Making a House That Will Last for Centuries?

tcyun asks: "The intro text from kaisyain's review brought up a thought that has been floating around in my head as I am a new home-owner. If one wanted to design a home that would last for hundreds of years, what would one have to do? I, and many of my friends, have recently/ purchased homes. As with all homes, some things are in good shape, others are not. Many items are the fault of initial design, many are due to poor upkeep and repairs. Looking around, it is possible to have a home last for hundreds of years (my family's ancestral home is about 400 years old and there are castles in Europe that are older). If one wanted to build/modify a home, what would one need to do to make sure that the home would still be standing, and usable, hundreds of years from now?" M : Wired suggests going underground.

"A few elements come to mind: structural integrity, usability, reparability, ease of upkeep, physical location (geology and neighborhood), technology, and aesthetics.

• Structural integrity: Rock lasts a long time, but has a variety of draw backs. Concrete (poured or cinder block) foundations are common where I live but wood is still the material used for most of the structure. Should steel cross-beams be considered for parts of the structure? I have heard good things about laminated/engineered wood.
  
  
• Technology: Folks on Slashdot have talked about wiring homes with cat-5/7/x and installing empty conduit 'just in case.' Is this really useful with the proliferation of wireless? Would it be more useful if a crawlspace was made available between the ceiling and the attic so that any type of ducting/wiring could be run into a room? Should all rooms have access to a central column through which wiring, plumbing and ducting were run?
  
  
• Usability: I have a small house with a small, combined living-family-dining room. I am fairly sure that 50 years ago the designers were not laying out the space to take into account book shelves, a large television, stereo cabinet, gaming consoles, and more in addition to a couch, chair and dining table. Simply making the room larger is one option, but cavernous space is not necessarily good for usability. What would be a good floor plan and how might different sized rooms be distributed to be useful over time for multiple purposes? Would it need a bathroom? (joke)
  
  
• Reparability: the previous homeowners made a number of DIY 'improvements' which are nice, until one needs to make a repair. Many items are installed in ways where the only option is to remove entire installations. What types of modular improvements can be made that allow for easy repair/replacement over time as needs change?
  
  
• Location: How would one choose where to build a home that would last for hundreds of years? Do you pick an existing neighborhood, space that is at the edge of a town/city or somewhere further out? Does one pick a neighborhood that has been economically/geologically/stable/safe over the longer term even if it is not in great shape at the moment. At first glance, cities in the United States like San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh have all gone through 10-20 years spells of nastiness, but have been fairly stable cities at the macro level for a hundred years.
  
  
• Aesthetics: Does one simply design/architect and deal with the fact that it will variously become attractive/unattractive over time?

And to complicate matters, how different are the options if one imposes a budget for initial construction (depending on your own idea of what a realistic budget is)."

Comments

Look at Japanese architecture

[ryochiji]

There are many centuries-old buildings in Europe, but then, Europe doesn't have very many earthquakes and such. As a result, many of the oldest buildings seem to be made of stone.

In Japan, on the other hand, there are tons of buildings that are hundreds of years old, _and_ have survived some of the biggest earthquakes, not to mention, a fairly dynamic climate (hot humid summers, cold wet winters). Wooden architecture might not withstand fire, but unless that's a concern, I'm sure there are some lessons to be learned there.

Use stone.

[SexyTr0llGal]

Yes, it has drawbacks, but if you want a house that will still be usable in three hundred years it's the only way to go. Not only are there many castles and the such still around that were made out of stone, but there's many stone houses as well. For instance, the old rock house on Moore Farm is almost 250 years old now, and still livable.

Cob

[Ho-Lee-Cow!]

Google for it.

It's a mix of mud and straw commonly used as a building material throughout various times and places. There are houses in Ireland that have withstood centuries of weather and worse with little more than a renewed coat of lime every now and again.

I've used this material myself. It takes temps as hot as 2300F, becomes a more or less solid block once it set, can be built a vertical foot at a session. Amazing amazing stuff.

Re:Cob

[telly333]

Cob buildings building built in Devon, England buit in the 15th Century are still around and habitable.

Cob is a carefully adjusted proportion of sand, clay and straw (for 3 dimensional reinforcement). This mixture is extrememly strong when dry and has the added bonus of drying into a monolithic structure, unlike adobe or stone where the mortar and joints become the weak point (think seismic resistance). Walls are also fireproof and can be load-bearing.

There has been a rebirth of this art, particularly through the Cottage Cob Company (some cool photos) of Cottage Grove, Oregon, which offers classes and workshops throughout the U.S. I also Recommend thier book: The Hand Sculpted House""

Very Good.

