You are spot on about the quality of houses. The newer they are the less I want to do with them. Quality really went down the drain in the '80s and has been dropping ever since. And hardly anybody cares.
I would much rather own a house from the '50s than one built in the last 40 years. Pride in workmanship is a lost value.
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I am a building designer, have been all of my adult life. Yes, the quality of construction degrade in most states in the mid 70's and mostly because FHA was
the financier. In the mid 70's the government had controlled the quality of construction since the mid forties when the housing program started for
homecoming WW2 vets. When I first started designing homes I realized that unless I designed homes around the government standards the builders could
not get decent appraisals from FHA. Builders profits were based on good FHA appraisal. At that time we had excellent building codes established long
before government became involved. An example being the electrical wiring in a home. By the mid 30's building codes required the wiring to be incased in
conduit for extreme safety. That was good. That lasted until the mid 70's when building codes allowed Romex to be used which wasn't a lot different than
what was used in the early 1900's, the difference being the outside skin of the cable and of course how it was insulated for safety. At the same time
electricians took advantage of the change to raise their cost even though the product was cheaper to buy and easier to install than conduit. That is when we
lost the ability to alter the wiring in a house, Romex is in the wall and cannot be rewired with out tearing the wall apart. Cost rose quality sank. Then about
the same time all the plumbing codes changed (hot and cold water supply lines) from copper below a slab and in the interior of the house. Suddenly PVC
became the interior plumbing material, much less expensive, much less labor but again the plumbers took advantage of the change and the prices went up.
Below the ground we had clay tile for sewage pipe that was expensive and difficult to install because of lead filled joints. The rules changed and in went the
less costly PVC with glued joints and idiots could install it. The cost went down for the plumbing companies and the price doubled in cost. One interesting
fact I will point out. Under the old FHA-VA financing programs a builder could use superior construction techniques and material but the government would
not allow a better appraisal value. All values were based on a product that would last a minimum of 30 years and the government construction manuals were
named "MINIMUMAL PROPERTY STANDARDS".. I wont go in to all the other drastic changes made to the construction industry other than windows. The
government mandated a certain kind of energy efficiency, the cost of windows skyrocketed from a simple window costing $30 to the same window today
costing hundreds of dollars and people were denied the right of selection. Manufactures wont even make what I call an affordable window because the
building codes wont allow their use. In other words we have lost all of our choices in what something cost by having government intervention in everything.
Quality has not been a word used in the housing industry since the 70's. One government housing inspector told me we don't care about standards of quality
any more including the requirements in design. We will finance anything as long as the builder has a financially qualified buyer, and the buyer beware will be
in effect. Supposedly all housing is built to last 30 years and that's it. What if the Romans had built their houses that way and they didn't have government
control at all ? Yes we are a very wasteful and uninformed nation by design just like the design obsolescence of our automobiles the powers that be want us
to spend our wealth on trash.
