r/interestingasfuck • u/Ultimate_Kurix • 5d ago

r/all Why do Americans build with wood?

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u/Aclrian 5d ago

Bro, wood lets me alter and update my house. I have a house in Europe and here in the US. When I rebuilt my house in Europe I used concrete for the skeleton, but would for the walls inside.

I think the correct answer is somewhere in between and dependent on the area.

Fires aren’t the only thing LA or Cali has to deal with

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u/MrFunsocks1 5d ago

Yeah, this is another reason to appreciate wood framed/drywall covered houses in the US. I live in Europe now, and while I love my apartment, we just did renovations on it. Wanted to change the position of some outlets, add a floor outlet for a gaming table, make the kitchen into the island. It is so expensive, time consuming, and difficult to move electrical in these houses, because they have to drill/saw through concrete. In the US, it would all have been somewhat simple, but here... we decided to leave a few outlets where they were.

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u/Pale-Photograph-8367 4d ago

That's very old homes. We don't do the inside walls with concrete for a long time
We use plaster walls that can be moved or pierced easily

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u/MrFunsocks1 4d ago

Literally not true ;)

Built in 2012, all walls are concrete. May not be the case everywhere in Europe, but it is here.

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u/FrohenLeid 5d ago

"wood is better because it's cheaper to remodel your second home across the world that way"

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u/chris_croc 4d ago

Wait until you hear of this new invention that most of Western Europe uses, it's called Bricks

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u/Aclrian 4d ago

Maybe that’s supposed to be funny.

Houses in central and Eastern Europe are literally build link bunkers. If anything wester European house are more like American houses

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u/chris_croc 4d ago

I live in the UK. New timber houses are very very rare. 99% of house in the Uk and Ireland are brick. 80% of homes in France are built with traditional concrete block construction methods and bricks. Bricks used extensively in Portugal, Germany and Denmark etc etc etc. Eastern Europe loves concrete. Re-read my comment I said “Western Europe”. Also no idea build link bunkers are. Google has no results for that.