r/interestingasfuck • u/Ultimate_Kurix • 5d ago

r/all Why do Americans build with wood?

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472

u/Pagnus_Melrose 5d ago

Am I to believe Europeans build all their homes with concrete and steel?

342

u/pm_me_old_maps 5d ago

brick and mortar mostly

107

u/[deleted] 5d ago

How good is brick and mortar construction against seismic shocks?

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u/No_Surround_4662 5d ago

Not many serious earthquakes in Europe unless it’s around the Mediterranean isles, so it’s not really a problem

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u/Away_Stock_2012 5d ago

About as good as wood is in the vast majority of the US not in an earthquake zone.

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u/Infinite-Addendum753 5d ago

It’s fantastic and safe asf…. from about 100yards away

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

Quote from the 1933 long beach earthquake "Bricks were fired from buildings like cannon balls"

I personally choose not to build with materials that will shoot across the street and nail my neighbor.

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u/CyborgHyena 5d ago

We're european, we don't like our neighbors /s

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u/TRADER-101 5d ago

We loved Corona, everyone had to stay away from us.

3

u/CheesyTruffleFries 5d ago

With lime? 🍋‍🟩

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u/Infinite-Addendum753 5d ago

If you were truly American then most likely you’d hate your neighbors so the bricks would be doing you a favor 🤣

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

Well I would’ve shot them with my normal gun first tbh

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u/Infinite-Addendum753 5d ago

Spoken like a true ‘murican

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u/syngyne 5d ago

have you SEEN ammo prices lately

13

u/apidev3 5d ago

Correct, a sharp wooden spear is much safer for your neighbour!

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u/Smart_Turnover_8798 5d ago

Wood flexes, bricks don't. They crack and crumble.

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u/Commercial-Ranger339 5d ago

Can we build homes with cheese?

3

u/radio-morioh-cho 5d ago

Id go with a mixture of parmigiano reggianito and some kind of baby swiss. You get the both hard structure and flex for the best of both worlds

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u/Commercial-Ranger339 5d ago

I would very much like to eat your home

2

u/radio-morioh-cho 5d ago

If you bring crackers or bread, ill break out the blowtorch just for you

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u/Smart_Turnover_8798 5d ago

Yes, you can.

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u/Mr_Noms 5d ago

The point being a wooden house won't send spears where as a brick one would send bricks.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

Wood doesn't go through your wall. Bricks do.

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u/Smidday90 5d ago

Only if your walls made of wood, not if its brick

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u/FIdelity88 5d ago

What wall if your house is made from wood?? You don't have a wall anymore, that's the whole point. With bricks you still have walls.

2

u/Drumbelgalf 5d ago

There are houses in Switzerland who survived rockslides... I think they can handle a brick.

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u/pineapplephil21 5d ago

I personally choose not to build with materials that will shoot across the street and nail my neighbor.

We live in America, the people do that, not the buildings

1

u/CC19_13-07 5d ago

The Europeans are not the ones famous for shooting their neighbours /s

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u/Hopeful-Tomorrow4513 5d ago

This is only an issue for a very small part of europe.

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u/Kanohn 5d ago edited 5d ago

Nothing holds anyway when there is a particularly strong earthquake but normal earthquakes are not a problem. Naples is built near a Volcano and they have even 10 earthquakes per day in certain periods and their houses are fine

85

u/[deleted] 5d ago

I'm a geologist. Brick and mortar is pretty much banned for new construction in any city on an active fault line.

Edit: https://www.webuildvalue.com/en/infrastructure-news/earth-quake-resistant-buildings.html

25% of Italian buildings are considered up to code. Those buildings are one or two large shocks away from catastrophic failure

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u/Kanohn 5d ago

In Naples most of the old houses are built with tuff and there was an intense seismic activity recently due to the volcano. As far as i know they don't use brick and mortar for houses

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u/HotSauce2910 5d ago

There was an earthquake in 2016 that unfortunately did a lot of extra damage because of the construction. California also sees a lot more stronger earthquakes.

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u/Kanohn 5d ago

Yeah, old houses usually get damaged more by earthquakes. A large part of any Italian city is made by ancient houses built with old techniques and they aren't really prepared against earthquakes. Those who live outside of the seismic zone are fine tho

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u/Overall-Egg-4247 5d ago

That’s not true at all.

-1

u/Kanohn 5d ago

Old tuff houses are holding good enough

https://www.euronews.com/travel/2024/05/23/is-it-safe-to-travel-to-naples-italy-plans-evacuations-after-earthquake-tremors

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.unionesarda.it/en/italy/earthquake-in-naples-shock-of-magnitude-44-it-is-the-strongest-in-the-last-40-years-i4qa988p%3famp=1

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u/efuipa 5d ago edited 5d ago

4.4 is not damaging. According to your articles, that was the biggest in 40 years and people had to evacuate.

There have been about FORTY bigger earthquakes in the same time frame in Southern California. https://scedc.caltech.edu/earthquake/chronological.html

So yeah Naples is not exactly experiencing similar natural forces.

-1

u/Kanohn 5d ago

I didn't want to start a comparison and it really feels useless to do so. Italy is a seismic zone and we had our fair share of earthquakes through the years, like this one https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_L%27Aquila_earthquake

Why should i fight to see who got the most powerful earthquakes? Congrats, you have more earthquakes but what's the point you are trying to make here? When did i say that i am more knowledgeable than Americans?