Their style of "Oregon Cob" has the added advantage of using nonlinear designs, curved walls, etc. to create an even stonger structure (no corners)

Surprisingly, this type of construction is well suited for damp climates such as the Pacific Northwest and England, and much of the U.S., except where it gets extremely cold. The walls have good thermal mass, though not the best insulators by themselves.

~scott

Ventilation will be a key

[sphealey]

I have lived in several North American houses >100 years old, and I was sure that most of them would last another 100 with proper maintenance. So it is possible.

However, a problem you will face is climate control and ventilation. Those 1800s houses were drafty, had huge non-living-space attics, and had poor energy efficiency. After thinking about it for a while, and visiting friends' tract mansions that smell of mold and rot 18 months after completion, I am convinced that the excess (and energy-consuming) ventilation through those old houses is a bit part of why they last so long.

Unfortunatley it is no longer acceptable to have your bedroom go to 110 deg.F in the summer and 38 deg.F + draft in the winter! So were I designing a new house to last, I would add a very large heat exchanger and the necessary vents, fans, smoke detectors, dampers, etc. to force-draft a good amount of air through the house. This would probably mean a duct system separate from the air conditioner (I would probably use radiant floor heating). And also a lot of motors, fans, controls, etc - so buy spare parts for 20 years down the road.

Your idea of an insulated equipment space between the top floor and attic is a good one - possibly you would want to put the heat exchanger there. And I would go ahead and wire for Cat6 and CATV, since technologies like that don't go away as fast as people think. But use conduit so you can change your mind on the media later.

Other things I would consider: real plaster and lath walls, copper supply / cast iron waste pipe, and for sure lots of access hatches so that things can be fixed without disassembling the walls.

sPH

How to build a house that'll last...

[crazyphilman]

Step 1: use stone and concrete. The Romans used stone and concrete extensively, and many of their public works projects are STILL standing two thousand years later. Today we have reinforced concrete, which is even stronger than anything the Romans had. Also, this will make it prohibitively expensive to tear your house down if anyone gets any bright ideas about turning your property into a parking lot in a hundred years.

Step 2: Use concrete for interior walls, floors, well, basically everything. What's the first thing to go in old houses? The roof. And, when it does, water gets into the house and the whole structure rots. A concrete roof will keep water out, which is the most important thing if you want the house to last.

Step 3: Don't use glass for the windows. You can get a 4x8 sheet of inch-thick lexan or plexiglass, which is bulletproof by the way, for 175 bucks down on Canal Street in NYC. It's an extremely resilient material.

Step 4: Don't build the electric and etc into the walls. Design the house so that everything is retrofit, i.e. bolted onto the surface. That way you can always strip it out and replace it later. Note that you can't do this with plumbing, but no plan is perfect. Go for PVC pipes there; at least they won't rust.

Step 5: Paint EVERYTHING with a polymer-based paint to waterproof it.

Step 6: make sure the house sits at the base (or top) of a cliff or some other construction-inconvenient location. Then plant LOTS of oak trees all over the place. Within fifty years they'll turn into a nice forest. This has a couple of benefits:

A) if anyone tries to build on your property, the tree huggers will come out and Hayduke their machinery. They'll also spike the trees, which makes it reeeeeeeally tough to chainsaw them down safely.

B) Even if the local town board figures out how to get around the environmentalists, it'll cost 'em a fortune to knock down all those trees and make room for a wrecking crane to go for the house. They'll give up and go somewhere else.

Step 7: Cultivate the area around the house into a wetland, then make sure every environmentalist in the area is aware that it's there. Then, get the EPA in to declare it a wetland. This is way easier than you might think. It makes it just about impossible for anyone to build anything there ever again.

STEP 8, the MOST IMPORTANT STEP: Put the whole property into some kind of legal trust, so that you don't even really own it anymore and no one can sue you for it. Then, set up the trust so that it just passes along to your children, and so on. Your descendents will have use of the house forever, basically, but won't be able to sell it. In the process, make sure there's enough money in the trust to pay the taxes for at least the foreseeable future.

What do you think? I can't afford to do this kind of thing, but then, I rent an apartment and I'm into the whole "once I'm gone the world will forget I was ever here" thing. I find my complete irrelevance to the universe to be entirely invigorating.

Re:How to build a house that'll last...

[meringuoid]

Step 1: use stone and concrete. The Romans used stone and concrete extensively, and many of their public works projects are STILL standing two thousand years later.

Step 7: Cultivate the area around the house into a wetland, then make sure every environmentalist in the area is aware that it's there. Then, get the EPA in to declare it a wetland. This is way easier than you might think. It makes it just about impossible for anyone to build anything there ever again.

