Author Topic: Why build frame houses? (Read 5458 times)

Oleg Volk · « **on:** January 18, 2006, 07:03:02 PM »

Why hardly anyone in the US, even those with luxury homes, get flimsy frame houses instead of brick, stone, reinforced concrete, etc? Sheetrock isn't exactly the most classy wall material, though cheap. Can't concrete blocks be pre-cast with channels for plumbing and wires? Seems that sturdier materials would resist hurricanes and tornados better...

Felonious Monk/Fignozzle · « **Reply #1 on:** January 18, 2006, 07:17:41 PM »

Cost. People will take the risk that their home will never get hit by a once in 50 years catastrophic hurricane, so they can add the extra bedroom and the dedicated den/workout room.

Just a guess, but I'd put money on it.

Guest · « **Reply #2 on:** January 18, 2006, 07:23:21 PM »

In California and elsewhere, earthquakes are an issue. You need something that can wiggle.

brimic · « **Reply #3 on:** January 18, 2006, 07:27:01 PM »

Lumber is cheap and it takes a lot less labor to build a stick house, making these houses even cheaper yet. Stone requires a lot of skilled labor, and a lot of stone that is fairly consistant in shape an size. My wife and I and her family have spent the many weekends over the last 6 years building a vacation home in the UP. The outside is 1/2 stone/ 1/2 siding. We spent many days scrounging rock piles on local farms to get enough workable stone and in the end had to pay another $400 each family to have a truckload of fieldstone brought in to supplemnt the material we scrounged. The interior has very little sheetrock, its mostly tung and groove knotty pine- again a lot of expense and at least 10x as much labor. We built a stone chimney to support a woodstove in the basement and a fireplace on the main floor, the fireplace being made from fieldstone. The chimney/fireplace alone took us 1 year to build, an experienced stonemason who is a friend of our family's looked at it and said he would have charged $40,000 to do a job like that.

Standing Wolf · « **Reply #4 on:** January 18, 2006, 08:58:12 PM »

Quote

Can't concrete blocks be pre-cast with channels for plumbing and wires?

I'm sure they could be; I'm equally sure pre-cast concrete would make an excellent house-building material.

The problem, I'd guess, is that there's no very large market for solidly constructed houses. I know a fellow who dropped $300,000 into a frame and chip board house last summer. It's already developed warps, gaps, and squeaks. He figures that kind of sloppy construction is just inevitable. I figure they saw him coming, but I also have to figure he's the norm.

Guest · « **Reply #5 on:** January 18, 2006, 09:26:33 PM »

The prevailing construction methods in any given area usually depend on the available resources and the climate. For most of the U.S. wood is a logical choice and the most abundant/cheap option. I would imagine that lumber is much more expensive in Europe, leaving stone as a more viable option.

zahc · « **Reply #6 on:** January 18, 2006, 09:45:07 PM »

My parents built a cedar log home. It is very cool, and sturdy, and easy to heat. But it was so much harder to build.

280plus · « **Reply #7 on:** January 18, 2006, 11:12:55 PM »

yup, cheaper and easier to find the workers, faster too (in most cases). Not many guys around here (Connecticut) can build anything but framed houses. I know one guy that builds log houses. Each nail is a 12" spike that he must drive in with a 3 lb sledge. He can only manage one house a year. He's not sure how many he has left in him. Very heavy labor intensive. Beautiful homes though. I've seen one modern stone house in my days. All roundstone. Owned by a very rich developer. He left a natural boulder in place and built the house around it. So there was a HUGE boulder in his living room. There was another on a platform in the pool. The coolest part was he built a guests quarters out in the back that was a reduced scale replica of the main house. As far as concrete block. Lot's of commercial buildings are done this way but all the wiring and plumbing are hidden either in the ceilings or behind sheetrock "veneer" (if you will) walls in the interior. No real need to cast special blocks. It would take a long time for something like that to catch on and in the meantime this would cause prices of the "new" blocks to be elevated which in turn would further work against attempts to market them. One thing about builders. They are all terrified of stepping away from what has always worked for them to try something new. Call them "set in their ways". Specially here in New England.

brimic · « **Reply #8 on:** January 18, 2006, 11:30:43 PM »

Quote

Each nail is a 12" spike that he must drive in with a 3 lb sledge. He can only manage one house a year.

