home. I knew other people who lived in neighborhoods like the ones described in the original post where the homes really were all identical, and I always wondered what happened if they came home too drunk to remember which was theirs. Do you work for the Omaha chamber of commerce or something? It has plenty of suburban hoods which are not all special or any different from suburban hell anywhere else in the country.
The old houses we see today by definition, are durable, because otherwise they would not have survived to this day. The flimsy ones fell apart long ago. We'll have to wait 50 years a see what fraction of today's new housing will survive.
I think a problem with modern homes is that as raw material prices have increases, builders have substituted cheaper, less durable materials. Lumber is a lot more expensive now than 80 years ago, so the wood that goes into houses today is a lot more pine than hardwood, and smaller cross-sections. Solid oak doors have been replaced by hollow-core plywood doors. Wood trim has been eliminated or replaced by plastic. Plaster is replaced by drywall. Nails have been replaced with glue. Screws have been replaced with nails. Brick exterior has been replaced by vinyl on three sides. Sure it looks nice brand new, and will probably outlast the residency of the original owners. How will it look 20-30 years from now?
How they will look and what will be left of them over the decades will also depend on the demographics and population shifts in the area. The location is important here too, the cheap 'un-fancy' places will continue standing if there are people living there that would take good care of them, continue to maintain them, refurbish them and even rebuild parts of them. The places at less fortunate locales will deteriorate at much faster pace. Some cookie-cutter communities will thrive, some will turn into slums and some may be altogether abandoned and condemned. The slums won't do as well and the cheap housing stock will deteriorate at quicker pace and will have higher chances to get abandoned and condemned without even chances for 'gentrification'. The abandoned areas will be claimed by nature until nothing other than granite countertops, plastics and other non-biodegradable materials are left.
The older homes that are being gentrified all over US in multiple urban areas (former slums) are of better quality at least on the outside. Old brick houses in the east coast are doing better even though they have had decades of misuse and abandonment, they still can be salvaged at least where the facade is concerned. Driving through the slums of Baltimore I've seen many many beautiful brick homes of different styles that are boarded up, abandoned, converted into the drug hovels and definitely not maintained. But you can still see that these houses can be saved, they still look solid on the outside. I don't know if the modern cookie-cutter facades will last through the possible decades of decay/slums/abandonment as well as the brick houses of the older days.
I don't believe also that all the older homes that survived to our days were built by the then wealthy. The old tiny row houses in Georgetown and Foggy Bottom areas of Washington DC, for example, were built to house the poor, some were former stable areas. But these houses are doing quite well now even though they are almost 100 years old. Of course they would require maintenance, but these places are now in very desirable areas, cost lots of money, so they will receive all the necessary maintenance.
I will have to agree that the materials of today are just not 'built to last' through the decades and centuries, these are also modern materials that weren't available back then. In the older days people had not much alternatives but using the materials like brick and solid wood, so the houses of old days would have naturally better chances to last.
A thought occurred to me - are developers trying to save money by getting rid of architects?
Somehow I recall that in the 1970s it was more common to be an architect, just like other common professions like doctor, lawyer, accountant. Mike Brady of the Brady Bunch was an architect. Now it seems somewhat rare to hear of anyone working as a house architect.
Developers might figure it's cheap to make one cookie mold and run their operations mostly with marketing people and construction workers.
After this housing crash I hope developers emerge from the dust with a different way of looking at things and reinvigorate American housing by bringing back the architect.
Architects usually only work on high-end houses, and that's mostly how it's always been. Even at the turn of the last century, there were the Sears Catalogue houses. What is a Sears Modern Home?
The problem today is that developers are more interested in making as much money as possible, instead of providing a quality product. In the past, I think builders were more concerned with their reputation. (so they could get more work) So their workmanship was better.
Architects usually only work on high-end houses, and that's mostly how it's always been. Even at the turn of the last century, there were the Sears Catalogue houses. What is a Sears Modern Home?
The problem today is that developers are more interested in making as much money as possible, instead of providing a quality product. In the past, I think builders were more concerned with their reputation. (so they could get more work) So their workmanship was better.
The construction industry is different today than in the past. Where before construction of homes was more mom and pop operations, today you have huge public corporations worried about quarterly earnings and such. Aesthetics don't show up very well on the balance sheet, as opposed to 10 cents shaved off of each face brick.
There are still some builders out there who are concerned with their reputation and provide very high quality. Our first home was a brand new "tract" home but the builder was third generation master builder. He relied on people coming to him through word of mouth, not slick advertising or developing large tracts of land himself. He was small scale but he produced a VERY high quality product. He even came out himself and fixed the oh so common nail pops and things like that.
On the topic of modern construction materials. It isn't all negative. If anyone has ever tried to refurbish an older home I think you'd concur that modern drywall is superior to slat and morter or paneling. Dryvit is also high quality product when applied correctly. It's not nearly as durable as brick but SHOULD be much more durable than vinyl or wood. Of course, some things are NOT improved like the use of bonding glues vs. real fasteners. The biggest problem with modern homes thought re: durability is the construction standards: tolerances, fit, fasteners...the real engineering aspects of the home. There's a significant lack of experience, lack of care, lack of oversight and attention to detail.
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