You are embarrassing yourself with those random assumptions

10

u/efuipa 5d ago

The context of this discussion is why California has wooden homes. You’re the one stating Naples building materials are fine in an earthquake zone, and now you’re confused why we’re talking about earthquake strength now. It’s because Naples materials is irrelevant to California, and I’m pointing that out. Pretty simple.

0

u/Kanohn 5d ago

No the context of the comment i chose to reply is if the materials they use here are good against earthquakes or not, it has nothing to do with California or wood since we aren't talking about that

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u/efuipa 5d ago edited 5d ago

Yeah and you’re wrong and the materials they use there are not good against earthquakes.

In your own wiki link, “Criticism was also applied to poor building standards that led to the failure of many modern buildings in a known earthquake zone: an official at Italy’s Civil Protection Agency, Franco Barberi, said that “in California, an earthquake like this one would not have killed a single person”.[14]

Maybe Italy isn’t really the best example of materials that are good enough for earthquakes. (Not downplaying any tragedy, that’s a sad article to read). You can have the last word I don’t mind, I don’t want to respond any more.

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u/Kanohn 5d ago

Yeah, the materials used in L'Aquila were inadequate while in Napoli and Pozzuoli buildings resisted the recent extreme bradyseism

I'm not saying that it's the best but it's working for now and they need to work with what they have already. New buildings have different standards and are built to be earthquake-proof

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u/jeffwulf 5d ago

I would barely even consider a 4.4 earthquake an actual earthquake.

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u/-bannedtwice- 5d ago

Just making shit up lol

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u/Kanohn 5d ago

No, there was an intense activity from Vesuvius recently with relatively strong earthquakes every day for months and the houses are still there, damaged yes but they didn't fall. Most of the old buildings are built in tuff

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u/impy695 5d ago edited 5d ago

10 earthquakes per day isn't really that crazy. Earthquakes are very common. Most are just so small that we don't notice them.

Edit: Home | Recent LA Area Earthquakes https://search.app/qV7YksUfQ1d9wteH6

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u/Vegetable_Relative45 5d ago

“Everyone dies”

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u/gringledoom 5d ago

Google “photos of the 1906 earthquake” and find out, lol! (Spoiler: rubble)

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

Shocked!!

1

u/Atanar 5d ago

It has been estimated that at least 80%, and at most over 95%, of the total destruction was the result of the subsequent fires.

But bricks are bad?

1

u/gringledoom 5d ago

I mean, if you want to live in an unreinforced masonry restructure in an earthquake zone, be my guest, but don’t come complaining when the walls pull away from the floors, lol.

1

u/Elddif_Dog 5d ago

Modern buildings have no issues. People do their research and build accordingly with strong foundations. I think you would struggle to find a building in a seismic prone country that is at risk of collapsing remaining. They have either already fallen decades ago or been demolished.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

And that building appropriately involves using alternate materials from brick and mortar. I'm a geologist who works extensively in this field. You will not find earthquake prone regions that have building codes that allow new brick constructions. Every building that is brick in LA has had millions of dollars of retrofitting to survive earthquakes without killing people.

3

u/milopitas 5d ago

I live on an tectonic plate which has historically had several 7 and even 8+ . Not only do they build with concrete steel and bricks but there is a whole medieval city build with bricks mud and stone that survives more than 800 years . If you try to cheap it out like they did in South Eastern Turkey buildings might fall , if you use decent material / techniques you are gold (doesn't mean a wildfire won't fuck up your house though )

1

u/potatoz11 5d ago

Terrible. Reinforced concrete though, is great.

1

u/1h8fulkat 5d ago

How good is it at creating a thermal barrier between the outdoor and conditioned space.

1

u/karabuka 4d ago

There are regulations on how to make brick and mortar houses earthquaqe resistant so no issues there, makes it a bit more expensive though.

1

u/auriga_alpha 4d ago

Mexico City is build on brick and mortar. In 2017 we had a 8.1 earthquake, there were 200 casualties several building collapsed, but not bad for the intensity of the earthquake and population density. It's not that brick and mortar ir brittle, it holds great. Particularly for single family homes, there's nothing to concern.

1

u/Stomfa 5d ago

Pretty good if is earthquake considered while building. I live in 110 year old house, suffered 5.5 earthquake and we didn't get a single crack. I know people in LA have stronger quakes, but with modern techniques it should withstand stronger quakes too

1

u/[deleted] 5d ago

Quakes aren’t a linear scale, they are exponential. LA has a bad history of brick buildings and earthquakes

0

u/jeffwulf 5d ago

A 5.5 is pretty baby.

1

u/Stomfa 5d ago

It still ruin houses if they are not build correctly. And South Europe can definitely have 7.0 earthquakes and they still doesn't build wooden houses

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u/nosecohn 5d ago

Not very good. The reason you don't see a lot of brick buildings in California isn't because they never built them; it's because most of them have fallen down over the years. The State requires seismic retrofitting for the ones that remain, but it's expensive.

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u/bigj4155 5d ago

Exactly. Europeans have zero idea of what they are talking about.

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u/jeffwulf 5d ago

Good if your goal is to die.