Lol. The people with the purple house with red accents are all in. The doors are painted purple, the towels in the bathroom are purple, etc.
Nenshi?
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No one has ever said houses from the 80s are well built. That's probably exactly what you want to avoid. The worst of both worlds. A cheaply made house, without character, that will cost a lot of money to fix up. Additionally, the fixing a 30ish year old house may be far more fundamental and costly than the fixing a 70ish year old house requires. For example, there could be major issues with the foundation, frame, or leaks in a house from that 1980s era.
Builders were using all sorts of plastics and composite wood that had not been tested for time. For example, a lot of the PVC piping from the 80-early 2000s degraded under UV light, but people didn't know about it. They would store the piping in areas exposed to UV light, and then install it.
When people talk about solid older houses, they are talking about 1960 or earlier.
I think you mean Poly-B, not PVC. From what I understand, the pipe failure was more in the USA than Canada and that was mainly from outdoor storage of those pipes for anywhere between 2-16 months outdoors uncovered before installation. Canada's lack of sunlight helped a bit.
I was told that in Canada, insurance covers issues with Poly-B as long as it passes inspection prior to coverage. It was mentioned to me by an inspector that the failures of Poly-B in Canada are mainly with crappy fittings, but most of those fittings stopped being used within a few years of installation in the 80s already. Insurance won't cover water damage if the water damage goes on for too long rather than being addressed immediately. So no different than if you had a house full of copper or PEX and there was a pipe that burst.
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He doesn't seem like the type to have a fish mounted on a purple living room wall to me.
His fan who loves fishing?
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I think you mean Poly-B, not PVC. From what I understand, the pipe failure was more in the USA than Canada and that was mainly from outdoor storage of those pipes for anywhere between 2-16 months outdoors uncovered before installation. Canada's lack of sunlight helped a bit.
I was told that in Canada, insurance covers issues with Poly-B as long as it passes inspection prior to coverage. It was mentioned to me by an inspector that the failures of Poly-B in Canada are mainly with crappy fittings, but most of those fittings stopped being used within a few years of installation in the 80s already. Insurance won't cover water damage if the water damage goes on for too long rather than being addressed immediately. So no different than if you had a house full of copper or PEX and there was a pipe that burst.
Poly-B would have been a better example, but UV also affects PVC.
Having made a water damage insurance claim (actually 3, 2 not in any way my fault), it's not a fun process. Paying the $10k to replace pipes is typically a better option.
If given the choice between older copper and 30+ year old plastic pipes, I'd definitely go copper. While copper pipes may last 100 years or more. It's almost a certainty that the 30+ plastic pipes will burst.
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We currently live in a 1930 house that had an addition built in the 80s. The 30s section is built really well...the 80s section is a pretty big step-down in terms of quality (including a wood foundation). We're about to undergo a fairly extensive renovation, and pretty much everything that is going is from the 80s side of things, as the original elements are just too nice to mess with. Having said that, I do think a lot of the 80s elements (ie. the solid oak built-ins) are still better quality than what you typically get today.
Yeah as dated as those old “honey oak” cabinets & trim are now, there’s no denying how solidly built they are.
We have family that bought an older estate home on an an acreage outside town and some of the untouched rooms their talking about gutting are kind of a shame. It’s not my home, but I still hope they come to their senses and save some of the floor to ceiling woodwork in the vaulted living room… cuz the wood they want to axe is better than anything in my home.
lol, oh yeah. The good old days of uninsulated walls, asbestos, lead paint, lack of building codes, creaky floors, 2x4 construction, etc. etc.
Give me a break. I mean, sure, some are good (survivorship bias), but old homes cost a fortune to keep up to snuff versus the years-long maintenance holiday you have with a new build.
I don’t understand the whole older houses were better built. You mean a hand saw back then did a better cut than a table saw today? I can tell you that if someone gave me a hammer, nails and a hand saw to build a house i would be taking shortcuts everywhere.
I don’t understand the whole older houses were better built. You mean a hand saw back then did a better cut than a table saw today? I can tell you that if someone gave me a hammer, nails and a hand saw to build a house i would be taking shortcuts everywhere.
Aesthetics aside, there's also typically major difference in the materials used in the "bones" of the house. For example, our house was built in 1940. It has solid old growth pieces of wood that are about 10 inches x 10 inches running up and down the house. No chance you'd get that in anything build in the last 40 years.
Given the choice, I'd go with something new, that doesn't need updating. If it needs an update, a well cared older home is superior to a home 40-15 years old. With either scenario, you're likely on the hook for all sorts of costs. The 1980s home is more likely to have unknown major structural issues IMO.
