New house build quality?

[VNTS]

It really depends on the builder and price point.

In general all new appliances are junk, stoves, refirgirators etc, go to Fixitnow.com and read. Energy star [censored]!

Per houses, I would rather have a quality built new home using good materails, mechanicals and electrical over old houses.

However You can build a POS house, slap some granite on the counters and Jacuzzi tub and women will bow down and sign on the dotted line LOL

 

[LoneRanger]

Is Tyvek house wrap over foam sheathing good or bad. I thought if you use foam sheathing, adding house wrap can make it too tight and moisture build up can possibly get trapped in the walls or something? Ours I think is 1" blue foam sheathing on 2 x 4 walls stuffed with fiberglass batting, wrapped in Tyvek, Pella Proline windows, brick veneer for the final cladding on main floor, vinyl siding as cladding on the upper 1/2 story. I'm thinking this is standard construction for the lower midwest.

 

[mpvue]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit


And those of you touting older homes? Yeah, there's nothing like 2X4 construction with little or no insulation, doors and windows that don't fit, water in the basement, and 80 year old cobbled together plumbing and electrical systems.


So, prey-tell, what is the difference between buying a new home that you have to babysit the construction of to get what you want, versus buying an old home and getting it re-wired and re-plumbed? Water in the basement is also usually easily dealt with.

And 2x4 construction? Not up here.

I like older homes (and by old, I mean 80+ years old) with their brick construction and boatloads of character. But am fully aware of the caveats of being a fan of such designs, which include of course re-wiring them if they are still knob and tube, and re-plumbing them, as they usually have steel pipes or iron/lead. We had to do a little re-wiring on our place (most of it had been done already) and plenty of re-plumbing, but if you can do the work yourself (my dad helps me with it, he loves reno) it is a heck of a lot cheaper, and can actually be quite enjoyable.

old house for me too. bought a Victorian twin circa 1900 in 1997 for $37K. spent lots over the years (I hate to think how much) on renovations and such, but the good stuff was all/still all there; foot thick brick walls, most all the trimwork intact, yellow pine floors, good plaster walls, most all original windows w/ good '70's era aluminum storm windows so they aren't drafty. knob and tube had been replaced years ago, as was the furnace which I switched from oil to gas.
old houses are never finished and working on them is enjoyable for the most part.

 

[sleddriver]

Sounds like they bought during the booming, inflated market where (some) houses were thrown up as fast as possible, and sold with fancy, glossy photos and little substance. Cheap electrical outlets & switches, bath fans, appliances, garbage disposers, lighting fixtures, etc. Similar with plumbing, HVAC ductwork, etc.

Just look at the cost of brass & copper, (ie plumbing & electrical). With appliances (and houses), 'appearances' can be very, very deceiving, particularly to a new homeowner.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: mpvue
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit


And those of you touting older homes? Yeah, there's nothing like 2X4 construction with little or no insulation, doors and windows that don't fit, water in the basement, and 80 year old cobbled together plumbing and electrical systems.


So, prey-tell, what is the difference between buying a new home that you have to babysit the construction of to get what you want, versus buying an old home and getting it re-wired and re-plumbed? Water in the basement is also usually easily dealt with.

And 2x4 construction? Not up here.

I like older homes (and by old, I mean 80+ years old) with their brick construction and boatloads of character. But am fully aware of the caveats of being a fan of such designs, which include of course re-wiring them if they are still knob and tube, and re-plumbing them, as they usually have steel pipes or iron/lead. We had to do a little re-wiring on our place (most of it had been done already) and plenty of re-plumbing, but if you can do the work yourself (my dad helps me with it, he loves reno) it is a heck of a lot cheaper, and can actually be quite enjoyable.

old house for me too. bought a Victorian twin circa 1900 in 1997 for $37K. spent lots over the years (I hate to think how much) on renovations and such, but the good stuff was all/still all there; foot thick brick walls, most all the trimwork intact, yellow pine floors, good plaster walls, most all original windows w/ good '70's era aluminum storm windows so they aren't drafty. knob and tube had been replaced years ago, as was the furnace which I switched from oil to gas.
old houses are never finished and working on them is enjoyable for the most part.


