Brick exterior, tile interior? (San Antonio, Anton: hardwood floor, fit in, custom home)

[lady katie]

Hello, my husband and I are considering transferring to San Antonio, from NY, and I noticed that all (most?) of the homes down there are brick or stone. I was just wondering if this is a requirement, and why. Also, I noticed that a lot of the flooring is tile. Is this a local trend, or is there a reason for it? I would want hardwoods, but I'm wondering if there is a reason why there aren't a lot of them in the homes I'm looking at online ($200,000 range). Thanks!

[TexasRedneck]

As with everything else, style tastes come and go. the brick/stone exterior is a long-standing preference in this area, likely because the Texas sun is pretty tough on painted surfaces.

Right now, tile is "in", just like carpet was a few years back. We don't like tile because of the echoes and the fact that it seems to be cold under the feet. The good news is that the tile is primarily in the newer homes, and the "fad" SEEMS to be dying out a bit.

[TrapperL]

With brick or stone there is less maintenance. It also handles our heat better than a siding. You'll find mostly tile due to our pollen here. Carpet acts like a filter and soon there's no getting away from the pollen so you're sick 24/7/365 instead of just during the cedar season. All due to the pollen in the carpet. There's also the life factor. Tile lasts many years longer than carpet. Hardwood is usually an option although it's not a favorite of mine. Folks have a tendency to forget about having a large dog which will destroy a REAL wood floor. Wood floors are not very forgiving when it comes to dropped liquids either. Maintenance and care are twice that of tile IF you take care of it correctly. Laminates aren't much better and can't handle any kind of wet. Then there is Allure which is like a laminate, looks like wood but is vinyl. It glues together rather than snaps together. It's far more resilient than any of the non carpet floors. It will generally take all the water you can pour on it and animals don't bother it. Downside is limited colors and it's a lot like laminate- fakey looking. Most will go with tile and area rugs that can be cleaned every year to unload the pollen. Look to Aladdin on Josephine St for area rug cleaning.

[TXsurburbanmom]

Homes here are brick or stone because we are lucky enough to have less expensive labor costs and alot of workers skilled at brick/stonework. After freezing in a frame house in NC I was happy to move back into a better insulated home back here. I'm kind of confused as to why this wouldn't be an immediate plus in moving to Texas. As to tile, it is cooler in the hot months- there's a lot of those in SA. I'm not a fan personally although it is definitely a benefit in wet areas. We currently have tile and carpet with plans to replace the carpet downstairs with hardwoods soon. You can change to whatever you like or search for a house that already has your preference. I see a lot of wood in my part of town. Homes are mostly above $200k here but weren't necessarily that high when they were built so I wouldn't say it's unusual to find wood in that price range (my area has homes ranging from around $200k to millions but we originally bought a home for much less than $200k 10 years ago).

[Rustybolt]

What ddeel said! Skilled masonry labor is in abundance here in Texas and so you see more stucco, stone, and brick. You pay much less for that here than you would in northern climes. Plus, many of the raw materials are produced locally. Tile masons are also abundant and skilled in their art.

[forest1492]

You don't have basements in San Antonio. Most people have slab foundations. That means the first floors of all houses are concrete. You can only put engineered hardwood down, and it needs to be glued because you cannot nail into the concrete. In a house with subflooring, like in the northeast, wood gives with the subfloor, so it is easier on your back. Here, it really makes no difference, because you have concrete underneath, and it isn't going to give regardless of whether tile or wood is on top of it.

"Real" hardwood floors are much thicker than engineered. Only high end custom homes have "real" hardwood here. It needs to be planned in advance because when a foundation is poured, the rooms that will have hardwood will be poured with a lower floor. Then, wood screeds are screwed into the concrete, and the real hardwood is nailed into the screeds. Since the floor is poured lower, the transitions to rooms with tile or carpet are at the same level once the hardwood is installed.

Be happy about the brick. It is usually, a more expense option in the northeast, and only the fronts will have it, with vinyl siding on the other three sides. Here, you often see full brick front and lower half brick on the additional sides. Also, the siding here is concrete siding that looks like wood, but is fireproof. No vinyl or aluminum siding in South Texas.

