Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The beautiful houses of Buffalo...mostly made of wood?
Is that generally the case? Curious what kind of shelf life it has....
It seems like I've also seen brick housing as well...roughly what % of Buffalo houses might be made of brick?
In the 1900s ( when a good part of Buffalo was built), North Tonawanda was known as the lumber city and had a great supply of wood to send to Buffalo for building. Lancaster had several brick factories to supply brick. Medina had sandstone There is also limestone around.... you basically have whatever the person building the house wanted, but wood is by far the most common material. The only bad thing? In the 1960s/60s, people "insulbricked" lots of homes: kind of a siding, made to insulate, often to look like brick, sometimes to look awful. It should all be torn off -- it is ghastly.
Roofs were even wood in the early 1900s -- my daughter has one ( shake shingles) on her 1905 home -- discovered that when she had a guy to see her about a roof ( it is under 2 layers of regular shingle and all will get torn off.
In the 1900s ( when a good part of Buffalo was built), North Tonawanda was known as the lumber city and had a great supply of wood to send to Buffalo for building. Lancaster had several brick factories to supply brick. Medina had sandstone There is also limestone around.... you basically have whatever the person building the house wanted, but wood is by far the most common material. The only bad thing? In the 1960s/60s, people "insulbricked" lots of homes: kind of a siding, made to insulate, often to look like brick, sometimes to look awful. It should all be torn off -- it is ghastly.
Roofs were even wood in the early 1900s -- my daughter has one ( shake shingles) on her 1905 home -- discovered that when she had a guy to see her about a roof ( it is under 2 layers of regular shingle and all will get torn off.
How long is a house made of wood, projected to last? Just curious.
How long is a house made of wood, projected to last? Just curious.
My house is wood framed. It was built in 1901. And, the home inspector was shocked to see no signs of shifting. So, at least 112 years with proper maintenance.
They both have finite lifespans. However, if the wood is protected by siding and not allowed to get wet and dry it will last forever provided these two circumstances are kept in check. Brick will last a long time as long as it is periodically repointed. Without this the stresses can cause cracking and premature aging. I have one house that has shifted (not since I've owned it) and it makes some pretty interesting bumps in the floor. The other house I own has shifted less, but there is still a bit of a roll in the floor.
With proper maintenance, both a wood and a brick house can last for hundreds of years. There is no "natural" life cycle of a house, exactly, though some of the elements and materials that make up a house such as shingles, copper, etc. do have certain life cycles after which they no longer serve their intended purpose.
There are many wood houses in Buffalo that are 150+ years old and are doing just fine - though perhaps they have some slanted and sagging floors and such from decades of wear, soil shifting, etc. But, that's just natural and those houses are totally livable. The key is, like I said, maintenance. Otherwise, sometimes lack of maintenance leads to water getting in and causing internal decay within the structural elements which can cause things to start falling apart pretty quickly, especially in wood houses. Brick can handle a lot more neglect (a decade or two vs. a few years).
I dunno, I would say perhaps 80% of the houses in Buffalo are wood. And, of course, even in brick houses, all of the structural beams, joists, roof rafters, and floors are usually wood.
)) Wood and plywood is the rule in North America. I think it is preferred because it is cheaper and you can build faster. And it has to lose value after that -shifting, mold, whatever- (what, do you want to leave something valuable to your kids? this is not Europe, here every generation needs to have its own mortgage for 30 years)
And when you finish paying you are paying double (if you look at the interest) for a house that is worth about half of what it was worth when you started ))
Bricks... bricks and stone you find in the old Europe.. here is the plywood wall and the wood frame. A little bit better than a carton box (but dont forget to run that furnace 24/7). You can keep a paper bag warm if you keep blowing in it. It is the same thing!
When I lived in Toronto, we were always amazed that the houses on the US side of the border were pretty much all wood (Toronto is mostly brick).
We knew we were in the US. But the architecture in Buffalo is beautiful.
The great lakes cities (in the US) tend to have more wood framed homes. Cleveland and Buffalo are both wood framed. Ironically, the city (in the region) that seemed to have a similar toronto like obsession with brick is Columbus. Nearly the entire central (pre 1950) housing stock is brick (from roads to homes) with much victorian. This has helped the city gentrify, as the housing remained in good shape for rehabs.
A properly built and maintained wood home can last centuries, and in Buffalo's climate there are (so far) no termites and fewer wood eating pests, along with the colder winters that reduce direct moisture exposure than warm and wet southerly cities. In Houston, for example, mildew and wood rot appear within 5 to 10 years of construction, and few wood homes last more than 50 years without significant damage, if they last at all (yet wood and stucco still predominate in new homes). The oldest buildings in Buffalo, dating from the 1820s, are wood homes. The fact that there are so many wood homes in Buffalo standing, that are mostly between 85 and 150 years old, is a fairly good testament to their durability. It is typically only when homes are vacant and vandalized that the decay begins.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
)) Wood and plywood is the rule in North America. I think it is preferred because it is cheaper and you can build faster. And it has to lose value after that -shifting, mold, whatever- (what, do you want to leave something valuable to your kids? this is not Europe, here every generation needs to have its own mortgage for 30 years)
