How long till the buildings fall down?

Just a general question that crossed my mind today, and I know a lot of people here will know the answer. I was thinking about the near-distant future here and wondering what it would be like. In Mainland China, I can see them building skyscrapers left and right and just knocking down the old buildings to build (presumably) better ones when the ‘time comes’, but I couldn’t see that happening here…all I could see was them building condos in Linkou while letting all of Taipei turn into today’s Wanhua District…kind of like that episode of the Simpsons where Springfield got so shitty they just picked up everything and moved it over to “New Springfield”.

Considering a lot of the buildings in TW were built during the crazy rush 1960-1980 and are literally just concrete blocks built ridiculously quickly, how long do these buildings have before they start structurally falling apart? When that day comes, all of TW will literally fall apart, considering every building is identically built. Do we get new concrete blocks in their places considering the road layout would be difficult to change at this point?

[quote=“mike029”]Just a general question that crossed my mind today, and I know a lot of people here will know the answer. I was thinking about the near-distant future here and wondering what it would be like. In Mainland China, I can see them building skyscrapers left and right and just knocking down the old buildings to build (presumably) better ones when the ‘time comes’, but I couldn’t see that happening here…all I could see was them building condos in Linkou while letting all of Taipei turn into today’s Wanhua District…kind of like that episode of the Simpsons where Springfield got so shitty they just picked up everything and moved it over to “New Springfield”.

Considering a lot of the buildings in TW were built during the crazy rush 1960-1980 and are literally just concrete blocks built ridiculously quickly, how long do these buildings have before they start structurally falling apart? When that day comes, all of TW will literally fall apart, considering every building is identically built. Do we get new concrete blocks in their places considering the road layout would be difficult to change at this point?[/quote]

Another 921 perhaps (God forbid).

My granny lives in a 60 year old gong yu and it’s built like a tank. I think it’ll last longer than a lot of the 20 year old high rises. I don’t think they build them like they use to.

Good question. A lot of them suffer from leaky roofs and warping floors and settlement, have not heard of any collapsing though.

Concrete is strong in sompression but very weak in tension. The strength to resist tension comes from the rebar. Once the rebar has rusted through, and it WILL rust through eventually, the concrete will be unable to resist bending forces and will fail catastrophically.

Architects give a realistic lifetime of 50-100 years for reinforced concrete that is exposed to the elements. New buildings whose structural concrete is always kept dry (Taipei 101 for example) could theoretically last forever.

The worry thing is – and I have seen this firsthand – once a small crack appears and the rebar is exposed to the water and air, the rust eats through it amazingly quickly.

[quote=“mike029”]Just a general question that crossed my mind today, and I know a lot of people here will know the answer. I was thinking about the near-distant future here and wondering what it would be like. In Mainland China, I can see them building skyscrapers left and right and just knocking down the old buildings to build (presumably) better ones when the ‘time comes’, but I couldn’t see that happening here…all I could see was them building condos in Linkou while letting all of Taipei turn into today’s Wanhua District…kind of like that episode of the Simpsons where Springfield got so shitty they just picked up everything and moved it over to “New Springfield”.

Considering a lot of the buildings in TW were built during the crazy rush 1960-1980 and are literally just concrete blocks built ridiculously quickly, how long do these buildings have before they start structurally falling apart? When that day comes, all of TW will literally fall apart, considering every building is identically built. Do we get new concrete blocks in their places considering the road layout would be difficult to change at this point?[/quote]

Its good to have an architect on the forum. Thanks for your valuable insight, I am sure many engineers in this country, both foreign and local would love to hear more from you, perhaps you can lecture at various firms and government agencies around the country?

[quote=“Deuce Dropper”][quote=“mike029”]Just a general question that crossed my mind today, and I know a lot of people here will know the answer. I was thinking about the near-distant future here and wondering what it would be like. In Mainland China, I can see them building skyscrapers left and right and just knocking down the old buildings to build (presumably) better ones when the ‘time comes’, but I couldn’t see that happening here…all I could see was them building condos in Linkou while letting all of Taipei turn into today’s Wanhua District…kind of like that episode of the Simpsons where Springfield got so shitty they just picked up everything and moved it over to “New Springfield”.

