Infill... bad for you, good for me

[plessthanpointohfive]

What's the point of naming your son Norm if you can't call him 'Nahm'? Of course I'd call him that!


Non-standard board sizes:

I like how my roof and subflooring is make with pine planks - not a sheet of plywood or OSB to be found. Though I don't have a problem with good plywood. I will never like OSB...I don't care how much the engineers re-assure me. My previous 80s house was made with it....

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by plessthanpointohfive

What's the point of naming your son Norm if you can't call him 'Nahm'? Of course I'd call him that!


Non-standard board sizes:

I like how my roof and subflooring is make with pine planks - not a sheet of plywood or OSB to be found. Though I don't have a problem with good plywood. I will never like OSB...I don't care how much the engineers re-assure me. My previous 80s house was made with it....

My parents built a house in 1962 that I remember was completely sheathed in pine planking...I haven't seen that done in a long time.
A realtor told me that she had that house inspected for a sale a while ago and the inspector could find nothing wrong with it. It was the first time in his career he had inspected a problem-free house.
Nope, they don't build 'em like they used to.

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by LovinDecatur

My parents built a house in 1962 that I remember was completely sheathed in pine planking...I haven't seen that done in a long time.
A realtor told me that she had that house inspected for a sale a while ago and the inspector could find nothing wrong with it. It was the first time in his career he had inspected a problem-free house.
Nope, they don't build 'em like they used to.

Nope- they sure don't, and thank God for that. They don't use asbestos, rockwool, galvanized pipe, lead pipe/solder, or a host of other things that these "great old houses" used to have.

And bear in mind that while many people will sit around and talk about how builders use "cheap materials", there's two reasons for this:

- There's no reason to use more expensive materials. "True 2x4" lumber isn't necessary anymore, since better grading control has eliminated the need to oversize members to accomodate for the inadequacies of wood. Plywood and/or OSB sheathing provides more than enough shear strength to keep a house together, so there's no need to use 1x6 pine (which would have environmentalists up in arms anyway, since we'd be cutting down large trees to do what can be done with smaller trees).

- People wouldn't be willing to pay for these materials. Even if 1x6 sheathing was better, people would be unwilling to pay a premium for it, since it doesn't "add value" to their home like a granite countertop does. Builders provide extensive "features lists" with their homes that explain what's included, and 99% of the population could care less about the floor framing system, or the sheathing, or the roof shingles- all they want to know about is the crown molding, the hardwood floors and the pedestal sink in the powder room.

The houses of yesteryear had plenty of issues- trust me, I've torn into and renovated dozens and dozens of them. I'm not saying that today's homes are perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but to build a new home the same way old homes were built would be outright foolish.

[plessthanpointohfive]

I don't think many people disagree with that. I think what I said holds - that if a house is still around in 70 to 100 years then it was probably built well (and maintained).

I know when my house was built there was no asbestos or galvanized or lead pipe. But, there was lead paint. And at some point, when it was originally retro-fitted for central heat, back when they did coal furnaces for heat, they used asbestos tape on the ductwork, which was galvanized metal and not the soft modern ductwork. But that stuff we replaced at little cost when we got our new HVAC.

[Iconographer]

My comments were not to say that improvements haven't been made in building technology, but I still think the average house of 50 or 100 years ago was built with more of the 'built to last' mindset than a house built today.
Case in point was when a contractor I know was doing renovation work on a home in Druid Hills. Being used to working on much newer houses, he told the clients that the demo work would take 2 to 3 days. It actually took 3 weeks. He was shocked at the house's durability.

[spacelord75]

Originally Posted by BobKovacs

Nope- they sure don't, and thank God for that. They don't use asbestos, rockwool, galvanized pipe, lead pipe/solder, or a host of other things that these "great old houses" used to have.

.

This actually reminded of a question that brewed for me a recently - is rockwool insulation bad from a health perspective? Reason I ask is we have that as the original insulation in our attic, but then the previous owners rolled the pink stuff over top of it. Our inspector didn't really comment on it. We had a cable guy doing work up there and he got all freaked out saying rockwool was the same as asbestos, but everything I've read says otherwise. I'm just trying to figure out if it's something I need to have removed or if it's fine just to leave as is.

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by LovinDecatur

My comments were not to say that improvements haven't been made in building technology, but I still think the average house of 50 or 100 years ago was built with more of the 'built to last' mindset than a house built today.
Case in point was when a contractor I know was doing renovation work on a home in Druid Hills. Being used to working on much newer houses, he told the clients that the demo work would take 2 to 3 days. It actually took 3 weeks. He was shocked at the house's durability.

Sounds like a bad estimator to me. I can see being off by a day or two because of a "home's durability" but being off by 2.5 weeks is due to "estimating inability".....

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by spacelord75

This actually reminded of a question that brewed for me a recently - is rockwool insulation bad from a health perspective? Reason I ask is we have that as the original insulation in our attic, but then the previous owners rolled the pink stuff over top of it. Our inspector didn't really comment on it. We had a cable guy doing work up there and he got all freaked out saying rockwool was the same as asbestos, but everything I've read says otherwise. I'm just trying to figure out if it's something I need to have removed or if it's fine just to leave as is.

Well, if it's the old stuff that's commonly called "rockwool" it's actually mineral wool insulation. Mineral wood has silica in it, as does asbestos, but that doesn't mean that rockwool = asbestos- the cable guy didn't know what he was talking about. I wouldn't worry about replacing it, but I would be cautious if you've got to work around it, as it's far more of an irritant than fiberglass is (to most people).

True "rockwool" insulation is actually still made, but isn't typically used in normal insulation capacities. It's far heavier than fiberglass, but the fact that it's made of steel slag and basalt gives it some fire-resistive properties, so it's usually used in fire-resistant assemblies (mostly in commercial applications).

[plessthanpointohfive]

I looked up rockwool and that's exactly what I learned.

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by BobKovacs

Sounds like a bad estimator to me. I can see being off by a day or two because of a "home's durability" but being off by 2.5 weeks is due to "estimating inability".....

point taken