News1 min ago
Hurricanes
It seems, from a news coverage perspective, that many homes in the USA are made of wood, including the ones in areas particularly prone to hurricanes. Now in the UK all homes are build of brick and mortar, this is to do with the temperature and the fact that with our rainfall a wood house would possibly rot pretty quickly.
We just couldn't think of the reason why in these areas in the USA they don't build more with bricks n mortar. I appreciate that its hotter over there, the cost is obviously higher and a big tornado would make it fairly irrelevant. But, surely the amount of damage would be hugely reduced?
Answers
No best answer has yet been selected by MrPahoehoe. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.hi MrP, maybe you have fallen for the everything America does is best attitude of the majority of Americans. They do tend to think that everything outside the USA is irelevent so why would they copy a good idea like building in brick or concrete blocks or whatever.
Don't forget that if you lived all your life somewhere all the houses are wood and they fall down everytime there is a storm you probably think that is way house should behave.
maybe thats the answer qapmoc.
perhaps wooden houses are easier to repair than brick. if a brick house is damaged it becomes unstable an needs a major rebuild - wood may not.
perhaps they've worked out that the severity of their quakes will damage both types of house, but one will be less hassle to fix.
can any americans confirm or poopoo this??
Bricks retain heat, so folks that live in the south (especially hurricane-prone areas like Florida, Texas, Louisiana, etc) opt for wood as it's easier to cool. Wood houses are easier to remodel (as a lot of people do - they buy a small, "starter" house, and once they get settled and earn more money, they like to start knocking out walls and expanding). Wood houses withstand earthquakes better. Brick doesn't "give," so if your house settles at all over the years, you'll end up with cracked walls. Bricks are far more expensive, and people are always thinking of the resale value of a house. You may build a nice, attractive, expensive brick house in X neighborhood today, but suppose by the time you want to sell, the neighborhood has gone downhill and buyers are scarce? You'll never make your money back.
Originally from California - in the central coast and my hometown is built on a fault line - The San Andreas Fault -! And the first time I saw a city with a majority of brick buildings was when I went to Denver, Colorado at the age of 21! Whether building houses out of wood is safer in Earthquake country, I can't really say, as most of our commercial buildings are made out of reinforced concrete!
What I can honestly say is that unlike in Britain, Americans just don't do "restoration" - we would rather knock the whole gosh darn thing down and start again from scratch. My English husband was shocked when I first took him home to California because of what he saw as houses made out of flimsy wood - no stronger than a shack! He was even more shocked when I told him that that shack would cost him $600,000 USD.
It's the American Way.