Considering a lot of the buildings in TW were built during the crazy rush 1960-1980 and are literally just concrete blocks built ridiculously quickly, how long do these buildings have before they start structurally falling apart? When that day comes, all of TW will literally fall apart, considering every building is identically built. Do we get new concrete blocks in their places considering the road layout would be difficult to change at this point?[/quote]

Its good to have an architect on the forum. Thanks for your valuable insight, I am sure many engineers in this country, both foreign and local would love to hear more from you, perhaps you can lecture at various firms and government agencies around the country?[/quote]

Gladly! Where should I begin? As a two year student of Civil Engineering (before changing majors), I’m sure I’m fully qualified! …it’s just a question, no need to be bitchy. I’m just curious as to the lifespan of these buildings that were seemingly haphazardly build all over the place in a mad rush to provide housing.

By the way, this is an engineering question, not an architecture one. If there were architects designing the buildings instead of engineers just plopping down ‘what works’ maybe we wouldn’t have these ugly buildings all over the place. If Taiwan had qualified architects and engineers perhaps we would have nicer looking buildings and sewers that wouldn’t need to be repaired once a week. Or roads that were constantly being fixed. Or a propane tank in my kitchen. Or a telephone cable strung across my living room tacked to the ceiling because there’s no way to run the cabling through the walls. Or an exterior window in between my bedroom and living room. Or a lack of any fire exits. Should I continue? My question isn’t an attack on anyone, it’s a question about what will possibly happen when the lifespan of all these buildings expires.

Not to sure with civic engineering but I would think society pressure to change the buildings would come way before actual infrastructure collapse. Unless a powerful earthquake were to come.

A big earthquake in Taipei would change things, there are fault lines running through the city which could amplify the effect in some areas.

I think many apartment blocks will be leveled and rebuilt as older folks die off and developers build more high rise.

I suspect this is the case to. I live in a gong yu built in the early 1970s, and it feels like the sturdiest of all the many apartments I’ve lived in in Taiwan. The newer apartments I’ve lived in in the past all had problems such as fine cracks appearing in the walls after earthquakes, or insufficiently thick walls to block out neighbor noise. This building has neither of those problems. (Like most of the gong yu built in that era, the walls are brick and the floor and ceiling slabs are concrete and rebar.)

The difference is that the old gongwus were built by the people themselves to live in, so they sort of made sure they were sturdy -as much as the technology (read bricks as my own humble abode) and the money (like my hood, populated by veterans and gov’t employees, so they had an edge in this) allowed.

The problem started when these same people started fleeing for the US or other places abroad, maybe even some other more affluent areas in Taipei. They rented out or sold their properties and never looked back. The ones that stayed behind were too poor or too stingy to invest in upkeep. Then the older buildings fell into disrepair. Actually, the only clear damage we have now are pipes -lack of maintenance- and facade -watch out as every day bricks fall. I always wondered what was that red glass beads I found on the street every day until I realized they came all the way from the roof, for instance. That this is the only visible damage is not comforting, as I feel the cracks on the staircase may not be just aesthetic eyesores. And for the bricks, who knows? I still can’t believe you can raise a 5 story building without much of a steel column to support.

Do you think anything changed, in Taipei proper maybe, but outside where I live they still build it the same crappy way as they did 30 years ago, they use the same crappy designs, layouts and material … and they do it pronto … a 15 story building in 6-8 months is no problem … we do 6-9 months in Belgium to build a fantastic family home.

Now I hear you talking … I’ve been observing these guys build an apartment building for the last 3 months, at all stages. I must say I was impressed by the way they have done the foundation. But now that I see the above ground I started thinking that it’s not that difficult to build in Taiwan, it’s basically a carbon copy form the building they did before and the one before that, except the layout where they shift a few walls, but the way they do it it must be easy to calculate rebar, concrete, electric wiring, elevators, plumbing, piping … There really is nothing new, and probably the windows and doors are going to be the same as all the other buildings too.
The surprising thing was the moment the land was sold they started soon after (maybe 1-2 months), now how can they do that when they have to design a building, get permissions and licenses :ponder:
I’ve seen companies use coated rebar, but these guys use the normal rusted rebar. What they do is build everything in wood (casting) than pour concrete, break the casting down, shift it one floor up and start over … if they work fast they do 1 floor in two weeks. most of the plumbing and piping is already locked in the concrete.

