Will your new home still be standing in 50 years?

Sawn lumber (worse today)

A century ago, U.S. homes were built of stout materials: old-growth timber and durable native stones, slate and brick. Virgin forests produced trees hundreds and even thousands of years old. The dense, highly compressed wood often formed every part of a house, from massive support timbers to solid doors, plank floors, window frames, siding and, often, shake roofs.

Wood today is farmed, like corn or wheat, and harvested in around 25 years. Young trees pass building codes, but they're not as dense, straight and free of knots as the old timber. Lumber made from young trees also holds more moisture, which causes problems: Once the house is sealed up and the heat's turned on, floor joists and wall studs may shrink or warp as they dry, causing drywall and floor tiles to crack, and caulked seams to pull apart, says homebuilder and remodeler Tim Carter. He dispenses construction advice and wisdom at his website, AskTheBuilder. "The older trees just are more stable than the younger wood," says David Carlysle, president of the National Academy of Building Inspection Engineers and owner of Criterium-Carlysle Engineers in Birmingham, Ala.

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Craftsmanship (worse today)

Nostalgia for a bygone time lets us imagine that all old homes were made by master craftsmen. But that's not true. Remodelers uncover a wide range of craftsmanship in old homes. "I can show you many old houses with sloppy craftsmanship, rooms out of square, foundations that are wildly out of plumb," Carter says. He finds sloppy work in about 15% of the old houses he's worked on. But Carter guesses — from the "staggering" number of owners e-mailing him with complaints — that today some 40% of new homes have problems. Poor craftsmanship is more common today, Carlysle agrees. A Consumer Reports study in this decade found serious defects in 15% of new homes. But builders may be improving in response to the tougher sales climate.

With new materials and new techniques, old skills have been left behind. Carter blames the trend away from vocational schools and apprenticeship programs for the loss of skills and pride in craftsmanship. New construction techniques and materials require specialists. "Installing the air conditioning properly and dealing with the refrigerants, you've got to really know what you're doing," says Vladimir Kochkin, director of applied engineering at the NAHB Research Center. "You probably wouldn't have the expertise and couldn't afford the equipment if you were a jack-of-all-trades." There's little room for error now. Problems arise when subcontractors or supervisors don't  — or can't — read the manufacturer's technical instructions for installation. Or, for example, if installers don't bother using flashings (seals), an expensive, highly efficient and gas-filled triple-pane window will leak heat and the warranty will be voided. What's worse, moisture creeps in invisibly, letting rot or mold grow inside the home's walls. It's the same story when sloppy workmanship compromises a foundation, roof, house wrap or many of the other highly engineered components in a new home.

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Affordability (Better today)

Old houses are often built over and above current building codes. Why don't builders today do that? "To keep the cost down,"  Carlysle says. "It's almost consumer-driven, so that the price of a house can be in the range that the average American can afford to buy one."

Given enough money, you can exceed the requirements of your local building code. But could you afford to buy that house? Builders construct in large part in response to the demands of American consumers, who respond when the market offers a lot of "affordable" homes.

Evidence: In 1900, fewer than half of Americans owned their own homes. About two-thirds are homeowners today.

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Longevity (worse today)

You'll find homes 200 years old or more standing in America's older cities. In older countries, people live in homes 1,000 years old or older. Will American homes made today still be good 200 years from now? Or even 50? Opinions differ. Some experts say that today's components and techniques, properly applied, should create a structure that's long-lived. Maintenance — in the hands of homeowners — is a big factor, points out Bob Hill, NAHB Research Center's director of laboratory and certification services. "As long as they're maintained and you keep termites out and that kind of thing, there is no reason to believe a house is going to fall down in 60 years," Hill says.

But will a typical subdivision dwelling still be livable in 100 years? The 1910-era homes still standing now were "overbuilt" by today's standards. Building codes, which differ from one community to the next, are the standard that builders use today. The codes don't anticipate a home that will last 100 years, Carlysle says.

"Most residential structures (today) are built to last 50 years," he says. Builders could go further, of course. Some do. The codes, after all, only set a minimum standard. Meeting code "is like getting 70% in a test," quips Carter, who also allows that a home built today is more likely to survive an earthquake or violent storm.

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Doors (better today)

A home is defined by its entry. For years, the best doors worldwide have been made of solid wood. In the mid-20^th century, the invention of the hollow-core paneled door was a big step backward in quality. Cheap, leaky and easily demolished with a hard kick, hollow doors did as much as anything to hurt the quality reputation of American homes. Now, door manufacturers are atoning for the sins of their fathers, particularly with strong entry doors of vinyl, steel and — best of all — fiberglass. These doors are built to last a lifetime and beyond. The best have adjustable thresholds: If your house settles, you can whip out a screwdriver and adjust the threshold to fit tightly against the frame’s weather stripping. Example: Therma-Tru’s Tru-Defense entry doors, named by Popular Science Magazine as a "Best of What’s New" product in 2007. In tests, the door, a sandwich of fiberglass, steel and polyurethane foam, stood up to a two-by-four shot from a cannon and endured 236 mph winds and eight inches of rain. Cost: $650–$1,500.

