question about residential construction in the past versus now

[NYC_SKP]

1. What's the urban legend stuff to which you refer? Architect and builder here.

Well, I have a professional degree in architecture, not a license, and years in the trades, and done construction in the East and the West.

Pretty qualified to answer, if I do say so myself.

Homes today in California are more well designed and built, typically, than most homes in California build from the 60's into the 70's or so.

Our progressive building standards, especially related to energy efficiency, are largely responsible for that.

However, I'll take a well designed home from, say, 1910 through 1920 over either other era.

I had a home built in 1907, thick walls, lots of light, full basement, thick foundation walls, good passive solar.

It had been remodeled in the 30s to replace the wood lath and plaster with rocklath and plaster, a gypsum board with holes then scratch and finish coats of plaster. Crazy solid!

In some ways, the cheap stuff is cheaper than the cheap stuff was in the past: Cheap hollow-core doors and MDF cabinets didn't exist back then, so what we had was better.

Today we have very efficient windows and doors, on the other hand, so that's better than it was.

Urban legend? Tell me more!