Exactly! My exterior walls are around 12", interiors are 8". Nothing 2x4 about that.

My upstairs has the aluminum storms, the downstairs still has the install/remove wooden ones circa the house's construction, which was 1914 IIRC.

The worst windows in the house are on the 3rd floor, they are those Pearson sliders and have the insulating value of a screen, LOL! I'm getting them replaced soon.

 

[wander2039]

I've always wondered about those floor i-beams seems like they wouldn't hold up as long as regular 2x12's etc. As far as insulation and old houses that can be true. But with spray foam and other insulation on the market any old house could be brought up to par with new houses. We have double pane vinyl windows.. and with the prices of windows most older homes are being upgraded. I know there can be exceptions both ways. In ground houses I've been are too cold for my standards.

Buying a new house and having a fan rattle within a few years is like buying a new car and the fan rattling in the same... how often does that happen these days. Cars seem to gotten better and houses the opposite.

 

[NJC]

Originally Posted By: mva
Plus, newer houses are better sealed and insulated which is pretty important in my area.

Which part of the province are you located?

 

[brianl703]

It's a little tough to build a quality product when you do your employment recruiting at the 7-11 parking lot every morning.

 

[aquariuscsm]

Only house I`ll ever buy is one that`s made from the 50s-70s. Real wood and NO sheetrock or faux wood. Plus,I have to have a real yard with real trees.

 

[01rangerxl]

How well a house is put together depends on the builder, but a lot more materials have become available to builders over the past couple of decades. Some have cheapened houses, some have made them better.

The first two houses I rented in college were built in the 1980s. They had real wood interior doors, real wood trim, and one had wood window frames. Personally, I like the wood and think it looks better than a lot of the materials seen in new builds, but it does have disadvantages in some applications. The wood window frames sucked...windows didn't slide well and the house was drafty. The metal frame windows in the other house were just as bad though. One house had masonite siding that looked like [censored], but that could have been avoided if the owner had painted the house when it needed it. One of the 1980s houses had all new appliances by the time I moved in, but the other was 100% original and everything still worked...kind of. HVAC and water heater were dying, but they had put in over 20 years of service. I think my favorite thing about the 1980s houses were the cool interior layouts. Balconies at the top of the stairs, etc.

My current house was built in 1999 by Pulte. It's built well, but they definitely saved some money on the materials. The interior trim is the cheap kind that has to be painted, there is laminate everywhere, the shutters are vinyl, there's stupid useless columns in the living room, a generic mini McMansion layout, and it basically looks like a generic late 90s house. That said, it has no problems and is built like a fortress. The vinyl windows are far better than the windows in the 80s houses. They slide just like they did in 1999 and they aren't drafty. You can tell by the texture that the floors are laminate and not wood, but they are quiet, extremely easy to care for, and look like new aside from a few nicks and chips. It looks better than the ugly parquet floors in many of the 80s houses around here. Up in the attic, this house seems to have much more framing than the 1980s houses did...not sure if that's just due to codes changing or if the house was just built better. I think this house looks a little cheaper than the 80s houses I lived in, but it functions better and is actually built a little better.

That said, I have seen newer builds that looked atrocious. One neighborhood down the road went up around 2004. I went in a house there and everything was cheap and falling apart from the windows to the hardware. The walls were not square...you could see it in the corners were the angles were off. The patio was just a plain concrete slab attached to a huge house. It was 3000 sq ft of [censored].

 

[PandaBear]

Wood and metal price went up a lot since the 80s, and so did labor cost.

The layout of newer houses are better to accommodate newer lifestyle with computers, big screen TV, bigger garages, efficient heating / cooling, etc, as well as newer hardware and faucets that an original old houses will not get unless completely remodeled.

It really depends on which price point you buy, you can get old junks as well as new junks, or you can get old nice houses but spend a lot of money remodeling it or pay more for a decently build new houses.

One of my coworker build a house that he spec, with real good quality material and labor. In the mid 90s it cost him near 400k for a 3k sqft house in a good area, when the mass produced junk from KB Homes cost only 400k in the same area.

 

[rpn453]

As others have said, it depends on the builder and local codes. My buddy bought a brand new house a few years ago and it seems very solid, more so than any older house I've been in.

