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Today’s topic is about houses, which may be the biggest shopping in a life time for the most of people.

In Japan, there are many old temples and shrines have existed for many decades or even hundreds of years; however, Japanese houses seems to last far shorter than Europeans.

How short would that be you think?  Well, while average American house lasts 44 years to be rebuilt and 75 years for the UK one, Japanese house lasts only 26 years, which is about a half of American houses!!  What could be the reason for this?

"Kossy@FINEDAYS" some rights reserved. flickr

According to the article, mortgage system became common in Japan during the years of steep economic growth, and many reasonable houses with poor quality materials were built in order to meet high demand in housing market, which seems to be the reason why our houses don’t last long anymore.  This poor quality houses typically don’t suit to Japanese hot and humid climate, so they can be easily damaged than conventional houses.  For example, concrete base of houses accelerates decaying of houses, and inappropriate house materials cause condensation.

On the other hand, since Japanese houses doesn’t last so long recently, long-lasting quality houses (so called 200 years-lasting houses) have been appealing to people, and qualified long-lasting houses by the government are now entitled to receive advantageous interest rate and tax rate.  Having said that, long-lasting houses, of course, do not mean that they don’t need maintenances at all.  As Japanese and European people have been doing so, houses do need certain maintenances and cares so that they would last longer.

Like Shosoin, the treasure house, which has existed for approx. 1400 years, Japanese traditional temples, shrines and old houses remained very long with cultivated techniques and experiences gained for centuries by our ancestors.  I assume more and more Japanese people are worried about durability and quake resistance of their houses now.  In order to have our traditional long-lasting house standard back, we have to deepen our knowledge and rethink conventional wisdom first so that we wouldn’t be so dependant to reasonable materials without caring about necessary materials and building methods for your house.

What did you like today’s topic?

Please let us know what you think 😉

Source: web R25

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