<story><title>How to design a house to last 1000 years</title><url>https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/how-to-design-a-house-to-last-for</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Fiahil</author><text>I expected something much simpler : bricks, stones, and wood. It&amp;#x27;s not like we are running low on examples of 1000+ years buildings (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;11th_century_in_architecture&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;11th_century_in_architecture&lt;/a&gt;). These castles, cathedrals, farms, were built to last, so it&amp;#x27;s appropriate to use them as examples.&lt;p&gt;We can, however, apply modern technics and materials when they make sense : insulation, windows, waterways... Prefer wood, wool and steel over plastics or composite materials and you&amp;#x27;re good to go.&lt;p&gt;On a side note, I&amp;#x27;m currently buying a house (old farm) with over 200 years old plain oak carpentry. The thing is absolutely massive and would be unimaginably expensive to build today. With the proper care, it might last another 200 years without issue. Remember, Notre-Dame de Paris used 300 years old trees cut in ~1150 for its roof -before the 2019 fire-. With the proper care it would have still be standing today. I find that to be deeply humbling.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SkeuomorphicBee</author><text>&amp;gt; We can, however, apply modern technics and materials when they make sense : insulation, windows, waterways...&lt;p&gt;The article raises an important point that could be a problem when trying to mix old and new build techniques. When talking about brick walls it says:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; One tricky thing with this type of assembly is that while it has performed well historically, it doesn’t necessarily play nice with more modern, energy efficient construction. A solid brick wall was traditionally designed to be exposed on the inside, exposing it to interior heat and allowing it to dry. Adding interior insulation makes the house much more comfortable, but also changes the thermal dynamics, potentially causing freeze&amp;#x2F;thaw damage in the brick, and allowing moisture to accumulate between the brick and the insulation. This is one of the many details that would need to be worked out for the complete design of the home.&lt;p&gt;You can&amp;#x27;t simply build something following the examples of a castle or a cathedral, but then add modern insulation, because the insulation won&amp;#x27;t allow the masonry to breath and dry to both sides, leading to water damage, mold, rot, ...&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day, a badly insulated building can be made to last for ages passively by just making it breath, so the temperature and humidity vary with the weather but are kept in check by passive external factors (e.g. the sun shining on a external wall dries it from the outside). While a well insulated building absolutely needs constant mechanical HVAC with fine tuned control. You can have a well insulated building or a passive building, you can&amp;#x27;t have both (by the way, the &amp;quot;Passive House TM&amp;quot; insulation standard is a complete misnomer, being that mechanical ventilation is its second biggest tenet).</text></comment>
<story><title>How to design a house to last 1000 years</title><url>https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/how-to-design-a-house-to-last-for</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Fiahil</author><text>I expected something much simpler : bricks, stones, and wood. It&amp;#x27;s not like we are running low on examples of 1000+ years buildings (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;11th_century_in_architecture&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;11th_century_in_architecture&lt;/a&gt;). These castles, cathedrals, farms, were built to last, so it&amp;#x27;s appropriate to use them as examples.&lt;p&gt;We can, however, apply modern technics and materials when they make sense : insulation, windows, waterways... Prefer wood, wool and steel over plastics or composite materials and you&amp;#x27;re good to go.&lt;p&gt;On a side note, I&amp;#x27;m currently buying a house (old farm) with over 200 years old plain oak carpentry. The thing is absolutely massive and would be unimaginably expensive to build today. With the proper care, it might last another 200 years without issue. Remember, Notre-Dame de Paris used 300 years old trees cut in ~1150 for its roof -before the 2019 fire-. With the proper care it would have still be standing today. I find that to be deeply humbling.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tinco</author><text>The fact that there&amp;#x27;s still a lot of buildings still standing doesn&amp;#x27;t mean they were built perfect, it just means their construction has the possibility of lasting a 1000 years. For each of those buildings I bet there were 10 more with the exact same building techniques that are no longer standing.&lt;p&gt;A 1000 years is a lot of time to go without a fire. I think just because of the fire risk wood is simply out of the question. Well unless you can protect the wood against fire like the OP is doing with the steel.&lt;p&gt;Considering modern times, I think you would have to go one step further and also consider gas explosions and possibly being bombed as well. Just imagine how many 1000+ yr old buildings must have been in Germany before WW2.</text></comment>