Comment by throwup238
17 hours ago
The entire west coast sits on top of a fault line. That’s why people don’t build with brick here. There’s plenty of brick buildings on the east coast (and on the west coast like in Oregon, but they have to be seismically retrofitted which is expensive).
I never understood this. We build in Europe, over earthquake-risk zones, with bricks and steel and we follow rules to make them earthquake resistant. It is not a problem anymore since like the 1980. We now have also methods to make old and very old brick buildings earthquake resistant without demolishing them
It works fine for commercial buildings and multi-family structures here too , there’s even a ton of brick buildings in Oregon (which are currently being retrofitted), but not as well for single family homes because of the cost.
There’s a lot of historical context to understand here. The neighborhood that just burned down in the Eaton fire (Altadena), was built up by African Americans and Latinos who were redlined out of Pasadena even after desegregation. Some of them built their houses on land that they bought for under $100 in the 1950s and 60s. They wouldn’t have been able to afford the kind of construction they’d need to be both earthquake and fire resistant. Their choice was between owning an old tinderbox or renting from slumlords.
What? What earthquake zone in Europe is similar to the fault lines in California? We are talking about entire cities wiped out by earthquakes just 120 years ago.
There’s a plate boundary running under Morocco and across the Mediterranean, but it’s not nearly as active as the Pacific Rim, and it’s quite a long way from Northern Europe.
Southern Italy. I believe the rest of Europe is quite seismically stable.
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It works for Taiwan and Japan
Japanese houses aren't built with brick.
Is that brick or is it reinforced masonry?
Both. Older single story tends to be brick.
Newer multistory is typically cast in place with rebar reinforcement from what I can tell.
In the countryside, you might find more masonry block construction, but not in dense urban areas like Taipei and Taichung where the norm is to build up. Most "single family homes" are what we would consider very large condos in the US.
It’s not just the West coast, brick buildings are simply not common all throughout the US, in places fault lines don’t exist.
Bricks have to be manufactured and transported. In denser countries, the transportation cost is lower and there is a factory near you. In the US, you’re damn well sure you can find timber, the US is loaded with timber.
Brick also isn’t some magical building material that solves all your problems without drawbacks. Wood isn’t some evil building material that creates a bunch of problems without benefits.