Why So Many American Homes Are Flimsy - Cheddar Explains

Have you ever wondered why houses in the U.S. seem so much less sturdy than houses elsewhere? You can hear through the walls, they’re constantly needing maintenance, and aren’t great at regulating temperature. Cheddar explains why American homes are so flimsy - and the history that made them this way.


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[Ralphieboy]

I recall a quote something like "A German builds a home and thinks about how his grandchildren are going to live in it some day. An American builds a home and thinks about when he is going to sell it and move on to a bigger one."

[xa-]

It always blew my mind as a child when people punched through walls in americam movies

[stanleynowak]

I am 63 years old and have moved once. I live in upstate NY and when I built my new home in 1984 which I designed myself, I built brick on a high tensile strength concrete foundation. This thing is a tank.

[memyself]

My parent bought the brick house I grew up in in 1957. It's undergone major renovation with a second floor being added on one wing, but it's still standing today.

[cmudd]

The better question is, why do these flimsy houses cost so much?

[TheMotlias]

as someone who has worked in the British building industry, the idea that a home would just be torn down after 30 years is horrifying to me.

[Meminsis]

My home was build 1564. It has a 80-90cm thick outer wall made from stone and dirt, its like a vertical bunker, in summer when its outside like 32-35C it holds the temperature of like 20-25C over the hole day like in a basement of a normal home. My family lives here since
the end of the 1800s.

[samanthamartin]

My family recently relocated to a new state, and had a house built from scratch that we moved into early last year. Literally, we've been having issues since we moved in. The floors started peeling up, the tile grout started chipping, the walls are crooked, there are electrical issues, two of the fans have been broken since being installed, doorknobs are beginning to fall apart... the house was not cheap, so it's truly angering. My parents wanted this to be their retirement home, but they are so angry that they wish to move again.

[zanizone]

"A building made of bricks has a higher probability of withstanding natural disasters."
One Little Pig has entered the chat.

[nordiskkatt]

I live in Scandinavia, where we also have wooden homes... and guess what? They are sturdy, reliable, and last for generations. It's not the building material as such, is the cheap solutions and the cost-cutting exercises they do in putting everything in place.

[Gabztar]

Here in Scandinavia the old houses that we have are made out of wood but its really sturdy. Our home is at least 100 years old but because of the thiccc high quality wood its expected to exist for a long time. And because Scandinavia has always been a huge export of wood it results in wood being fairly cheap.

[laurenw]

As someone who has spent their entire life in Massachusetts and has carpenters in her immediate family, I can say there are many homes around here that have been standing 100+ years and much more. The home I grew up in was a 1925 build, built by the family who sold it to my parents. They still live in it. What I’m observing is that many of the older homes *can* have problems that need maintenance, but are often reliable. The newer builds are awful and need so much more maintenance. The newer homes fly up in a matter of days, while the houses built “way back then” were constructed with care.

[WhatALoadOfTosca]

"homes built from bricks are less likely to be destroyed due to natural disasters"... Who'd have thought?!

[DanielLopez-kseh]

I’m Mexican and live about a 3 hour drive from the US border. Around 30 years ago it was really appealing traveling over there for vacations or shopping, so we did frequently. There were many things I admired during those visits but the flimsy houses were very unsettling for me

[rjohnson]

Over the last couple years I've been seeing 3-400 unit apartment buildings pop up everywhere using prefab wooden stud walls. I don't expect these to last long either.

[sexygeek]

The short answer is that they build them as cheaply as they can get away with. As a bonus, they can sell you another house when yours collapses.

[tangogamma]

We also don’t think of houses as inheritance. Children typically move out and own their own homes. So a home that is inherited will usually be sold.

[justanotheryoutubechannel]

I’ve always thought US buildings seemed super flimsy, I live in the UK and most things are made out of brick and plaster, walls definitely aren’t soundproof and you can hear people and your terraced neighbors occasionally, but it’s never that serious. When I first heard US buildings are mostly wooden I was shocked, it seemed so risky and easy to break.

[kaunas]

I think that the main problem is that most new houses are built by developers who are only interested in making these structures as cheaply as possible, because once they have built it and sold it, it is the new owner's problem, not theirs. I also believe that politicians are bribed to weaken standards and go along with this. By the way in Spain the developers do the same thing with ultra-thin and cheap walls with no noise or thermal insulation. It is only in the last few years that they have gotten a bit better about this.

[SrGammerNerd]

It's shocking how the US seems to have completely ignored the three little pigs tale
Every kid knows that the brick house is literally the only one that survives