All the other kings said it were daft to build a castle in a swamp, but I built it anyway! It sank into the swamp. I built another one; it sank into the swamp too. I built a third one; it caught fire, fell over and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up! And that's what you'll be getting, my lad - the strongest castle in these islands!

Building a structure that lasts

[civad]

Some of the criteria mentioned by the author set me thinking: and here is what I think might be useful in building a house that lasts:
a. Structural integrity
Structures made from rocks tend to last longer. In fact, most of the ancient buildings or structures were made of rock. Ditto for Medeival castles (and not_just_the_ones_in_Europe). So, looking at the past, rock should be your first choice. But is it the only one? I don't think so.
Reinforced concrete *could* be an option. However, concrete is a very treacherous substance Also, if one lives in area that experiences heavy rainfall, concrete might not be a good choice. Moisture/ rainwater can seep through the voids in concrete and can corrode the reinforcement. The cost of waterproofing might be huge.
Bricks. Lots of them. The thicker the brickwall, the longer it might last. But then how many people would want a wall say 4 feet thick?
Timber: In principle, well-cured timber should last for a long time. For e.g the pillars that support the dykes/ docks in many older European cities.
b. Technology
That is an interesting criterion. TV screens are getting bigger, computer monitors are getting thinner. So, the amount of space required for each of these "Display Units" is changing. Similarly, cell phones are a commonplace, so theoretically, telephone conduits/sockets are not necessary. It is difficult to predict what the appliances/ applications in the future would be like.
c. Usability
What do you, the owner/habitant of the structure plan to use the building for? If you plan to stay there for a LONG time ( and I mean till ripe old age) start thinking of having ramps instead of staircases. Or escalators. Similarly, the bedrooms should be on the ground floor (or first floor as some people call it). How many children are you planning to have? Do you plan to convert the building to a museum/public library after your death? THat will decide how much of usable space you will need to provide in the house. Remember, a group of people need more space to move through a room than a single person.
d. Reparability
Concrete repairs are expensive. Rock masonry repairs are difficult and expensive (I am speaking in genral) Timber *might* be cheaper to maintain.
Again by meintenance I am assuming normal maintenance (painting/waterproofing, etc.)
e. Location
As far away from Human habitat as possible. The Pyramids/ castles/ Great Wall of China....were they in the cities/ suburbs????
f. Aesthetics:
I am not the aesthetics type. Personally, I believe that functionality is superior to looks. What is considered beautiful or appealing today might not be considered the same in the future. ("In the 60's in England one could have bad teeth and still be considered sexy"...Austin Powers Int'l Man of Mystery if I am not mistaken)
**Remember: at the end of the day, it is RESOURCES that will decide the fate of the structure. Some kings spent decades building monuments. Some dynasties spent centuries building walls.....They could do so because they had resources. In terms of land, labor, money, material, time and many more.

Re:Flexibility

[Captain Nitpick]

As for materials, any modern materials will last a long long time if properly maintained. Houses built of wood 100's of years ago are still standing and our wood products now are much stronger/better.

Remember, you're not seeing the 100 year old houses that were poorly built, because they aren't there anymore.

Re:Flexibility

[big tex]

Well, since you started the wood vs. steel idea, here's 2 cents from this Civil Engineer:

Tips for good timber construction:
Don't use a residential contractor. Use a comercial building contractor. They are used to having people check their quality, and do better work. However, you're going to pay for it.

Insist on good lumber.#2 spruce-fir is good for sawhorses and houses that only last a few decades.

Make sure the Engineer uses Cd = .9 (permanent) instead of the more common Cd = 1.0 (10 years)

Glulam and other laminate beams are good. beleive the hype. The problem with most solid sawn timber is the quality since we've used all the old growth. Glulam is a step back towards that quality.

The big problem with steel studs will be corrosion.
They come electroplated or zinc dipped. some are punched and formed _after_ plating, leaving unprotected edges. You then go and poke holes in them with screws, and leave corrosion points. If you go with steel, use bolts in pre-primed holes and paint over the bolt heads.

If you go with concrete, use galvanized rebar. You'll shit a kidney when you see the cost, but it's the best thing since, well, rebar. Bar corrosion and the ensuing spalling is what will eventually weaken your foundation.

Personally, I've been doing some thinking about the house I want to build/ have built when I retire:
concrete foundation, doweled stone walls, glulam and bolt trusses (damn near no structural walls or columns in the envelope), Granite roof.

Tradition

[falsification]

Are you sure you want to spend your (probably large amount of) money on this? If so, here are my suggestions.

