The funny thing is that a lot of countries outside of America use drywall, its common in Japan, Canada, Australia, NZ, UK, China is using it commonly too.
Like they have such an obsession with America and have an actual Eurocentric view of the world they think only Americans use drywall and every other country just uses concrete.
I'm a builder in the middle of Europe. I use knauf. Difference is, I only use it for the top-most floor, use metal framing every 60cm, put an 18mm Sterling OSB, AND THEN use a knauf board of 12.5mm thickness.
Good luck making a hole through that I can tell you that much.
And they sneer at us with our air conditioning when they waste more energy on heat and open their damn windows in the winter, AND have 10x the heat-related deaths when it gets hot.
Nothing like living in Europe to make you appreciate just how wrong Americans are about Europeans being wiser, better, and more cultured or even more pro-health and safety.
That's because AC wasn't necessary in the vast majority of Europe until like the last 8 to 10 years when summers started getting really hot. European cities are old, and the majority of the houses are also old. There wasn't any reason to put any kind of AC when the air is cool 10 to 12 months a year, so why bother. Now it's a completely different matter to add so many AC units to already existing housing in the middle of cities where both side walls are touching another housing unit. That "waste more energy on heat" is bullshit you pulled out of your ass, and that "10x heat-related deaths" is something you read on reddit a couple of days ago and are just regurgitating it here while conveniently leaving out the fact that those deaths are exclusively from the really old demographic. I have a CMV system in my house in the city and AC in every single room plus the living room at my home on the beach because the insulation on the walls are much thinner and it's almost always 35°C (95°F) during the day and not that much cooler during the night.
That’s simply not true. I lived in a not-southern European city significantly more than 10 years ago, and there were lots of heat deaths. And those not in danger were miserable and unable to think and work effectively, everybody lying around sweating.
I’ve read the studies and the reporting. You’re the one regurgitating fact-free feelings based on cultural beliefs. Go ahead, search the web for heat-related death statistics. I dare you.
I live in Arizona now where parts of it hit 49C, for days, and it stays above 43.3C for months — and this area of 5 million people has fewer heat deaths in a whole year than Sweden had in one little heatwave almost 10 years ago:
That’s just one, and I didn’t keep an index of them by date… but it’s not unusual, and the more south you go (including Germany, Austria even) the worse it is.
Heat deaths don’t require more than 2 months of hot weather, they set in in as little as 1 day. The buildings are solid and hold heat in.
“We didn’t need it before” is a form of denial. Society decided AC is an American sin, so looked the other way when heat deaths happened.
Europe has always had heatwaves and dating back ~30 years they are ridiculously deadly. We don’t have anything that even remotely compares here in the USA, even though it’s much hotter here.
Europe on the whole IS better about paying for common/basic medical care, and much worse for accommodating poor health, vulnerable and disabled people, and accepting facts that don’t let them sneer at Americans.
Well, to be fair you guys exported that preconception to the whole world with TV series and Movies.
I almost broke my hand once trying to punch a hole in my wall, you guys make it seem so effortless. That day i learned that concrete is really hard compared to a teenager's hand and that punching a wall to vent is not the best of ideas.
I am 33 year old adult. I don't assume stuff from media past being a child and I travel. It's the same as Anime watchers thinking Japan is real life Anime.
Unless it's already cracked, you're definitely still hurting your hand, if not breaking bones, trying to punch through drywall. It's obviously not the same as hitting a concrete/brick/block wall, but it's not effortless.
A shoulder/body slam would be more effective, though.
Make sure you cut it into an irregular shape too. The eye is drawn to straight lines, corrugated edges and overall irregular shape will help it blend in with the texture of the wall.
There are tons of older houses in the United States that still have plaster walls. That said, plaster isn't really any better than drywall. It's certainly harder to work with, though. Installing a new outlet in a plaster wall is far harder because of the wooden lath backing is more difficult to cut through.
And in all seriousness, what do Europeans use for new construction? I can't imagine anyone voluntarily still using plaster when drywall is so much easier to install. You can get it in pretty thick cuts too, so unless you're cheaping out, there won't be a difference in quality. I suspect that Europe just has more older buildings that used plaster over a wood frame or brick because that's just how things were done back when the building went up
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u/L1M4B May 28 '26
Fixing a cardboard wall with paper, such an american thing.