We gutted the basement when we bought our 1940 home, and it was solid concrete, stone, and wood throughout. No way a home build in the 1980s has that.
I've seen people a few people talking about the higher quality lumber in older homes and I tend to agree as my house from the early 60s is solid and has 2x6 exterior walls and thick fir beams as structural elements. I don't necessarily know how the old school for beams compare to newer laminated beams but everything seems really heavy duty.
A benefit that I've heard although I'm not necessarily sure about is that older homes with old growth lumber burn a lot slower than new construction which provides more escape time in the case of a fire.
Last edited by calgarygeologist; 02-09-2022 at 06:44 PM.
There is definitely good and bad. My house has a solid steel I-beam and nice fir joists. But it also has crap attic ventilation(well, had) because they just didn't know how to design this type of thing back then. I also have a corner of my kitchen that may have negative insulation value, more then once I've opened the cupboard on cold days and it's been below zero in there.
When we were house hunting I didn't want anything pre-2000, we didn't like any of the older style layouts and with older houses there's just too many unknowns. Also didn't want brand new, I know too many people that built or bought new builds and ran into multiple issues, fights with the builder over warranty work. I figured 2005-2010 was the sweet spot, still new enough to not need any major work, but lived in enough that any builder issues were identified and resolved. 2 years in to our 2006 house and so far no ugly surprises, so I'm happy
Also our house was pre-wired with ethernet (with multiple lines to the same rooms!), so as an IT nerd I was quite excited about that
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AltaGuy has a magnetic personality and exudes positive energy, which is infectious to those around him. He has an unparalleled ability to communicate with people, whether he is speaking to a room of three or an arena of 30,000.
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Waiting to find out if our preemptive unconditional offer was accepted on a house on Van Isle. Our last try at a place competed with 17 other unconditional offers and the place went for $165k over-asking. It's been an experience. Wish me luck.
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Originally Posted by AltaGuy
Waiting to find out if our preemptive unconditional offer was accepted on a house on Van Isle. Our last try at a place competed with 17 other unconditional offers and the place went for $165k over-asking. It's been an experience. Wish me luck.
Got it! Well, that's the top of the market in BC, folks. Now that I've bought in, guaranteed drop. For reference, my last purchase was 2014 in Calgary, shortly before losing half of my downpayment. I'm quite the real estate investor.
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And a feature I must have in my next house. I despise wifi.
It's pretty much the only reason I'd like to build brand new. The ethernet I have is great, but I'd love to go all out and have ports all over the place for PoE cameras, and maybe even some HDMI runs for ultra clean home theater setups. Looking at what Linus is doing to his new house I'm quite jealous
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It's pretty much the only reason I'd like to build brand new. The ethernet I have is great, but I'd love to go all out and have ports all over the place for PoE cameras, and maybe even some HDMI runs for ultra clean home theater setups. Looking at what Linus is doing to his new house I'm quite jealous
I'm always confused by this. How much do you guys think it takes to fish ethernet wires to each room from a utility room? To me, it seems like getting excited about slightly better tires on a brand new car. The cost difference is negligible. Some effort and time savings maybe, but nothing insane AFAIK.
So many people nerd out about pulling lines to rooms in a new build, but AFAIK, it only costs a few thousand dollars max for materials and labour (if you don't fish and terminate it yourself) for basically an entire home. You don't need a new build to do it.
I had Cat 6A pulled into a few rooms in my 1980s home about 2 years ago. It didn't cost much. I paid less than a grand to pay someone to pull it into 5 rooms from the utility room at $20-30 an hour to do it for me (because I'm lazy and I even own equipment to fish wires which probably would cost almost as much as I paid the dude to purchase on my own) AND purchase the cable + terminations/panels etc. I also paid extra to pull line that was at least 10 gbps vs 1 gbps or 300 mbps. I paid $350 in materials including 1000ft of Cat 6A, and what I paid the guy to pull all that line was maybe $400. I also had extra cable and stuff left over in the end. All this and I probably pulled enough line for about 40-50% of my home.
Cost breakdown:
- CAT 6A (10 gbps) 1000 ft spool @ $350 x 2 = $700 (And I'm not even sure you need two spools) assuming each line is on average 50-70 ft long. You could pay $80 for a spool of 5e, but why do that to yourself? Future proof. Cat 6 I believe is $150-200 per 1000 ft and can also do 10 gbps.
- Time: 2-3 hours average per upstairs room. Half that for main floor/basement rooms/media rooms. Adjust time if doing conduit method instead. Pay someone $30-40 an hour to do if you do not want to do yourself = $60-120 average per room?