1. Buy a mountain. Research what mountains are available, Choose one that is not a volcano or on a tectonic fault. Make sure it is not too prone to rockslides. Choose one that is away from the big city. Make sure there are no precious minerals underneath your mountain. Make sure there is some freshwater source nearby. Get a geologist to look at the land for you.
2. Buy the mineral rights under the mountain and nearby. You don't want anybody kicking you or your descendants off the land so they can strip mine for gold, and in the process, leveling your mountain. Be sure to consult an attorney at all appropriate time periods.
3. Build a deep, spacious underground lair. Make sure there are two ways to get in and out. The first is at the top of the mountain. You can defend that point with machine gun fire, should there ever be a revolution. The second access point should be near the bottom of the mountain. This is your secret passageway. If worse comes to worse, you can always use it to escape with your life, or retake your home from an invader. Conceal the secret entrance. No one from outside your family should either work on this entrance or know about it.
4. Down the sides of the mountain, plant some nice vegetation. On top, build a nice, handsome house or cottage. Don't make it too ostentatious or you will attract thieves and vagabonds. It should look a little ramshackle from the outside. The inside would be a different matter.
5. Be sure to leave room on top of the mountain for a heliport and such.
6. Whatever you build, keep in mind multiple purposes. Your great-great-great-great granchildren may need to stop using the home as a home, and start using it for commercial activity, such as for a ski lodge. Whatever. The next generation can reclaim it as a residence. Make all the rooms huge. That way they can be subdivided as necessary, etc.
7. Give your home a good, stuffy, but non-arrogant name, like "Old Bramblethorn." Then, mythologize. Give your home a sense of the mystical, a mystique. If necessary, hire a specialist in the area, such as an anthropologist. Make up a legend. Something like this. "One day I was hiking through the mountains, and climbing this particular mountain. Alone, I encountered a ferocious cougar. It attacked me and we wrestled for what seemed like hours. It was a terrible fight. I couldn't get the great, fanged beast off of me until I rolled while prone several times into a nearby bramblethorn. The horrible, hairy cat yelped in pain and limped off. I brushed off the dirt, sat up, and just then I saw a rainbow in the western sky. I knew then that I was master of the mountain. This is where I would build a home for my family. And I would call it Bramblethorn. And that, my young grandkids, is how this home came to be. Now off to bed and catch your forty winks as tomorrow we have a big day planned! Off you go!" You see, that way your descendants will not just like the home; they will love it. It will become a tradition. Then, one day, hundreds of years after you are gone, when one of your descendants inevitably says that the family should sell Old Bramblethorn as it would fetch a huge price on the real estate market, the ancestral home will be protected by its tradition. Another family member, probably the young and well-liked little girl of the family, will chime in and say, "Oh, but we can't sell Old Bramblethorn! We just can't!" The home is safe.
8. Store up tons and tons of money. Your family will need it to fight off the inevitable stream of lawyers, tax men, extortionists, and all the rest who will try to take the home away from you. Diversify your portfolio. Put some of it in gold, and store the gold, secretly, deep in the underground lair. If war or revolution comes, your descendants will be prepared.

Re:It can't be that hard!

[Telecommando]

Two words:

Regular Maintenance

The longer you let it go, the more nature reclaims it. You have to plan to fight entropy continuously.

I took a tour in the NE US a few years ago and the guide told us, "Our ancestors built these buildings with the intent that thay would last hundreds of years!" There was a crew on scaffolding against one building tuck-pointing all the mortar on one wall.
I pointed out to the guide that if it wasn't for the regular replacement of the mortar, none of these building would have lasted 50 years. His response was, "Yeah, but they were smart enough to build these buildings so that we _could_ replace the mortar."

I thought it was a stupid answer at the time but later I realized that he was right. They didn't build things they couldn't repair, replace or maintain.

I have friends that live in a 170 year old, wood frame house. Of course, the banister was replaced sometime in the 1920's and the oak posts in the cellar were changed to steel in the 1960's and several steps have been replaced and the siding's been replaced several times and the chimneys have been rebuilt,... you get the idea.

But, it's still considered a 170 year old house even though probably less than half of it is actually 170 years old.

My point is, structures that are maintained, last. Those that are not maintained, don't. It doesn't really matter what material you build with, if you don't or can't maintain it, it isn't going to last anyway.

Re:Pyramids not built by slave labour

[reverseengineer]

I wonder why the oldest history book we have says that the Egyptians Imprisoned the Jews for work; slavery.

I suppose none of the labor on the Pyramids was slave labor?

You suppose correctly, actually- the pyramids predate Israelite captivity by centuries- the pyramids at Giza were built 400-500 years before Abraham, actually. The Israelites built a number of storage cities for the pharaohs, but no major pyramids. Also, I'm assuming that when you write "the oldest history book we have" you mean the Bible, which is incorrect- there are extensive Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Chinese historical records that all predate the writings of the Pentateuch.