I've helped to build a few log homes. One of the techniques is to stand on top of the logs with a drill that's 3' long and drill down through the log wall then pound a stake through to tie the logs together. Its insanely hard work.

280plus · « **Reply #9 on:** January 18, 2006, 11:41:35 PM »

yea, I can't remember if he drilled or not. I think he did.

Quote

Its insanely hard work.

+1 on that

Beautiful homes though. I want one but by the time I can afford it he'll probably have retired. Sad

TarpleyG · « **Reply #10 on:** January 19, 2006, 04:29:14 AM »

All the houses here in south Florida are built out of concrete block (CBS or cinder block). Built a hell of a lot better than anything in most parts of the country and from what I saw in homes prices here 6 years or so ago (before the housing boom here), it's not appreciably more to build than a frame house. Not sure why more builders elsewhere don't use this method.

Greg

roo_ster · « **Reply #11 on:** January 19, 2006, 04:33:54 AM »

All the above are good explanations.

Here in DFW, we have shifting, expanding, and contracting soils. Gets wet, it expands. Gets dry, it contracts. Even the more robust slab & concrete block commercial buildings have their foundations heave. In 20 years, a warehouse floor or any particularly large slab structure will look more like a washboard and less like a plane of glass.

The stick & drywall construction will show cracks in the drywall, but won't usually give way like a cinder block wall might. If your house foundation is pier & beam, send a tunnel rat under it with a bottle jack & some cedar shims...something a homeowner can do. If it is a slab, get ready to hire a company to dig around your foundation and THROUGH the middle of your living room to install piers to hold up the foundation...to the tune of ~$500/pier.

Large office buildings use seriously strong & resilient reinforced concrete pilings/piers sunk WAAAAAY deep.

brimic · « **Reply #12 on:** January 19, 2006, 04:52:42 AM »

Up here, its required to pour a footing or 'frost wall' that goes 4' below the frost line that the foundation sits on. Pretty much anything that isn't sitting on a footing or doesn't have a lot of room for 'give' will get mangled up in short order.

Q? what does lumber cost down in Florida? Up here at least you can buy low grade 2x4 wall studs for under $2 a piece.
Another thing I can think of is that up here, outside walls are typically 2x6 allowing for a good 5" of insulation inside the walls.

K Frame · « **Reply #13 on:** January 19, 2006, 05:34:53 AM »

Steel is making big inroads here in the central Atlantic. It's still framing, but it replaces wood with pre-engineered systems that essentially bolt together. No, or very little, cutting involved.

onions! · « **Reply #14 on:** January 19, 2006, 05:47:02 AM »

I was thinking about concrete a while back.When ever the news is showing Israel or the Far East most of the structures are concrete.It seems that quite a bit of the new construction,both residential & commercial,in mainland China is made up of concrete structures.My paternal parental unit makes yearly business trips to China & has expressed almost shock @ just how fast whole towns can be poured.

This is an interesting link
http://www.concretehomesmagazine.com/monthly/art.php?1839

I've seen others that mention a 200(!)year expected life span for a 1800sq ft concrete home.

mtnbkr · « **Reply #15 on:** January 19, 2006, 05:54:12 AM »

Quote from: Mike Irwin

Steel is making big inroads here in the central Atlantic. It's still framing, but it replaces wood with pre-engineered systems that essentially bolt together. No, or very little, cutting involved.

A friend of mine used to live in a steel frame house in Sterling. Other than not being able to easily drill into the "studs", it was just like any other house.

Chris

brimic · « **Reply #16 on:** January 19, 2006, 06:04:36 AM »

Another thing nice about steel studs, is that termites won't eat them.

280plus · « **Reply #17 on:** January 19, 2006, 07:04:56 AM »

You'd be amazed at how many giant sized high end McMansions have 2x4 outside walls. At least here anyways. I can't believe people will hand over $500,000 plus for a house with 2x4 walls. "Here's the library, the music room, the den, the TV room, etc" etc." Meanwhile I'm thinking, "This is all very nice but the house is only made of 2x4 walls." rolleyes

Art Eatman · « **Reply #18 on:** January 19, 2006, 08:19:27 AM »

Ya gotta compare labor intensive with materials intensive, and the relative costs for each.

