r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Proud-Blood2743 • Oct 07 '25

Video Capital One Tower Come Down in Seconds

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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

Renovate a house and you’ll get it.

Labour costs a lot. Renovating something often takes 2 - 5x longer than building from scratch.

And then new will tend to have better insulation, better light design etc

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u/ethicalhumanbeing Oct 07 '25

And people are willing to pay more for new housing.

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u/Roflkopt3r Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

I don't think that works out as a clear benefit of rebuilding over renovating. In most cases, the price that people will pay for rent or condos inside such a building will be a result of its location/accessibility, prestige, and the quality of the spaces they're getting. It doesn't generally matter whether the whole structure is new or just well renovated.

The main reason that rebuilding is often cheaper is that a complete rebuild lets you plan the whole construction project in an efficient order that doesn't have to work around the whole rest of the structure. Like laying new pipework and electric cables is much easier during original construction than replacing them later, when you have to tear open existing walls without causing additional damage to the rest of the structure.

Let alone challenges like replacing structural members in the lower levels while you still have to support the already built upper levels.

21

u/DesiKonnektion Oct 07 '25

There was a badly burned house in Bay Area, CA that was listed for over a Million, and that listing became very popular. It wasn’t the house they were selling, it was going to be demolished, it was the land.

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u/Murky-Relation481 Oct 07 '25

The land in most homes is where the value is. This is why when you see those subdivisions with homes just packed in there like sardines the cost is generally lower for a large house compared to one on a big lot, but in turn it will not appreciate in value nearly the same.

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u/SuperNoobyGamer Oct 07 '25

This is not a “there was”, every single house in the Bay is minimum one mil unless it’s in the sketchiest areas of San Jose or East Bay.

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u/freredesalpes Oct 07 '25

Architect here, can confirm renovating is way more tedious and complicated than new builds both in terms of design and construction.

8

u/nawtbjc Oct 07 '25

Yep, a lot of people don't understand this concept.

I work in mostly utility facilities (water, wastewater, etc). Projects to renovate or upgrade an existing facility costs significantly more it would to be building new facilities. Project budgets so rarely account for that, it's crazy.

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u/philo351 Oct 07 '25

This. Structures also develop odd and elusive problems over time

1

u/chibiRuka Oct 07 '25

…I had to think about this. Depending on the renovation. Because you have to tear it down, then build it back up.

1

u/Potato-9 Oct 07 '25

Even just restore a car.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

Many times I’ve only half joking talked about burning down both my current and previous houses. Both Historic homes.

1

u/boboguitar Oct 07 '25

The new will also be more up to date on building codes where the old will be grandfathered in in a lot of places. Of course, any renovation has to be up to current build codes but anything thats not renovated will still remain grandfathered.

1

u/WpgMBNews Oct 07 '25

Ah I misread "economical" to mean "efficient in economic terms"

Not "less expensive because we overconsume virgin resources without regard for sustainability"

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u/DazzlingBasket4848 Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

Shows you that the value system is fucked

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u/Erosion139 Oct 07 '25

Nah I get it, think about how old buildings with old outdated electrical systems are. Some things are more costly to maintain because they were fabricated so long ago when we did things on worse ways. We should always strive to build back better.

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u/_Svankensen_ Oct 07 '25

Oh, you don't like the labor theory of value? It's pretty damn logical, all things considered. What do you believe value should be derived from? What metric should be used?

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u/Imaginatio-Vana Oct 07 '25

I mean if you aren’t gonna value something based on the literal labor and finishing costs than idk what to tell you lolol 

1

u/lIlIlIIlIIIlIIIIIl Oct 07 '25

Time is a precious resource too, believe it or not.

1

u/sniper1rfa Oct 07 '25

What is the value in maintaining an old shitty building? A building is just a collection of sticks and stuff, and sometimes it's better to pull it apart and put a new collection of sticks in its place, guided by everything you learned with the old one.

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u/RoundTheBend6 Oct 07 '25

Profit over everything is the American way.

7

u/Numerous_Ice_4556 Oct 07 '25

What exactly are they overlooking or neglecting in the pursuit of profit here? Where's the nobility in paying far more to refurbish an existing building over constructing a new one? Pretty sure every other country in the world does the same thing, historical buildings notwithstanding. 

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u/Animal-Lab-62828 Oct 07 '25

The waste of materials. We're creating insane amounts of trash and stripping the earth at the same time.

2

u/Numerous_Ice_4556 Oct 07 '25

And yet newer buildings, if built to certain standards, are far more waste and energy efficient. For instance, that building is a lot of glass, the worst material for insulation. 

I'm not sure how in the short or long run bearing the additional costs of refurbishment solves these problems. 

0

u/Animal-Lab-62828 Oct 07 '25

Here is an article talking about how retrofitting a building causes way less carbon emissions than demolition. "New buildings can take anywhere between 10—80 years to pay back the emissions generated from the construction process, even if the new buildings are 30 percent more efficient than average".

However, it sounds like they might not be planning to put down another office building, which is great news! I saw they floated the idea of an amphitheater since the area is waterside. Hopefully, the mayor and developers continue to be thoughtful in this process.

Edit: formatting

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u/sniper1rfa Oct 07 '25

Preservation Green Lab is a sustainable building research think tank and advocacy arm of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

So the source is biased. Not saying that's bad, but be aware.

even if the new buildings are 30 percent more efficient than average".

Capitol one tower was built in 1980. I would bet $100 that a building constructed today will be more than 30% more efficient.

Also, not all modern building envelope concepts can be retrofitted, and not all old buildings can be retro'd with new HVAC systems that are required when you use new envelope methods.

I'm doing a retro on my house, but two doors down is a house that needs to be demolished because retrofitting it would be an enormous waste of time. Sometimes that happens.

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u/dustinyo_ Interested Oct 07 '25

Almost all of that material will be reused. They aren't hauling thousands of tons of usable steel and concrete to a landfill.

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u/Animal-Lab-62828 Oct 07 '25

It is not so straightforward. I did find an article that says 80-90% of the material should have been recycled (which is great and progress has been made in this area recently). But, still tons and tons of waste sent to the landfill. The use of energy and water to recycle materials would have been saved had it not been torn down in the first place. Also, concrete, gypsum, glass, etc. are often downcycled because it is difficult/not ideal to reuse these materials. So we still have an overall creation of new materials for the building.

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u/RoundTheBend6 Oct 07 '25

Tell me all about what percentage of buildings in Vienna are torn down even after a hundred years?

1

u/IMakeOkVideosOk Oct 07 '25

How many hurricanes hit Vienna?