I live in a four-story condo building that's about 100 years old and entirely wood-framed, all the way down to massive wood beams in the basement that anchor the entire place to the foundation. There's been some moderate renovations of exterior walls because of water damage before, but it's worth the hassles of that kind of thing to know that if an earthquake comes along the building will ride it out without any serious damage.
> There's been some moderate renovations of exterior walls because of water damage before
Yeah, I don't understand the comments in this thread that talk about water damage. Do people in Europe just not bother maintaining their roofs? You can get hidden water damage from a leak into a hollow wall, but it's really not that common. Typically there's visible water staining and severe damage only comes from willfully ignoring that signs.