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Fiberglass (Better today)

Fiberglass is "the latest miracle material" for windows and doors, says Sal Alfano, editorial director of Remodeling Magazine. It is strong but, unlike steel, doesn't easily dent, rust or scratch. And, unlike wood today, fiberglass won't warp, rot, split or crack. "It is very rugged and durable, can be painted or stained and made to look like almost any kind of wood. But it's more stable than wood," Alfano says. "A fiberglass window or door won't crack or warp or expand and contract from humidity and dryness, as wood does. It needs no maintenance."

An added bonus: Fiberglass can be made to mimic wood grain perfectly and takes a stain or can be painted. Carter recalls how impressed he was with a mock-wood fiberglass door: "I swear to God, if I took you up to the door and put your face up to it, you would think it is a solid oak door." Carlysle has had a similar experience: "I can't tell the difference in the way (fiberglass windows) look, and when I tap on them, they sound harder than wood."

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Windows (Better today)

Until recently, most gains in energy efficiency came from improved insulation in ceilings and walls. Windows — which lose 10% to 25% of a home's heat — lagged, in spite of innovations like highly insulated frames, UV-protective films and triple panes sandwiched with insulating layers of gases. But now there's a new class of "super-efficient" windows. They cut spending on heating and cooling by up to 50%. Where most windows are rated R-1 to R-3, these windows earn ratings of R-5 to R-11. ("R factor" — resistance to heat flow — measures a material's insulating value. Higher numbers are best: Walls typically run between R-13 and R-15 but can reach R-30. Read about tighter windows at the National Fenestration Rating Council.)

Stop leaking heat from your house, and everyone wins: Your bills drop and so do demands on pollution-producing power plants. SeriousWindows, by Serious Materials, has been getting praise recently for building windows that exceed the federal government's EnergyStar standards by double. (Prices available from dealers.) Install windows that meet EnergyStar requirements and you can earn a federal tax credit of up to $1,500.

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Real estate's new reality: Homes are shelters before investments

Waterproofing (Better)

House wraps repel moisture, the eternal enemy of homes. The "water resistive" membrane is installed under the exterior siding to keep water from entering a home's interior walls. In the old days, builders used tar paper, if they used anything at all. Older houses were not sealed tightly: If moisture got in, it could get out. "Now, as we start cranking down on energy efficiency, we have to … see the impact that has and use new technology and products to make sure the house still functions properly," says Kochkin, of the NAHB Research Center.

A new product, DELTA-DRY dual-chambered ventilated rain screen, takes moisture barriers a step further. Installed over house wrap, it repels wind-driven rain and also drains and channels away any moisture that's leaked into the walls from outside. Its surface, made of dimples and channels, gathers trapped water vapor and guides it down and out of the building. The rough surface also keeps air moving to reduce humidity inside the wall cavity, helping to protect against mold and rot that can cause building failure and toxic mold infestation. It is one of the few ventilated rain screen products that continues to function even if torn during installation, according to the manufacturer, Cosella-Dörken Products. (Cost: 85 cents per square foot MSRP.)

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Trusses (Better and worse)

Trusses, used in old homes and new to support floors and roofs, have gone high-tech. Today, they're as strong as those made a century ago from old-growth timbers, but they're a lot lighter and more efficient. Yet, they're mostly made of air — showing how a good idea can substitute for older, heavy components. New trusses are made in a factory, with less waste, then shipped to a home site, helping keep homes affordable yet well-designed. Architects and designers use them to span longer distances and transfer heavier loads — snow and a roof's weight, for example.

Unfortunately, there's a downside: Lightweight trusses are prone to collapsing quickly in a fire. "This type of engineered floor (and roof) support system provides substantial strength, but has been demonstrated to fail quickly under fire conditions," writes Ed Hartin, who trains firefighters in fire suppression and safety, in his blog for professionals, CFBT-US. "Legacy lumber" is harder to burn because it has more mass and less surface area. Engineered trusses are the opposite — more surface in relation to their mass — and so they ignite and burn faster.

Even steel trusses are vulnerable. In fact, they may fail faster than wood. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, urging firefighters not to risk their lives simply defending property, says (in "Preventing Injuries and Deaths of Fire Fighters Due to Truss System Failures"): "Lives will continue to be lost unless fire departments make appropriate fundamental changes in fire-fighting tactics involving trusses."

