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Gullible-Annual-6085 t1_je6m6nj wrote

Reply to comment by skunkachunks in eli5 why ancient historical buildings haven’t been kept up? Why are buildings like the Parthenon and the Colosseum in such disrepair? Greece and Rome/Italy have existed the entire time? by PickledSpace56

To add, they were just designed poorly. These buildings were put up without an air barrier in the insulation envelope. This causes a temperature delta between the two substrates with the two air pressure systems interacting with very little force interruption. As a result it would produce the equivalent of 2 liters of moisture per square foot in a building in a month.

That’s a fuck ton of moisture.

All commercial buildings going up now have air barriers to prevent the ungodly amount of moisture that was the biggest problem with the earlier builds.

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EsmuPliks t1_je6upes wrote

>To add, they were just designed poorly. These buildings were put up without an air barrier in the insulation envelope.

Meh, we also know now Romans used to mix lumps of calcium into their concrete to make cracks self repair, the "moisture" is by far not the issue. There are plenty of examples across Europe of 400 AD architecture still in good condition, the destroyed ones are usually either explicitly bombed to fuck in one of the hundreds of wars, or just uncared for and destroyed by accelerated erosion as modern infrastructure is built around them. And the occasional earthquake too, when talking about Italy and Greece.

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Gullible-Annual-6085 t1_je6vw6c wrote

I disagree. And sure that architecture is still in good condition but that was before the invention of HVAC and the temperature delta between the pressure systems is now much higher than it was during those periods. Besides stone and concrete is mostly an air barrier and is a much better air barrier than the typical buildings put up in 40’s-00’s with just substrate and fiberglass. Masonry buildings put up during this time are also in good shape.

We’re talking about the majority of malls/commercial buildings that have been left to rot.

I think it’s like 80 percent of commercial buildings have mold problems and water damage that were built during this period. I’d reckon the 20 percent are the masonry buildings.

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