Before the 1960s, generally and on a comparative basis, labor was cheap and materials were expensive. So, more rock or brick homes in the middle- and upper-middle-class homes.

The changes in relative costs for labor and materials, plus the construction concept of things like Levittown after WW II, a crew could come in, do a slab, another crew would frame and roof a house and then another crew would finish it. Stick construction meant fast construction times and less tie-up of the builder's line of credit.

If you want fairly up-to-date construction, go with R-30 foamed wall panels in steel frames. R-30 above the ceiling. Heat with a match; cool with an ice cube.

Very fast construction time. Inert materials, from a weather and termite standpoint.

I was 60 when I built my present house. I know my son isn't interested in living in Terlingua, so why build for a long, long lifespan for the house? Stick frame. RufTex panelling inside and out. 2x6 studs for the west and north walls; R19. Full length porches, east and west sides, so little sun load. R30 above the ceiling.

I ran the foundation job. I hired a guy to build the basic box; five men dried it in in eight days. I then took over. Five months of my labor; one month for BossLady. House, separate garage, 14 acres surveyed for the "lot"; water system; furniture and appliances: 1,400 sq ft at $33/sq ft. Not bad for an Old Fart.

If it lasts another ten or fifteen years, I'm golden.

, Art

stevelyn · « **Reply #19 on:** January 20, 2006, 03:29:06 AM »

Brick, stone, block buildings don't fare well here in the frozen north, especially on ground that can be subjected to frost heaves. Then there is the problem with conduction due to the cold temperatures. They're not worth the headache. Gimme a frame or log home any day. Steel is also starting to make inroads here too.

Art Eatman · « **Reply #20 on:** January 20, 2006, 05:18:49 AM »

Down here in the desert SW, adobe has long been a staple building item, along with rock. But, labor intensive. ("In Terlingua, rock is a renewable resource.") Enterprising folks--with strong backs--haul rock for free, and/or make their own adobe bricks.

Quite a few house are now being built of hay bales. Concrete slab, steel supports for the roof structure. Coatings over the hay are the same as for adobe. I haven't checked as to the R value, but it's high.

Art

Neophyte · « **Reply #21 on:** January 20, 2006, 03:26:51 PM »

I've seen a couple of news pieces on Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) buildings, where - just like it sounds - you pour the footer, frame the house with precut and shaped foam forms and fill with concrete. You end up with reinforced concrete walls from 6-12" - much stronger and quieter than the standard stick-built house.

Advantages over stick homes: higher strength, better noise reduction, better insect resistance, better fire resistance, (maybe) lower costs depending on your location and available building supplies and labor, and greater energy savings (due to the preexisting insulation and reduced air infiltration)

Possible disadvantanges: costs (see above), greater planning needed to avoid airflow problems and condensation, all utility passthroughs should be planned carefully before the pour (although you can cut holes after the concrete's set, it's still a pain), usually a smaller pool of contractors familiar with ICF buildings, and possibly lower resale value since it's non-standard (again, depending on location).

There's lots of sites on ICF out there - a Google search led me to QuadLock's FAQ. They've got a good overview of the process (and, of course, why you should buy from them instead of the others

).

If I were to build a house from scratch I'd look hard at ICF, but that's just me.
(And no, I'm not a builder or financially involved or anything, I'm just interested in it.)

Harold Tuttle · « **Reply #22 on:** January 20, 2006, 09:14:50 PM »

ever been in a hay bale / stucco building?

Nice and sturdy and very well insulated

ya just gotta make sure the mice stay out

Fjolnirsson · « **Reply #23 on:** January 20, 2006, 09:40:46 PM »

Here's something interesting. Polystyrene board, sprayed with a liquid that dries "as hard as concrete".
http://www.grancrete.net/grancrete_overview12.htm

Sounds neat.

280plus · « **Reply #24 on:** January 21, 2006, 03:38:02 AM »

Won't the hay rot after a while?

News:

Author Topic: Why build frame houses? (Read 5458 times)

Felonious Monk/Fignozzle

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onions!