Better Buildings
A view from the Grandhotel Giessbach in Switzerland on Lake Brienz
This is part of my series on how we aim to surpass Switzerland.
I Was in a Fire
Once, when I was staying in Switzerland, I had an apartment on the third floor. In the middle of the night, my dog Sky woke me up by barking. The Swiss do not like noise at night, and I was afraid of making the other tenants and the landlord unhappy. And as expected, it wasn’t long before the neighbors were pounding on the door. I was in trouble.
However, I wasn’t. They weren’t there to yell at me, but to tell me that the building was on fire and that I had to leave. In fact, by the time they had awoken me, the fire crew was already there. The apartment directly below, and in fact the bedroom directly beneath mine, was on fire! A man accidentally started a fire by not extinguishing his cigarette. I am not exaggerating here. In fact, the man beneath me, probably not more than 3 meters away, died. That was horrible news.
What also surprised me was how the rest of the building was relatively unharmed and still like new. I had never seen a building or heard of a building like that before. Particularly in a populated area, we worry about not only the whole building and other tenants suffering, but also the entire neighborhood being destroyed by a simple fire.
House Quality
Back in the US, as I drive around my town, look at the houses, or when I am at home watching the news about the fires in California, something that comes to mind is the low quality of our buildings.
In our town, one of the first in the country, when people buy older houses, they have to tear them down and start over. The houses are not even that old: 50-70 years in many cases. In California, the fires destroyed so many buildings. As the fires in Hawaii did. Why?
While houses may look nice in this wealthy area, their construction doesn’t reflect the wealth. It’s a show. The houses are generally made of simple wood studs and covered in plaster or paper. They are not constructed well and do not last. Having been in Switzerland, the contrast is huge.
As I have mentioned before, I am a fan of This Old House and construction. It’s one of my hobbies. I am embarrassed to say this but I would summarize American construction in this way. Start by imagining a country where houses are built out of sticks. Maybe some poor country in Africa. What if they organized the sticks a little better so they were in straight lines? What if they covered them with paper to make them look more solid and like a real wall? What if they covered the wall with mud to make it look like stone? Would you say the house was well-built? That’s basically what American construction is, sticks covered with paper and clay. It doesn’t last.
While this type of construction is cheaper in the short term, it has extremely long-term costs and contributes to escalating housing prices. We spend a significant amount of our time and money on maintaining and building our homes. If we invested more into the quality of our homes, we would lower our cost of ownership.
Swiss Houses
I love Switzerland, and we have considered buying a home there. I actually inquired about one home that was in the process of being built. They were just starting to dig a hole for the foundation. I contacted the realtor and asked about ownership. However, when I did, I was surprised.
First, they told me that I could buy a unit in the building, of course! They told me I should do it soon, because the building would be finished soon. In just over two and a half years, the building would be finished.
“Two and a half years!?” I thought. “He thinks two and a half years is fast?” We typically complete houses within 3-6 months. And, the home they were building was some big apartment complex. It was a modest-sized building that would have 3 modest-sized units. The total square footage of all was probably close to 4,500 sqft. That’s smaller than my current home.
The reason that a typical home takes them years to build is that they invest much more into quality. They have a much longer-term view of homes and home ownership, that’s why for them, two and a half years seemed short.
The other thing that surprised me was that their mortgage system works differently, in essence, allowing people to buy nicer homes for less. This is, I think, important as well, because I believe quality homes are in everyone’s best interest.
One of the major differences in Swiss construction is that the houses are not built out of wood. They are usually built out of Porotherm bricks, which do not burn, insulate well, and are very durable.
Porotherm bricks. The image is from the site: https://www.featureconstructions.com/
We Can Do Better
I would like to see us build much higher-quality housing. I would like to see us create buildings that last. I would like for us all to commit to supporting higher building quality and investing in quality. This will improve our quality of life in the short and long term.
