[softfalcon]

Comparing homes today with that of 100 years ago ignores the fact that in many ways housing quality has been on a decline since the 1970’s due to cost cutting and lazy workmanship from large scale contractors.

In my city, we have entire communities of the city that people avoid buying homes in because of shoddy workmanship.

Greed corrupts and it has hit like a plague in many large neighbourhood projects over the decades.

You can have all the codes in the world, it doesn’t matter if no one follows them.

[bluGill]

The 1970s were about the worst of that. While cost cutting has continued, engineering is more involved in standards and so the cost cutting is not possible unless engineering determines that the cost cutting doesn't effect something important.

Note that what you think is important to lay people and what engineering thinks is important are very different things. Engineering cares about fire safety, insulation, and your house standing up to wind. Engineering doesn't care if you kick a hole in your walls - that is your own stupid fault (engineering cares that you cannot get pushed through the walls cartoon style, but a small hole is not a problem). Laypeople often reject great engineering because the marketing on bad engineering is better - old houses is one of those cases.

[RoyalHenOil]

In some places, the problem is that scammy builders are not building homes to spec.

I'm talking about very serious flaws: not like drywall being thin, but more like joists that are thinner than the engineer specified or incomplete flashing that lets water leak into the insulation whenever it rains.

A few years ago, I worked in a brand new building, and we had issues like windows being installed inside out, pipes not being connected together, and rainwater trickling down walls under the paint.

These builds are poorly engineered -- not by the engineers and architects, but by the builders ignoring the engineers and architects. You can see numerous egregious examples here, for example: https://m.youtube.com/@Siteinspections

[softfalcon]

Yeah, this is what I’m referring to. It doesn’t matter if you have codes if people don’t follow them because of laziness and corruption.

I’m getting down voted, I guess I touched a nerve of the civil engineering folks.

I came to the knowledge I have from having discussions with my civil engineering friends. They were immediately disenfranchised a few years into their careers when they saw the corruption of the “construction cartels” in my city.

I’m sure it’s not true of every city, but it is in the city I live in here in Western Canada. Also common elsewhere in the world.

[daddylongstroke]

Yes, thank you for speaking to the reality on the ground, which a lot of folks in these comments are pretending doesn't exist. We have standards and codes, but I've worked on many new construction sites where nobody gave 2 shits about what, how, or why. They threw shit together, and as long as it looked close enough, it even passed inspections (always another job site to go to after this one after all). I personally know of many $1 Million+ houses in the Chicago area, that house some very shocking surprises inside their walls.

[Karrot_Kream]

I don't think it's just the marketing. As you said in your earlier comment, old houses overengineer things that are visually obvious to the homeowner but not of actual safety importance. Humans are very susceptible to this visual bias. As you say, they're not inspecting fire stops, insulation standards, sprinkler placement, etc.