- Maybe $200-500 to patch up the occasional snafu or open up a hole to help fish cables if needed?
Ball park figure, that's like, $200-300 a room, but if you do multiple rooms and pull a coil of cable, there's an overall time savings maybe?
I'm always confused by this. How much do you guys think it takes to fish ethernet wires to each room from a utility room? To me, it seems like getting excited about slightly better tires on a brand new car. The cost difference is negligible. Some effort and time savings maybe, but nothing insane AFAIK.
So many people nerd out about pulling lines to rooms in a new build, but AFAIK, it only costs a few thousand dollars max for materials and labour (if you don't fish and terminate it yourself) for basically an entire home. You don't need a new build to do it.
I had Cat 6A pulled into a few rooms in my 1980s home about 2 years ago. It didn't cost much. I paid less than a grand to pay someone to pull it into 5 rooms from the utility room at $20-30 an hour to do it for me (because I'm lazy and I even own equipment to fish wires which probably would cost almost as much as I paid the dude to purchase on my own) AND purchase the cable + terminations/panels etc. I also paid extra to pull line that was at least 10 gbps vs 1 gbps or 300 mbps. I paid $350 in materials including 1000ft of Cat 6A, and what I paid the guy to pull all that line was maybe $400. I also had extra cable and stuff left over in the end. All this and I probably pulled enough line for about 40-50% of my home.
Cost breakdown:
- CAT 6A (10 gbps) 1000 ft spool @ $350 x 2 = $700 (And I'm not even sure you need two spools) assuming each line is on average 50-70 ft long. You could pay $80 for a spool of 5e, but why do that to yourself? Future proof. Cat 6 I believe is $150-200 per 1000 ft and can also do 10 gbps.
- Time: 2-3 hours average per upstairs room. Half that for main floor/basement rooms/media rooms. Adjust time if doing conduit method instead. Pay someone $30-40 an hour to do if you do not want to do yourself = $60-120 average per room?
- Maybe $200-500 to patch up the occasional snafu or open up a hole to help fish cables if needed?
Ball park figure, that's like, $200-300 a room, but if you do multiple rooms and pull a coil of cable, there's an overall time savings maybe?
Well we have a finished basement, so it would be impossible to pull any cable to spots I'd like to install PoE cameras for instance without cutting out drywall
Well we have a finished basement, so it would be impossible to pull any cable to spots I'd like to install PoE cameras for instance without cutting out drywall
So patch the drywall after ?
For 30$ an hr it’s easy to hire someone to patch and paint. And they will do very quick !
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Well we have a finished basement, so it would be impossible to pull any cable to spots I'd like to install PoE cameras for instance without cutting out drywall
Well, yes. The odds of completing such a thing without cutting drywall might be low. However, the costs to cut and patch to satisfaction is probably much cheaper than what you might expect it to be.
For my place, when I was doing the refresh, I had a 16'x12' ish hole cut on my main floor to facilitate fishing the wires upstairs and into the living room. I guess it kinda helped that it used to be a hole for an intercom system that we just made bigger to reach a stud to screw into. After it was done, it was patched it up and we repainted the entire wall. I don't even know where the hole is specifically, but I can probably guess within around 2-3 feet where it was. Most of these patch costs were built into the cost of my refresh, but even if they weren't I think the cost to patch and repaint that specific wall (rather than try and blend it) would have been less than $500.
Basically, if someone did such a project and had to cut some drywall, sure, maybe it'll cost slightly more, but again, I don't think it would cost more than a few grand ($3-4K max?) total including patching costs to do. On top of that, I feel like it would end up being a selling feature if the house were ever resold an a feature that would aid the house value as much if not more than the cost of a cable pulling project.
I also did mine piece meal which wasn't the most efficient (went from pulling 3 cables initially to requesting two more). Knowing what I know now, it would have made far more sense to pull multiple wires through an established path between the utility room and attic and then drop cables down into the rooms rather than try and snake randomly towards different rooms. An extra 20 feet per cable usage/wastage is like $5-10 bucks per cable on the higher end and it is far less than the cost to pay someone the extra hours fishing independent lines to each room (But he was cheap, whatever). Plus, I had extra cable left. If you buy a spool, your cost is your cost.
People pour a lot of money into things that are kinda meaningless in their home they do not use. Many do not pour the money into a cable pulling project because they lament the cost and inconvenience, yet wish they had it done. I'm starting to wonder if there's a wild misunderstanding on the complexity and cost relating to such a project.
