Comments on: Older houses: Living better with less?

By: threadbndr

threadbndr — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:07:42 +0000

I have a 75 yr old Craftsman style bungalow. I love older houses. They have a lot more character that construction in the last few years (both good and bad points there LOL). I know what you mean about being ‘people sized’.

I have a friend who lives in a “McMansion” – the house is quite nice, but her utility bills – OMG WTF? I refuse to spend one paycheck a month to heat and cool the place and pay to fill the pool!!!

By: Carnival of Money Stories

Carnival of Money Stories — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:21:49 +0000

[...] presents Older houses: Living better with less? posted at Funny about [...]

By: Vickey

Vickey — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 14:40:44 +0000

Re “styrofoam is eminently flammable”
And waaay more toxic when it burns. Creates all kinds of airborne particulate nasties.

“To find the cause of central city problems, follow the money trail.”
And for many widespread problems these days, eh?

By: funny

funny — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:36:20 +0000

@ frugalscholar and Revanche: The house my ex- and I had in the city’s historic section would be 80 years old now. It did have high ceilings…so high, in fact, that even after the ceilings had been lowered to accommodate air-conditioning ductwork (it was built before AC was invented), it still had a 16-foot ceiling in the living room and about 12-foot ceilings everywhere else. But it was gorgeous. The proportions of the rooms–the square footage to the volume–seemed to work better. It’s hard to put one’s finger on the difference…maybe the fact that the high ceilings were functional in that house whereas they’re only decorative in the newer houses, and they’re all the same height no matter what the space. Because of the way the building was designed and laid out on the lot, that house did not become uncomfortably warm until exterior temperatures went over 100 degrees. It wasn’t cheap to air-condition, but it didn’t have to be air-conditioned as much as a newer house does…something has been forgotten over the past eight decades.

The plastic and styrofoam construction, however, is better insulated. The historic house’s thick, solid block walls functioned just like a trombé wall: when days were hot and nights were cool, the west wall would stay cool until about 4 or 5 p.m., when it would be begin to radiate warmth into the rooms on that side. A styrofoam-padded wall — or even one made of Superlite block, with holes in the center — doesn’t do that. On the other hand, styrofoam is eminently flammable.

@ Synapse: Around here, there certainly were houses that were shoddily built sixty years ago. Whole swaths of development around here were cheap junk when they were built, and now they’re old cheap junk. We used to call them “instant slums.”

People speculate that the styrofoam suburbs will become slums in short order. I don’t think that’s going to happen, busted bubble or not. In the first place, many of the new houses are quite attractive: the design can be very handsome. Second, it’s the schools. People who live in historic central districts by and large have no children, or else they can afford to put their kids in private schools. We put our son in private school because by kindergarten he hadn’t learned to use a knife or a club, and because our neighbors discovered their boy had reached the end of the first grade without learning to read a word — he had been memorizing the books as the teacher read them to the class and then bringing them home and reciting them. They got suspicious when they realized he couldn’t read a stop sign or a billboard. Until we upgrade our central-city public schools, we will have sprawl.

IMHO, in Sunbelt areas like mine, where vast amounts of money are to be made in building housing tracts, there’s a powerful element in the leadership that does not want to improve central-city schools, transportation, and other infrastructure. To find the cause of central city problems, follow the money trail.

By: synapse

synapse — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:33:32 +0000

It makes sense that the older houses you see now are going to be somewhat better constructed. If someone built a shoddy house 60 years ago, it would have fallen apart or been razed by now; only people who have serious skills would be looking at them.

By: Revanche

Revanche — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 03:35:39 +0000

Character makes up for all kinds of deficiencies of the extravagant kind. Those houses are kinda interesting to walk through and remark upon, but mostly in a museum sort of way: you don’t really want to live there. At least, I don’t think so. The only thing I might envy is the preconceived notion that all that extra space and air might seem cooler because my much smaller home seems oppressively hot in comparison to my friend’s over-large, luxurious Tahoe home. Turns out, the real difference is that they’ll run the a/c, cooling all 3000 sq. feet, where I won’t cool a 1000 sq. foot. home! That’s the difference between us and the rich folk: money for coolth!

By: frugalscholar

frugalscholar — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:37:59 +0000

Our one un-frugal purchase was our almost 100 yo house, with 12 foot ceilings, 10 ft windows, and wood floors. Love it!