Longevity of modern construction?
 

In another thread (Are you happy you made TV your retirement home?) I saw a couple of comments that disturbed me, and raised an issue only tangentially related to that thread:

OBB wrote
I hate that people think a 20-year-old home is "old." I hate the mentality behind that. Again - where I come from - an "old" home was built prior to 1925, and there are thousands of them in the New England area that function just fine, are well-insulated, have withstood dozens of nor'easters, and are beautiful.

And JLB replied
As far as 20-year-old houses being "old", I hear you. But given that nobody builds great houses like they did 100 years ago (at least, for those that could afford it), even expensive houses of today age far more quickly than they should. We are in a throw-away world, sadly.

So let's talk about this. I live in a home built in 1950. Is construction of the 1990s or 2000s fundamentally inferior? What's this stuff about homes aging far more quickly?
Are preowned homes older than a few years bad? Can someone cite examples?
(Thanks to all who reply.)

roofs are only good for 15 years , per your home insurance. and only 1 layer. homes are not aging faster, the quality is lacking. you put cheap stuff in and it wont last. 1950 to 2024 big difference.

Let's start with this reality, which I think a lot of people don't consider or realize. A developer is producing a product to SELL. Period. Same as a manufacturer of jeans, cookies, tires, etc.

A relevant difference is that the maker of the last 3 products mentioned would really prefer you to be a lifelong customer so, they likely won't cut corners too sharply. A housing developer (not speaking about TV with this comment b/c it's a bit different than general housing) will very possibly only make one sale to an individual/couple, ever. So, their motivation for great quality is not as high. Especially if their buyer demographic is economically moderate or lower - they don't expect superior quality.

So, the bottom line is: the developers primary concern is SELLING the product, secondary concern is having it be good enough to withstand the warranty period without costing too much along with it not being so junky that negative reviews get around the community and make it tougher to sell new developments.

All of that lines-up with using the most inexpensive products that will still have a reasonable lifespan and getting the houses built as fast as possible (time is money) but, that sometimes means the build-quality is not the best because of haste or using lesser experienced subcontractors.

When I lived in Western NC, I had a 1963, 4-sides brick, raised ranch. The drive-under garage along with the large, daylight basement area was unfinished. When I had a contractor and framers there to do some finishing they marveled at how well-built the house was because they could see the raw undersides, foundation, etc. One of them said, "This era was when tradesmen still had pride of workmanship." I asked him, "What era doesn't evidence that?" He whipped his head around and replied, "New builds." Then he ranted for a minute about a fairly fancy newer development in town. He said, "the designs and details all look nice but, materials and workmanship are junk."

There were updates to the Florida building code in the mid nineties as a reaction to hurricane damage. This includedstronger garage door reinforcements. HVAC efficiency standards as well as water heater standards have changed as well.

What you say about older homes built better your probably right.
To build those homes today like those in the 1920's, 30's, 40's, and 50's would cost thousands more just
to have access to the quality of wood etc..

Also new homes today, 80% of the building comes out of a warehouse where the contractor
stock piles the junk, windows, faucets, doors, cabinets, and bought at a discount by the truck load which limits
our choices of styles and colors.

Then again at our age, even new builds today will be standing long after we leave this earth at 5X the price. :shrug:

The Villages needs to allow Metal and Tile roofs! Asphalt shingle roofs are a wast of money and they are charging 3x what they should to do the replacement.

I always wondered how metal roofs stand up in a hail storm?

Also, I doubt most people wouldn't invest $50,000 in a metal roof.
Even if they did, imagine their insurance premiums. :22yikes:

With tile they would have to build a stronger roof. I would imagine you can do metal roofs here. Brother has this up north and it looks much like regular asphalt shingles.
Pricey but very durable:
https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=adc5f...oaW5nbGU&ntb=1

There are a lot of things about these houses that are pretty poor quality, starting with the cheap plastic plumbing sticking out of the wall at every plumbing fixture. But this house is still the strongest house I've ever lived in. It's much better built than my 1990 brick ranch house in Houston that survived two Cat-5 hurricanes without a scratch. With wind-rated double-pane windows, steel studs, and concrete block walls, this house seems likely to survive at least a century longer than I need it, hurricane or not. It's certainly built better than the home where I started out -- a two-bedroom 1910 Craftsman, with knob-and-tube wiring, asbestos siding, cast iron plumbing, coal-fired floor furnace, and no air conditioning, in tornado-alley Wichita. And yet I can go on Google Maps and see that house standing to this day. It's outlived the giant elm trees that used to line that street when I was a kid, by at least 50 years.

Both roof types already exist within The Villages.

True. And all of the homes in The Villages apart from the Historical District are under that code. I’m not a builder, but I read Fine Homebuilding and The Journal of Light Construction cover to cover for a quarter century and designed and built my own home and restored a couple others (one a two hundred year old log cabin). Every home requires upkeep, including roofing, paint, HVAC, etc. My sense, based on seeing construction methods here and seeing a lot of homes, is that homes in The Villages are very well built, and if maintained, they should last a century. Perhaps “they don’t build them like they used to,” but building methods have changed. Steel studs, roof trusses, much better windows than were used in the sixties in Florida, more insulation, safer. You don’t need to worry about the quality of construction here, and don’t listen to the people on here who don’t really know much about building methods. Yes, the fixtures are contractor grade, which isn’t the best, but they work. Yes, I wish there were even more insulation, but I’ve seen worse. The Villages looks beautiful, and under that beauty is good bones.

I believe the house is fine, the decorating and cosmetics are old. The homes here are aging fine as far as construction.

Just to add, a lot of areas including HVAC are engineered in our homes meaning someone took time to figure out which sides of the home get the afternoon hot sun and add more HVAC in those rooms. These homes are very well built but as someone pointed out, the cabinets are builder grade so a pre-owned home with lots of upgrades is probably a better deal.

House
 

I think the houses are reasonably well built - and yes roofs don't last as long here as up north due to other factors than not installed correctly

In today's economy, fewer than 1% would be able to afford a home of the quality to which you refer. Instead if $400k, the cost would exceed $2m.