[lady katie]

Originally Posted by TrapperL

With brick or stone there is less maintenance. It also handles our heat better than a siding. You'll find mostly tile due to our pollen here. Carpet acts like a filter and soon there's no getting away from the pollen so you're sick 24/7/365 instead of just during the cedar season. All due to the pollen in the carpet. There's also the life factor. Tile lasts many years longer than carpet. Hardwood is usually an option although it's not a favorite of mine. Folks have a tendency to forget about having a large dog which will destroy a REAL wood floor. Wood floors are not very forgiving when it comes to dropped liquids either. Maintenance and care are twice that of tile IF you take care of it correctly. Laminates aren't much better and can't handle any kind of wet. Then there is Allure which is like a laminate, looks like wood but is vinyl. It glues together rather than snaps together. It's far more resilient than any of the non carpet floors. It will generally take all the water you can pour on it and animals don't bother it. Downside is limited colors and it's a lot like laminate- fakey looking. Most will go with tile and area rugs that can be cleaned every year to unload the pollen. Look to Aladdin on Josephine St for area rug cleaning.

Thanks, allergies are a large part of the reason why I do not prefer carpets. We do get pollen here, but we also have a ton of dust, especially in the winter when we are heating with wood and cannot open the windows to air it out.

[lady katie]

Originally Posted by ddeel

Homes here are brick or stone because we are lucky enough to have less expensive labor costs and alot of workers skilled at brick/stonework. After freezing in a frame house in NC I was happy to move back into a better insulated home back here. I'm kind of confused as to why this wouldn't be an immediate plus in moving to Texas. As to tile, it is cooler in the hot months- there's a lot of those in SA. I'm not a fan personally although it is definitely a benefit in wet areas. We currently have tile and carpet with plans to replace the carpet downstairs with hardwoods soon. You can change to whatever you like or search for a house that already has your preference. I see a lot of wood in my part of town. Homes are mostly above $200k here but weren't necessarily that high when they were built so I wouldn't say it's unusual to find wood in that price range (my area has homes ranging from around $200k to millions but we originally bought a home for much less than $200k 10 years ago).

Oh, that's interesting. The brick isn't necessarily a negative, I'm just not used to seeing it. If you don't mind me asking, what kind of hardwoods are you looking at, and what kind of foundation do you have? Thanks!

[lady katie]

Originally Posted by forest1492

You don't have basements in San Antonio. Most people have slab foundations. That means the first floors of all houses are concrete. You can only put engineered hardwood down, and it needs to be glued because you cannot nail into the concrete. In a house with subflooring, like in the northeast, wood gives with the subfloor, so it is easier on your back. Here, it really makes no difference, because you have concrete underneath, and it isn't going to give regardless of whether tile or wood is on top of it.

"Real" hardwood floors are much thicker than engineered. Only high end custom homes have "real" hardwood here. It needs to be planned in advance because when a foundation is poured, the rooms that will have hardwood will be poured with a lower floor. Then, wood screeds are screwed into the concrete, and the real hardwood is nailed into the screeds. Since the floor is poured lower, the transitions to rooms with tile or carpet are at the same level once the hardwood is installed.

Be happy about the brick. It is usually, a more expense option in the northeast, and only the fronts will have it, with vinyl siding on the other three sides. Here, you often see full brick front and lower half brick on the additional sides. Also, the siding here is concrete siding that looks like wood, but is fireproof. No vinyl or aluminum siding in South Texas.

That's very interesting, about the foundations. I don't think I've ever even seen a house built on a slab, just garages. Even my inlaws who live in the Catskills, where you cannot dig a foundation due to the rock and clay ground, built their house on a raised foundation. Interesting. Is there a reason for the slabs, or is it just that it's more affordable? I wouldn't mind a slab, to be honest. We have a crawl space here, and it generally just equals more maintenance. We can't even really use it for storage because of moisture.

I would opt for an engineered hardwood floor over tile or carpet. I don't love them, but it has the look that I'm going for, and I know that you can refinish them twice if need be. We have solid wood here, and I do love them, but engineered would probably be the next best thing for me, especially if we could glue it and not just have it float.

[TXsurburbanmom]

Not really sure yet on wood. My husband will put it down so it's up to him. No laminate although we have done that before in the past. We are on a slab. On the far northside of SA we are mostly on a rock foundation. This is a plus as most of SA tends to have soil that can shift causing the slab to crack. Not sure why we have slabs here but I'm happier with it. I was constantly creeped out with crawl space and had a visit from a big centipede that came up into my hall. Same color as oak flooring too.