[benj111]

Older buildings are generally more flexible though.

In the UK, within living memory electricity has become widely available, TV has, gas, internet etc etc. and yet we still build houses without the assumption that some cable isn't going to be modified in the wall some how.

There's fairly modern houses that didnt have the 2 courses of brick added to the loft to allow 300mm of insulation to be installed.

We are now building houses with gas boilers, knowing that they will have to be swapped out probably before the life of the boiler runs out. And I bet the radiators and piping aren't sized to make that possible. That the circuit isn't sized for that.

Yes none of this is easier in a 250 year old house, but it isn't harder and 250 year old houses hadn't really changed appreciably for a few centuries so it isn't as if there would be an expectation that you would be installing new things in the wall every decade.

[ascorbic]

When we bought our house, the only plumbing was in a tiny, asbestos-filled lean-to extension added in the 1940s that contained the kitchen, bathroom and toilet. The way people use houses has changed a lot in the past 100 years