If you live in a house without central air-conditioning, this summer must have been pretty miserable for you.
For owners of older homes, the sweatbox environment is part of the (cough, cough) charm.
But if you live in an un-air-conditioned house that is only 25 years old, you must have wondered if there was an ice age in the 1970s and early 1980s that wasn’t reported in the papers.
What could have possessed a builder and the original buyer to forgo central air-conditioning when it had been widely available since the 1950s?
Funny thing about new housing. Back in 1971, two years before the first oil embargo, only 36 percent of the million or so houses built had central air-conditioning, according to census data compiled by the National Association of Home Builders.
In 1996, the latest year for which NAHB figures are available, the figure had climbed to 81 percent of the 1.13 million houses built. Global warming? No, standard feature. Until the mid-1980s, central air was optional, and many buyers, looking to cut costs, said no to cool.
These days, few people would do without it. And the greater the demand, the less expensive such amenities are.
How many of today’s new-home buyers would even look at a house with fewer than 2 bathrooms?
Only 15 percent of the houses built in 1971 had 2 baths, compared with 49 percent today. Yet, even 49 percent means that most buyers are still opting for fewer bathrooms than surveys show they want, and adding one or two later.
Typically, the addition of one bathroom, with ceramic tile and a closet, is running about $12,000, according to statistics compiled by Remodeling magazine. While costs vary from region to region, that same bathroom added at construction time probably costs three-quarters of that amount.
NAHB surveys of buyers show that they want four bedrooms, yet fewer than one-third of all new houses completed in 1996 had four. In 1971, that figure was 24 percent, and the percentage actually declined to 18 percent in 1985, when the kids were given postage-stamp-size bedrooms and the extra space was being configured into the parents’ master suite.
The idea was that the introduction of the family room meant that children didn’t need to spend as much time in their bedrooms as in previous decades.
Fireplaces have become a must-have item in new houses. In 1971, slightly more than one-third of all houses completed had fireplaces. By 1975, in the aftermath of the 1973 energy crisis, 52 percent of new houses had them as an alternative heating source.
By 1996, fireplaces had become a part of 62 percent of all new houses, more for their romantic appeal.
Probably because of increased construction costs and the fact that homes in many areas of the country traditionally do without them, the percentage of houses built with full or partial basements has remained at 36 percent over the last three decades.
On the other hand, only 13 percent of all houses are being built without garages or carports, compared with 26 percent in 1971. In 1970, slightly more than one-third of all houses had two-car garages. Now that figure is up to 78 percent, and buyers’ surveys are showing a desire for three, with one to be used as flexible space for a studio apartment for an aged parent, home office, or exercise room.
In 1971, the majority of all houses built in the United States were one-story, reflecting the postwar love affair with the ranch house. These days, for every one-story house being built, a home of two or more stories is being completed.
