Are all your houses predominantly made of out wood?

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Phil_ODendron@reddit

>I really don’t see that as a good idea in the southern states with more potentially severe weather like Florida, having wood instead of brick. This question comes up all the time. The answer is that you don't really understand the severity of the weather here. A hurricane or tornado destroys a brick house too.

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alicein420land_@reddit

Counterpoint: having a brick house worked out fine in The Three Little Pigs.

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Hoosier_Jedi@reddit

We literally had some Euro try and pull that as “proof” wood housing was inferior.

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itsjustmo_@reddit

Do you know that Americans are just stupid McStupidians who do everything stupidly?!

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internetboyfriend666@reddit

Yes, they do actually think that

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Jolly_Ad_2363@reddit

Because America dumb remember?

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Lopoetve@reddit

240Km/h winds don’t care what it’s made of. You’re gone.

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Appropriate-Food1757@reddit

Also flooding is the Maine problem wort hurricanes

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whatisakafka@reddit

Yeah, you really need structural steel or insulated concrete forms

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m00nriveter@reddit

That or someone clearly wasn’t paying attention in preschool the day “The Three Little Pigs” was the story of the day.

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Sabertooth767@reddit

Brick doesn't fare much better in the type of extreme weather we get.

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Savings-Position4946@reddit

A brick facade house correct—many of these in the South. A house built of cinderblock & brick will be stronger than a stick house. But those are extremely rare in the South because of costs.

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Appropriate-Food1757@reddit

I have some brick, spackled over the wood in parts

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Weekly_Guidance_498@reddit

And then it's better at crushing you

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_Smedette_@reddit

I’m from the earthquake part of the US. You don’t want to be in a stone house when one hits.

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Kitzira@reddit

Florida has a fair amount of cinder block built homes, especially nearby the coast. However in the last few years, something changed & wood frame houses make up most new neighborhoods. Will be interesting how they hold up with the next hurricanes. (The area we're in doesn't get direct hits, but brush-bys with Cat 2s.) When I lived in Texas, they were all wood frame often with 3 sides of brick. But tornadoes don't care, they'll knock down concrete walls of shopping centers & trap ppl in heavy rubble instead.

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No-Lunch4249@reddit

It's cheap because it's very readily available in North America and also wood frame construction allows for rapid completion of projects

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ghunt81@reddit

We live in the mid-Atlantic. Our house was built in 1938, it's brick outside with wood framing inside and plaster-lath walls.

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AppropriateDark5189@reddit

Our house was built in the 70s. Brick exterior, wood frame but regular drywall. It’s solid. The only noises we hear are through the windows.

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evil_burrito@reddit

Wood is a lot cheaper here. In seismically unstable areas, it's much more expensive to use masonry of any kind due to the extra support and shoring it needs, compared to wood.

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SisyphusRocks7@reddit

Brick houses are illegal on the West Coast because of earthquake risk.

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Adjective-Noun123456@reddit

>potentially severe weather like Florida Brick goes down just as easy as wood does with the kind of weather we get. That's why we use this newfangled thing called *concrete*.

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kinnikinnick321@reddit

Just for size comparison, you can fit **40** UK land masses into the size of the US. You have to remember there are a greater variety of natural disturbances that affect different geographic regions of the US.

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CHICAG0AT@reddit

A tornado or hurricane is going to smash through anything in front of it Would you rather be covered in wood or brick?

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Eric848448@reddit

Wood is better in earthquakes too. It will bend somewhat without breaking.

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Dangerous-Safe-4336@reddit

And if your house does collapse, you have a better chance of surviving if it's wood.

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alienprincess022@reddit

Also, if you built a brick house in Texas, you’d be burning up. It’s consistently 100°F+ over several months. We’d essentially live inside an oven.

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FunTricky903@reddit

I would like you to explain to me what you think a brick house is going to do against a tornado.

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tujelj@reddit

Unreinforced brick buildings are prone to collapse in earthquakes, so in a lot of the western US, they’re not viable.

