a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by GentleHippo
GentleHippo  ·  1870 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Why America’s New Apartment Buildings All Look the Same

The article didn't really mention anything about the longevity of stick construction. Fire seems the bigger concern. If they don't burn down, I'm sure that will stand longer than I would desire to live in one.

    Of the 13 U.S. blazes that resulted in damages of $20 million or more in 2017, according to the National Fire Protection Association, six were at wood-frame apartment buildings under construction




ThurberMingus  ·  1870 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You might be able find some info on the frequency of house fires vs apartment fires if you tried.

It's also interesting to pick a local news site, search "apartment fire" and see what comes up - in my area there were a bunch of "1 or 2 units burned, 2 or 3 more damaged by smoke" reports, and the fires that destroyed a whole building were much less common and were unoccupied or known to be in violation of fire codes. So the precautions seem to reduce the risk of your neighbors bad cooking burning your precious stuff up.

As to longevity, I live in one that is about 20 years old, and the place creaks just a bit when the upstairs neighbors fill the bathtub. I used to live in one that was about 30 years old but the complete and total lack insulation in the walls made other structural complaints seem silly.

GentleHippo  ·  1870 days ago  ·  link  ·  

There is a difference between a house fire and an apartment fire. Mainly, im not going to set my own house on fire and not be aware. In an apartment, who knows what the neighbors are up to or neglecting.

ThurberMingus  ·  1869 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Exactly! Therefore, automatic sprinklers.

kleinbl00  ·  1870 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Note the "under construction" part - that's before the sprinklers are in and pressurized, before the sheetrock goes in, etc. And we're talking six buildings. One of those was on my jogging route:

That one is "unsolved" but it was pretty clearly arson. Worthy of note - there are three other larger complexes in the neighborhood that went up at the same time and didn't burn to the ground.