MM,
Most building codes sets minimum life span for buildings to 50 years. This to establish a minimum quality demand in legal disputes. This is on construction, not the installations. Normal renewing of buildings in peace times are between 1 to 2% of the building stock and therefore it takes 50 to 100 years to renew the building stock. It will be a remaining small portion of older buildings, but they are not effecting the average numbers (the same happens to cars). Renovations and renewal of installations, have much shorter cycles and then improvements/changes can be introduced. It seems however to be a large number of more than 50 year old heating systems, still in use in US. Hakan At 03:55 11/03/2004, you wrote: > >The reason for this is quite simple. Though our country's fleet of > >autos and light trucks could turn over within about 12 years and be > >replaced by more efficiently run vehicles, buildings have a lifespan > >(and energy consumption and emissions pattern) of 50 to 100 years. > >Something else I want to mention about this article: > >If you put $50,000 or $100,000 or $200,000 or more into building a >home, it should be built to last more than 50 or 100 years, in my >view. Some here may be able to amend or differ with my view and >educate me. And there's probably a school of thought in sustainable >building that it's not necessary to build-to-last. > >But building a home (or paying someone to do it and buying it from >them) is the most trouble many of us go to, to buy a "thing" in our >lives, and there are different schools of thought, it would seem, on >how much quality a homebuyer "rates". I've heard that wood quality >may possibly have declined in some respects, overall. Now, there may >be a period of transition as home builders learn or re-think new >methods (such as steel), for various reasons. As buyers become more >educated, I think if they insist that they rate building quality that >will last, they can communicate this in their buying decisions? Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
