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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

> if you go into an average house right now and you take out all the screens, could you tell that you're not in the 80s?

Yes. Even the cheapest house built to code will be noticeably better than one from 1980s. The quality of materials, technology of materials, wiring, plumbing, flooring, insulation, etc will all be better.

> The difference between a car right now and a car 30 years ago is that you can now play angry birds on a tablet

Not true, for similar reasons as above. Name a 2022 Corolla equivalent that could be purchased in the 1980s, safety, fuel efficiency, and reliability wise, at a similar inflation adjusted price. No 1980s car will even come close, and that is just for the most basic car today.

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My house was built in the early 60s, has hardwood flooring throughout, copper plumbing, the wiring is all in hard conduit, the 2x4's are actually a bit thicker than today's, and of a higher grade. The original windows are still functioning, though not as efficient as modern ones. The appliances are modern because they've all been replaced.

Today's house in the same region uses lower grade lumber, carpeted floors, Romex, and plastic plumbing.

Agreed about the Corolla. I owned a second hand 80s Corolla, and it was the best car I had ever experienced up to that point, but a second hand Corolla would be so much better today.

You can still get those things from your 60s house, it will simply cost more (adjusted for inflation).

But I do not see how quality of life are any worse with LVT flooring instead of wood, or PEX plumbing instead of copper, or wiring in a hard conduit instead of not wiring in a hard conduit. I would even say quality of life is better. Why would I want to wax wood, and have a more difficult to repair floor. An LVT piece gets damaged, I just pop it out and put a new one in.

Effectively, advances in materials technology has made a home cheaper, and better in my opinion. I would buy a random 2022 house over a random 1960s house anyday.

Homes today are cheaper than the 60s? The 60s where a single earner family, where the earner was a schoolteacher, could afford a house before having kids?

The materials for the home are cheaper (adjusted for increase in quality/utility). For example, insulating a house to the same level is cheaper today than in previous decades. Same with the plumbing and flooring and many other advances where plastics technologies made a lot of things cheaper and safer too.

Land in certain locations of course a different matter, as well as labor.

There's no way the run-up in housing prices is all land. In 1960 the average house price was 11,700... about 115,000 in 2022 dollars. I'm 51 and have built several houses. Since I was 22 and started being interested in real estate, the rule of thumb was 20% land, 80% house for the value of a new build. That means the average house in 1960 (no land) was probably about 98,000 to build in 2022 dollars.

The average house size in 1960 was 1200 sqft, so call that $82/sqft in 2022 dollars.

The US average cost to build a new house in 2021 was $124/sqft. Meanwhile, the construction workers building the house were getting paid on average $6933/yr ($67,700 in 2022 dollars) whereas a construction worker now averages $47,000/yr.

So the labor costs have gone down by 30%, but the price of the house has gone up by 51%.

The materials might be better or they might be worse, but they're sure not making houses cheaper.

The hardwood floors sound nice, but as far as I’m aware plastic plumbing is much more preferable over copper.

Need to fix a leak in a copper pipe? Get ready to weld and bend pipes. Need to fix a plastic pipe? Unscrew that section, and screw in a new one. No drama.

You can use sharkbite for easy fixes on copper.

Quality seems to go through ups and downs, probably in line with economic cycles and periods of scarcity. Here, houses built in the 20s and earlier were made with high quality lumber that is scarcely available these days. I notice that rebuilders and renovations of these old houses are careful to maintain the base wood layers even when they completely strip the facing and almost everything else.

Also, there are billions more people who demand wood for their shelter. Is it reasonable to expect that quality of wood, which I assume is almost purely a function of time, to maintain the same accessibility?

That wood doesn't exist any more. It's water under the bridge.

I'm not sure that billions of people build houses with wood. It's definitely an American thing, Europe not so much (bricks and concrete.) China is concrete. India? South America? Mexico? Africa?

Because they do not have ample wood, not even the lower quality type farmed in US/Canada today. More specifically, the supply of the type of old school high quality wood being talked about in previous comments from 1920s and whatnot would certainly be impossible to satisfy global demand. Which is also a big reason why it is not used now. You can get it, it is just extremely expensive.

Modern houses have PEX plumbing. It has some advantages over copper, e.g. it won't burst if it freezes. But the main advantage -- it's less labor to install.

> But the main advantage -- it's less labor to install.

Another huge advantage is you can easily do plastic pipe plumbing yourself. You just need one clamping tool, that costs less than one hour of plumbing labour would cost. Plumbing with copper piping or steel pipes requires way more time, skill, and expensive tools.

PVC drain pipes are also simple to install correctly: a tape measure, a saw, and some PVC solvent cement is all you need for simple jobs.

PEX doesn't corrode like copper will. Depending on your local water this may not be an issue you notice, but one house I had it was an issue.

But will PEX harden over the years and eventually crack like most plastics?