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NPHighview@reddit

It's highly location-dependent. I grew up in Chicago, which suffered a catastrophic fire in 1871. As a result, all subsequent construction had to be masonry (brick, stone, etc.), at least on the exterior. Our 1906 home had oak lumber framing, lath and plaster internal finishing, and a brick exterior. All interior wiring has to be done in fireproof metal conduit (tubing) as well. Later, we moved to suburban Los Angeles. There is almost no masonry, which collapses catastrophically in earthquakes, so most homes are made of wood framing with stucco (a textured concrete mixture applied over hexagonal chicken wire stapled to the wood framing). This construction method became extremely popular after WWII due to its low cost and rapid deployment, but it wears poorly.

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James_T_S@reddit

I'm a Construction Manager in Arizona. Yep, wood framed houses. Here in Az they are wrapped in mostly stucco. Other areas where it freezes they do vinyl siding...or even cement board siding. But as far as I know it's mostly wood framing across the country

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Northman86@reddit

Brick does worse than wood in high wind storms, basically they just fall over. Wood flexes. that said. most homes are unlikely to be directly hit by a tornado or Hurricane. Wood is also abundant and cheap, and this is often literally the first building ever built on a plot of land, outside of places like chicago, which bans would buildings since the great fire, wood is the most common home building material. Lastly. wood frame houses have space for much more effective insulation.

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gleaming-the-cubicle@reddit

>chicago, which bans would buildings since the great fire Damn you, Mrs O'Leary's cow!

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Comfortable-Fly5797@reddit

Wood is much safer in earthquakes.

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vwsslr200@reddit

South Florida is the one place in the US it's more common to have concrete block houses, as it's easier to comply with hurricane codes that way. But not required. What you're saying isn't true in all of the UK. Scotland for example is almost all wood frame on their new builds now. Same for Scandinavia - it's hardly unique to North America. Wood frame houses have a lot of advantages - they're easier to build in an airtight and well insulated manner compared to concrete block houses. And they're of course much cheaper where wood is abundant.

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Appropriate-Food1757@reddit

Yes

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MadMadamMimsy@reddit

Yes, most our homes are wood frames. You *really* don't want a building made of stone or brick anywhere that gets earthquakes

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Im_Not_Nick_Fisher@reddit

Check out Florida’s building codes. Then compare them to your local codes and see what is what then. FWIW most of the houses near me are constructed with concrete block. At least the first floor if there’s more than one floor.

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wpotman@reddit

Wood is considerably cheaper, in part because there simply isn't anyone buildng masonry houses anymore, and that can't be ignored given the cost of housing. It holds up well to seismic issues but, yes, not as well in hurricane or tornado country. Still, issues are rare and insurance exists.

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Fun_Inspector_8633@reddit

Yes most houses in the US are made of wood. When properly built they are very strong. It really doesn’t matter what they’re made from if they they’re hit by a category 5 hurricane or an EF-5 “dirt polisher” tornado. They’re going to disappear either way.

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Duemont8@reddit

I live in florida and most of the houses here are made with cement blocks for the hurricanes

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Ill-Butterscotch1337@reddit

Homes in the high risk areas of florida are typically made using concrete block stucco. There must be some misconception in the UK that wood frame homes are made of sticks and hay. Wood frame homes can stand up to severe weather and high winds pretty well.

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Traveller7142@reddit

It’s also far faster to construct wood framed walls compared to brick

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firerosearien@reddit

I have an older house with a modern addition; the original building is all stone, the addition is wood-framed.

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GhostWatcher007@reddit

Wood frame is most common.

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gleaming-the-cubicle@reddit

Google pictures of brick houses after hurricanes If the Storm Gods want your house, they're taking it

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Wild_Ticket1413@reddit

What's common varies by region, but wood is the most widely-used building material for homes in the U.S.

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SaltandLillacs@reddit

Mine is brick

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Eric848448@reddit

Structural brick?

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anneofgraygardens@reddit

Depends on region. There are a lot of brick houses in the Midwest, for instance. Wood is most common in California though. We have a lot of forests so wood is definitely the cheapest way to go.

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