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When I hear people say, 鈥淭hey sure don鈥檛 build houses like they used to,鈥� I think to myself, 鈥淵eah, and it鈥檚 a good thing too.鈥�

Granted, the quality of many items in new homes 鈥� doors, paint, hardware and so on 鈥� can鈥檛 measure up to that of their vintage counterparts. But when it comes to actual structure and infrastructure, there鈥檚 no comparison.

Starting at the bottom (the foundation), modern houses are already way ahead. Prewar foundations had little or no reinforcing steel in them, which is why sticking doors and crooked floors are so common in vintage houses. Thanks to increasingly stringent codes for earthquake safety, modern foundations contain plenty of reinforcement, which has the added benefit of levelness.

Building codes also require today鈥檚 houses to be much more robustly framed than their predecessors, which often were shockingly weak structures. Victorian houses, for instance, typically sat atop tottering 鈥渃ripple walls鈥� that made these already spindly and top-heavy structures even more susceptible to earthquakes, hurricanes and flood damage. Today, the use of inexpensive metal framing connectors such as joist hangers and tie straps produce far stronger houses at a modest additional cost.

Modern building infrastructure systems such as plumbing, heating and electrical also are leagues beyond their vintage counterparts. Take plumbing systems, for example 鈥� prewar homes typically used rust- and occlusion-prone galvanized steel water piping. Most modern plumbing systems, on the other hand, use durable, trouble-free copper.

Likewise, houses predating 1940 or so employed knob-and-tube wiring systems with cloth-insulated wires that were embrittled by heat and attractive to rodents. Worse, these systems were protected by simple plug fuses that could be (and often were) circumvented by clueless owners 鈥� the infamous 鈥減enny in the fuse box鈥� trick that led to many electrical fires.

Modern home electrical systems, on the other hand, use circuit breakers that can鈥檛 be tampered with. They also provide ample electrical capacity and plenty of outlets, doing away with the tangles of dangerous extension cords so ubiquitous in old houses.

And speaking of fires, it鈥檚 no accident that fewer deadly fires occur in newer homes than in older ones. Rather, it鈥檚 because today鈥檚 building codes require interlinked smoke detectors, and many codes require fire sprinklers as well. Together, these improvements have dramatically reduced the incidence of fatal house fires.

Lastly, new houses easily trump older ones in regard to comfort and energy efficiency. Although we like to think of homes from the 鈥済ood ol鈥� days鈥� as being warm and snug, most lacked wall and attic insulation to conserve heat and instead relied on huge, wasteful gas furnaces.

Thanks to modern standards, however, gone are the days of huge furnaces that lost more than half of their heat up the chimney or poorly insulated ductwork. Today鈥檚 high-efficiency furnaces, coupled with other features such as mandated insulation for floors, walls and ceilings, mean modern houses are many times more energy efficient than grandma鈥檚 cottage was.

Given all these improvements, the next time you hear someone say, 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 build houses like they used to,鈥� tell them they鈥檙e absolutely right.

Arrol Gellner is a California architect, college teacher and syndicated columnist who writes about architectural issues. Follow him on Twitter 鈥� .

漏2012 Arrol Gellner

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