alt Hacker News> You have to break open the wall to fix things
The best is to build in such a way as to not have to fix them in the first place. European standards mandate passing all wiring through corrugated tubes. Builders add spare empty ones for future expansion, which makes it unnecessary to open the walls in most cases.
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That means everything in your house is literally set in stone. Sometimes people want to redecorate, have plumbing in a different location or a TV on a different wall.
>European standards mandate passing all wiring through corrugated tubes.
Incorrect. It's usually done, because it's a good idea, but nobody says you have to.
Eh, people have a terrible time renovating or adding anything in housing in Europe. A lot of construction doesn’t have those tubes.
It’s hard to articulate how wildly different habits are in Europe vs US around things like ‘what electrical appliances I have’ partially because of this.
Housing tends to be a lot smaller too, largely due to population density differences, but also overall differences in economic earning power and ease of buying things.
Having owned a couple European houses they’re horrible to alter and mediocre on energy. I miss nice adaptable wood structures. Bizarrely Europeans seem to think their cinderblock homes are nicer…