We live in a 21 storey new build high rise. The systems in the building are excellent, fire prevention, security systems, car park fire suppresion system etc.
Everything is maintained to a high standard, cleaned everyday, garbage and recycling is well planned and sanitised, security and lobby service 24 hours, collection of packages very efficient (this is really handy for internet shopping/trading business).

The interiors have nice bathrooms, marble tiled and decent standing showers and baths, infrared heating and air heating, fitted kitchens.

But after living here for a few months we started noticing things. The fitted kitchen started falling apart. The extractor broke down, press doors came ajar, the dryer broke down. Almost all the equipment has had issues. Then the bathroom toilet buttons started jamming as they are made of flimsy plastic system not metal or ceramic. The internal doors started peeling at the corners.

The main apartment door is operated by an electronic code system, which is pretty convenient. But the door itself let’s noise in from the corridor outside, basically it hardly prevents noise entering/exiting the apartments. When people drop stuff upstairs you can hear that. You can hear when they flush the toilet. I think this is a very common issue especially with new apartments.

The air conditioner that the landlord installed also broke down (cheap ass Taiwanese brand Maxi- the motherboard failed and had to be replaced). Luckily this is all owned by the landlord not us.

Lessons learned

  • Install your own kitchen equipment
  • The bathroom was nice overall (I mean 5 star nice compared to average Taiwanese bathroom…it makes a BIG difference) but not durable in parts (check costs independently)
  • Don’t ever buy Taiwanese brand white goods…except Datong rice cookers and microwaves. Japanese all the way.
  • Don’t buy an apartment with too many apartments on one floor, 2 to 4 per floor is ideal. Most of the new places try to squash 4-8 apartments per floor except for the luxury 80-100 ping places. - Hope the developer doesn’t use Taiwanese made elevators. They are slow and constantly have maintenance issues

All in all I would prefer to purchase older apartment blocks that have less apartments per floor and which are more solidly constructed to keep noise out (10 years old but not too old!) or I will only buy the rare a new apartment in a building with few apartments per floor. I believe that the new apartment blocks are structurally sound due to improved regulations and building material but that they also have many deficiencies.

Why do you hear your neighbors? Because all over they use 10 cm interior concrete or brick walls, the bathrooms connect from floor to floor through a ‘service hole’ in your ceiling …

Our ‘front door’ is like 3-4 cm open at the down side … typhoon time means we have the possibility that water from the roof will actually leak into our electricity board coming in through the basement venting ducts that come up behind our electricity board going to the roof.

A friend of mine in Taichung bought one of these expensive apartments near the new city hall, all fittings (kitchen and bathroom) were German made (Grohe etc.), actually they did the whole apartment from empty with mostly imported stuff.

To answer the question: They’ll never ‘fall’ down as they are all leaning on each other … maybe some roofs can collapse. BTW, most houses are built to actually add 1-2 floors on top for the next generation to live in.

If you’re looking for a number, 50 years. That’s the maximum amount of time a bank will give you on a mortgage. So if you purchase a 35-year-old property, you’ll only get a maximum of 15 years to pay the bank back. Anything older than 50 years banks won’t risk it.

Are you sure you mean house age not a persons age?

My in-laws have been living in the same building that they met in. Almost going on 60 years. building has cracks all over but it is solid cement. I have looked. The newer buildings might have problems but the older ones have a lot of rock in them. I wouldn’t call them structurally sound but I if I had to bet I would take the old ones over many of the most recent ones i.e. 95-2005, nasty business there.

Cement? You mean concrete or mortar … :whistle:

Cracks, that’s what we were talking about, cracks are not good as water enters the cracks and starts concrete rot, meaning the rebar inside start oxidizing and breaks up the concrete.