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Siding (Better today)

In the good old days, homes were covered in stone, brick, adobe or wood. But those materials can be prohibitively expensive today. That leaves us searching for low-maintenance, affordable siding that looks great and holds up forever. Siding products like aluminum, vinyl and hard board (including Masonite) and stone veneers all have had their day. But each has problems. Today, fiber-cement siding has won a lot of fans. It looks great installed and costs less than most wood, stone or brick. It resists rot and insects, can be painted and also can be made to mimic wood shingles and lapped wood board siding; Like stone and brick, it resists fire and damage from storms. Unlike hard board, it tolerates rain and damp.

The fiber-cement product most respected in the trades is by JamesHardie. The newest JamesHardie products are engineered for the climate zones they'll live in and have a 30-year (limited transferability) product warranty. You can pick a baked-on color (15-year warranty) to avoid the gases and odor from paint. Otherwise, be prepared to paint as you would with wood siding, although JamesHardie claims your paint job lasts about 10 years longer on its product. The downside: Fiber cement is heavy, which makes it difficult to move and more costly to install. (Cost: roughly $2 per square foot installed.)

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Roofing nails (Better today, if …)

In time, nails can back out of a roof. When your roof heats up, the plywood under it swells, pulling nails up with it. Eventually, the wood cools and settles back down. But the nail stays where it was. Nails gradually work their way up and out of a roof in this way, punching through the shingles lapped above them. When roofing gets loose or blows off, water creeps in, doing damage inside your house that can get pretty bad before you notice it. Ring-shank nails are a big improvement: They have a series of rings running down the shank that prevent the nail from popping out. Oddly, lots of builders ignore them. "I don’t know why people don’t use them," Carlysle says. "Probably because they cost a penny more."

• On our blog, 'Listed': Rise in housing starts probably doesn't mean much

Real estate's new reality: Homes are shelters before investments

Joists (Better and worse)

Joists are strong beams used in roofs and floors to bear heavy loads. They were — and often still are — made from long, straight pieces of sawn lumber. But an innovation — the engineered I-joist — often is used these days instead.

Like trusses, I-joists are manufactured from "composite" wood. A board called a "web" is framed by lengthwise "flanges." Cut into a cross section, the beam looks like an "I," hence the name. To make composite wood, scraps and lower-quality logs are broken into smaller strands and combined with glue products to become superstrong for their size. I-joists aren’t cheaper, but they are straighter and lighter than dimensional lumber, are uniform in size and won’t shrink or warp. Fewer natural resources are wasted and I-joists let architects and designers span long distances to create larger, more-expansive rooms without increasing the number of supports. However, like engineered trusses, I-joists are more vulnerable to fire than solid lumber. In a 2008 test by the Underwriters Laboratory, engineered lumber collapsed in less than a third of the time that it took fire to burn through traditional wood components. The solution? UL says to protect lightweight building components with half-inch gypsum wallboard.

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Roofing (Better today)

Roofing materials have been improving steadily in recent years. An asphalt roof purchased in the 1920s or '30s probably had a 15-year warranty. Today, asphalt shingles typically are guaranteed for 25 years; some even carry a 50-year warranty. Contemporary metal roofing offers another improvement in homes. It lasts 20 years or more and withstands the torments of hail, sunlight and high wind. In addition to greater longevity, newer roofs do a better job of keeping in heat and cooled air. The best products reflect the sun's rays to reduce air-conditioning bills and contain rising temperatures that make cities overheated in summer.

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Paint (Better today)

If you've ever suffered a headache from fresh paint, you'll appreciate this development: no- and low-VOC (volatile organic compound) paint. Old-style paints include cancer-causing solvents that are released into the air as your paint job dries and cures. Now, even mainstream paint companies like Benjamin Moore, Kelly-Moore, Sherwin-Williams and Olympic Paint and Stain offer "zero-VOC" paints —water-based products with five grams of VOCs per liter or less. Low-VOC paints use formaldehyde and heavy metals sparingly or not at all. Improvements began in the 1970s when manufacturers stopped using lead, a traditional component of paint through the centuries that is poisonous if eaten or inhaled. Before you try removing paint that might have lead, get advice from the staff at a reputable paint or hardware store. Don't even sand old paint; you can get lead poisoning simply from eating or inhaling lead paint dust. (Learn about the hazards of lead paint here, from the Environmental Protection Agency.)

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Protect yourself

On the balance, you're the one to decide whether you prefer the benefits of a new home or those of an older house. The bottom line: Don't walk blindly into a home purchase. Here's how to protect yourself:

• Become an educated buyer
• Choose your builder carefully
• Learn how to spot problems when shopping for a home (read "6 signs your home could be a lemon").
• Use new-home builders who will explain in detail their program for managing quality on their work sites, and seek out builders who can demonstrate their commitment to quality work. Search here to find local contractors, suppliers and builders who've earned National Housing Quality (NHQ) Builder and Trade Contractor certification from the NAHB Research Center.

Real estate's new reality: Homes are shelters before investments

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