> I am not sure were you are reading that "timber frame house can last hundreds of years" but I don't believe that is correct, most timber frame houses have an estimated 30 year life span. A stone/brick house can last thousands of years.
I grew up in a four family timber house built in the 1960's. It's still standing. As are all the houses on that road which were all built at the same time. We moved to a timber house built around 1910. It's still standing - I walked past it just last year. My grandparents lived in a development of all wooden houses built in the 1950's. They're all standing.
Where did you get this notion they have a life span of 30 years? Norway has plenty of wooden houses that have stood for a 100+ years, and a huge bulk of post-war construction from the 50's and 60's in wood.
On the more extreme end, there are a number of stave churches in wood dating back to the 1200's. Of course they're the outlies that survived, and have certainly required maintenance.
EDIT:
Here's a list of stave churches in Norway, and construction years. Some of these have been rebuilt during that time, but even those that have typically have a lifetime of each iteration measured in centuries, with a few exceptions:
As a fun curiosity, here's Vang stave church, "moved" from Norway to Poland in 1842, originally built in the 1200's. "Moved" because most of the material ended up being discarded because the builders handling the re-erection didn't quite know how and found it easier to replace most of it. So the current iteration is really "only ~180 years old, and might have been moved and rebuilt once before, but in any case each iteration survived rather a bit longer than 30 years:
The life span is probably more due to the lifespan of the plumbing. On high-grade copper(L- or K-) you can get a useful life of 50 years but PEX is only rated for 30 years, and the lowest grade of copper(M-type) has a similar replacement interval. The valves used in plumbing fixtures also wear out and need replacement periodically. And the valve housings do as well. The anode in a water heater will probably only last a couple of decades. These are all replaceable parts.
Siding is in a similar state, with many modern sidings have replacement intervals in the decades, and shorter time periods if you don't paint every 5-10 years.
If properly maintained and if parts are replaced in a timely manner a house can last indefintely. My partner and I own a house from 1935 that was last renovated in the 1990s, and I'm starting to have to make minor plumbing repairs. I think in the next 10 years or so we'll have to re-pipe and re-wire. But the framing and sheathing is almost all original, except for the roof deck which was replaced first in the 1990's and then parts were replaced when we re-roofed last year(the original roofer did not know how to frame to support a rake board).
Everything also changes if you factor in repainting and replacement of interior fixtures.
But still, if you maintain it and factor in all these repairs and replacements your house can last for hundreds of years.
For what it's worth, I have a 200 year old cottage that probably has a few centuries left in it, and the plumbing and wiring is all in conduits that are easily accessed. Maybe we should make it easier to replace this stuff without ripping the house apart?
I grew up in a four family timber house built in the 1960's. It's still standing. As are all the houses on that road which were all built at the same time. We moved to a timber house built around 1910. It's still standing - I walked past it just last year. My grandparents lived in a development of all wooden houses built in the 1950's. They're all standing.
Where did you get this notion they have a life span of 30 years? Norway has plenty of wooden houses that have stood for a 100+ years, and a huge bulk of post-war construction from the 50's and 60's in wood.
On the more extreme end, there are a number of stave churches in wood dating back to the 1200's. Of course they're the outlies that survived, and have certainly required maintenance.
EDIT: Here's a list of stave churches in Norway, and construction years. Some of these have been rebuilt during that time, but even those that have typically have a lifetime of each iteration measured in centuries, with a few exceptions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stave_churches_in_Norw...
As a fun curiosity, here's Vang stave church, "moved" from Norway to Poland in 1842, originally built in the 1200's. "Moved" because most of the material ended up being discarded because the builders handling the re-erection didn't quite know how and found it easier to replace most of it. So the current iteration is really "only ~180 years old, and might have been moved and rebuilt once before, but in any case each iteration survived rather a bit longer than 30 years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vang_Stave_Church