 

[LoneRanger]

Talk about well built. This one can withstand a direct nuclear hit:

http://www.silohome.com/

 

[JOD]

My take on house quality is that the post-war era, '50's and early '60's were the boom time for the best-constructed homes, at least in my area. It was new enough that there were building codes in place, but old enough that old-growth wood was still available, and labor was still pretty cheap. In terms of quality of construction, they generally far exceed the quality of homes from the '20 and '30's. However, you have to like the post-war style (it's not my favorite).

My house was built in 1904, and right now it's a 'best of both worlds'. We jacked it up and framed in a lower story, with a poured footing a wall that doesn't leak, a 6" slab, 2"x8" construction for the lower story and all new wiring and plumbing. The original part of the house was a studs-out remodel, so every stick of wiring is new. Keep in mind that this is a house that pre-dated electricity--it still had gas piping for lights when we ripped out the walls. I can't believe it didn't burn down from the ghetto-rigged wiring that existed when we bought it.

In doing this (and doing most of the work myself), I got to see both the good and the bad in turn of the (previous) century construction. The good: crazy-good wood (clear-grain quartersawn old growth fir used as framing!, old growth fir flooring with planks that span the entire width of the house), intricate, 5" wide moulding throughout, 2"x6" joists that actually measure 2"x6" (this had its pluses and minuses...). The bad: the basic systems suck unless you replace them (plumbing/wiring), a foundation not really suitable for the house.

It would have been "easier" to tear this house down and rebuild, but building codes would never allow it due to setback requirements, and we wanted an "old" house. I've been in a ton of new houses over the last 10 years, at various points of their construction, and I have to say that much of what I've seen has been really bad in terms of the quality of construction and the materials used--even at the high end of the spectrum.

 

[andyd]

The original part of my house is a 150 yr old New England farn house. Old, rotten and decrepit. Fantastic location though Over the 34 yrs Ive lived in it. I have renovated every room but the 1 I am in now. I have replaced All the plumbing and most of the wiring. In 85, I doubled the size of the place with an addition. It would have beem easier to bulldoze the original frame and start new.

 

[97f150]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Cheap stuff. It looks like HD components (trim and whatnot too). Lack of craftsmanship is covered up with caulk and paint. Junk all around. Yuck.

I bought a 1930s home for a reason.


This. My house is turn of the century, all brick, hardwood floors....etc.


I couldnt find on built in the 1930s so we ended up with one built in 1959 lol

 

[hattaresguy]

Problem is with older houses, by that I mean say 1850-WW2 is the building codes in my area were none existent. So you see nonsense like 2x4 joists holding up plaster ceilings.

The only houses that were built well were the ones that cost a fortune to build back than, and they cost another fortune to remodel today.

Anything pre 1850, and we have houses dating back to the 1740's in my area is a [censored] shoot.

Personally I have no use for an older house, I can build a better one today myself, and have it laid out the way I want it, with all the goodies buried in the walls, and not have to tear out 10 tons of plaster to get it.

 

[JOD]

Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
Problem is with older houses, by that I mean say 1850-WW2 is the building codes in my area were none existent. So you see nonsense like 2x4 joists holding up plaster ceilings.


Fortunately, I didn't run into anything like that. What I did notice however is that the spacing between framing members were like snowflakes: no two were the same... It ranged from 12"-18", with no real rhyme or reason as to why. I discovered this the hard way. I gang-cut some 2"x4"s for blocking (required for earthquake retrofitting) based off of the first measurement, then realized that the spacing was slightly different between every singe framing member. Annoying, to say the least.

Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
Personally I have no use for an older house, I can build a better one today myself, and have it laid out the way I want it, with all the goodies buried in the walls, and not have to tear out 10 tons of plaster to get it.


A lot of this depends on the lot. If I tore my house down and rebuilt it, it would have to be about 10 feet narrower and 15 feet shorter, due to setback requirements. My eves are about 3" from my neighbors' eves, and they don't let you do stuff like that anymore... Depending on zoning restrictions, tearing down and rebuilding isn't always a viable option. There was also a lot of stuff worth saving, like the flooring, clear grain fir siding, wood windows, etc (and the windows never would have passed modern code either).