cam_uk

Here in the Uk we bought our house and intended to leave it to our daughter when we eventually passed on ... houses last for years and years over here .. and can be passed down generations

I read that most houses are made of timber over in aus ... how long do they last ... if we bought a house .. would my daugher get to live in it when we went?

sorry if it seems like a daft question but its just something i was thinking of in bed this morning

(by the way i'm only 35 .. and my daughter is 18months .. nothing like planning ahead )

Three Legs

Are you having a laugh ?

cam_uk

seriously??? ... NO ... it was just something i was thinking about this morning ...

but like the title suggests ... its more than likely a daft question ...

i was just wondering how long 'timber' houses last ... for example the house i live in currently is over 100 years old

woodyinoz

Our house is made of logs!!
It is over 30 years old and we are modernising. It is showing no signs of ageing...

We should be more worried about termites and bush fires rather than ageing where we live.

The other consideration is the roof! a lot are made from corrie and that wont last long either. Your best bet would be to invest in a place in the UK for her if you can.

cam_uk

this is what i was wondering ... how long houses last ... 30years and no signs of ageing is fine .. i was just wondering if they lasted as long as houses do over here .. (i understand the ongoing maintenance of timber is more important than that of brick houses)

I'd love to be able to afford to buy her a house back here but theres no chance of that

Three Legs

Before you leave, I suggest you take a holiday to Norway, Sweden or Denmark ...

It may help your thought process.

cam_uk

sorry i just thought it was a valid (if a little daft) question ..

its not something i thought a lot about really ..

A dogs life

It is a valid question. Ignore Three legs

If you are buying a house here, particularly a modern one (i.e. post 1950) they aren't built to last for generations. There is much more of a tradition here of flattening houses and building another new one (which again will probably only last for 50 years).

So really, if you buy a house you are really buying the plot of land for your child, and in thirty/forty years time, if and when you are pushing up daisies, they'll come along and flatten it and build the latest modern style house.

The only houses here that last are brick ones, and proper Queenslanders. All the modern stuff is built cheap and replaced easily.

ADL

cam_uk

Ah right .. i see .. thanks alot for your reply .. totally different concept to here in the uk ... not a bad thing .. but just different ...

DevMountain

There is no such thing as a daft question here (except maybe asking about the availability of custard) - moving to a new country has lots of unknowns, if we can help answer your questions (no matter how trivial) then we'll try out best

MrsDagboy

So is ours, still going strong .

steve`o

can you get birds? or is there an aussie equivalent?

chaval

Not a silly question at all....although I did read a book once about 3 little pigs and building houses from different materials...

Sorry it is friday an all that

Vash the Stampede

You read wrong. They're not.

And those few which are, will last for generations.

Back home I had an asbestos timber-frame house with a timber-frame roof which was built in 1945 and still going strong in 2001. The wood was jarrah, a native West Australian hardwood which is virtually indestructible - even to insects.

NickyC

Don't know where you got the idea that all houses are made of wood. The only areas (apart from old Queenslanders) that have weatherboard houses are out in the country or in the (originally) poor suburbs, built for the workers.

Sydney has huge areas of brick Victorian houses (eg. Paddington terraces) that are still standing 120 years later. Our house is double brick, built in the 1920s like millions of other houses and solid as a rock.

Even the huge tracts of project homes out in the far suburbs are built of one layer of brick.