Probably not - the plastics harden are a different type with different properties. The industry was burned with early plastics that did have problems and is paying attention to this. PE has been used in plumbing for more than 50 years with no problems, PEX should last even longer.

Assuming you follow directions of course: PEX has zero UV resistance and if exposed to the sun for a couple months will break down and be useless.

I have lived in "luxury" apartments lately and they're all filled with the cheapest possible materials. More "advanced" in that as much as possible things are build of engineered materials which end up being a sort of wood and glue foam which are definitely not meant to last.

“Luxury” is simply a marketing term and has no importance.

The relevant question is how do the cheapest materials today compares to the cheapest materials in the 1980s?

I dunno, spending $4000/mo in Mountain View, you tend to have a few expectations. (in other words, it is more or less impossible to rent anything of actual quality)

The garbage materials of today didn't exist nearly as much in the 80s so they'd have to have used at least cheap solid wood instead of sawdust foam.

That is related to supply and demand of land/housing units. I do not see what it has to do with progress or lack thereof in building materials.

You're paying $3999/month for the land and $1/month for the building materials. The luxury is that you probably chose Mountain View so you can bike to your office, which is more enjoyable than driving.

> garbage materials of today didn't exist nearly as much in the 80s

Most of the 80s homes I have looked at have plenty of garbage materials: wasn’t the 80s when polystyrene decorative mouldings started being popular? Polystyrene houses and leaky building syndrome are definitely an 80s thing, but crappy claddings[2] have existed since the 20s.

There are plenty of garbage homes made with a variety of different garbage materials in the decades before that e.g. ticky-tacky[1]. Different types of particle board have been around for a while.

Watch out for embedded asbestos fibre in stucco ceilings or external claddings especially before the 80s - that shit can really tank resale value because it is hideously expensive to remove (vendor doesn’t legally have to declare it {in New Zealand}, but at some point in the future I expect that will be required).

Cheap and terrible homes and apartments are built in any decade or century. The Road to Wigan Pier written in 1937 talks about the crappy old brick homes in the UK. Survival bias and “the good old days” can make us think old homes are better.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boxes

[2] https://soundhomesnz.co.nz/what-type-of-cladding-does-your-h...

> Watch out for embedded asbestos fibre in stucco ceilings or external claddings especially before the 80s - that shit can really tank resale value because it is hideously expensive to remove (vendor doesn’t legally have to declare it {in New Zealand}, but at some point in the future I expect that will be required).

Best not to remove asbestos unless it is flaking and unpainted. Disturbing it is likely to make things worse. It lasts forever and has incredible insulative properties despite its toxic nature.

Almost all older homes (pre 1973 I think) have lead paint too with the same caveat to not disturb it unless absolutely necessary. Lead plumbing is a different matter and should be removed unless possibly it is a sewage pipe.

Resale prices are relative to other homes in the neighborhood. If all the other homes are old too, then they all have the same toxic building materials so no devaluation is likely.

I read something along the lines of 'a stock 2020 Camero is faster than a 2000 Ferrari' with fewer cylinders

Most name brand supercars are just dumping fuel into the engine and making it sound impressive. They don't have the engineering prowess to develop a refined power train like a big manufacturer. Nowadays emissions regulations force them to team up with a more competent player which is why the least sucky Huracan is the R8.

> Even the cheapest house built to code will be noticeably better than one from 1980s. The quality of materials, technology of materials, wiring, plumbing, flooring, insulation, etc will all be better.

This is definitely not true. Old houses have solid lumber, new ones are lightweight softwoods. Copper pipes replaced with plastic. Maybe Marble kitchens are nicer? More energy efficient is likely. Certainly 30 something families can't afford big suburban houses like their parents/grandparents.

What utility does the solid lumber provide over the lightweight softwoods? What utility does the copper provide over plastic?

For lightweight softwood, I can at least think of the utility that it will be cheaper. And for plastic over copper plumbing, same thing, it will cost less, but it will also be more resistant to corrosion and easier to repair.

It serves the utility of not being able to hear people breathe on the other side of the home. Speaking as someone who grew up in old New England colonial houses, I'd say that if anyone wants to understand why Californians build so many tech products without privacy, one needn't look any further than the lack of privacy to which they grew accustomed in their homes.

That has exactly zero to do with the lumber. Nothing at all. In fact heavy dense lumber would transmit sound better than a light wood.

I have a new house built from this 'crap' wood you distain, and you can't hear people in the next room because it has sound deadening materials in the walls.

If your house has sound deadening material inside the interior walls, then you must have a custom built home. Almost all spec homes have nothing but air in those interior wall spaces.

If it is "definitely not true" as you claim, surely someone has done an analysis and published data on electrical, flooring, structural strength, etc. Lets see some of that. Data is easier to discuss than opinions.

Everything in modern home construction is about minimizing labor and material costs. That involves major cutbacks on quality as well. Whatever corner cutting a builder can get away with will be done.

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