# Are older homes better built? > Sometimes, in specific ways, and worse in others. Which parts of an older Utah house are genuinely superior and which are the expensive problem. - Author: Kelsey Earl, Realtor, Keller Williams South Valley - Location: Utah, Utah - Section: The Herriman Insider - Published: 2026-10-28 - Canonical: https://homesbykelseyut.com/blog/are-older-homes-better-built - Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQRYhGI1ERM - Contact: 801-419-8917 ยท Kelsey.earl@kw.com --- **Quick answer:** In some ways yes, in others no. Older homes often have better materials and joinery, and worse electrical, insulation and plumbing. The survivors are also the ones that were maintained, which flatters the average. Judge the specific house rather than the era. --- Older Utah homes are better built in some specific ways and worse in others, and the honest answer depends on which part of the house you mean. There is also a survivorship problem underneath the question. The older houses still standing are the ones that were built well enough and maintained well enough to last. The badly built ones from the same decade are gone. So the average older house you can tour today looks better than the average older house ever was. With that said, the parts that genuinely are better are worth knowing, because they are the parts you cannot buy new at any sensible price. ### What is genuinely better **Materials, particularly wood.** Old-growth framing lumber is denser and more dimensionally stable than modern fast-grown equivalents. Original hardwood floors are solid rather than a veneer. **Joinery and millwork.** Solid wood doors, real trim profiles, built-ins constructed in place by somebody who was paid to do it properly. I walked a house recently where every single door was wood, which is not a thing that happens by accident, and there was a built-in between the dining room and the living room, put there so the fireplace would have company. [Whether built-ins are outdated](/blog/are-built-ins-outdated) covers that question on its own, and the answer is that they are getting rarer rather than less wanted. **Plaster over drywall,** where it survives. Harder, better at sound, and far more annoying to repair. **Siting and proportion.** Older houses were often placed on their lots with more thought about sun, wind and the street than a subdivision plan allows. ### What is genuinely worse **Electrical.** The most common serious issue. Older panels and wiring were not designed for modern loads, and some systems present real safety concerns. **Insulation.** Often minimal or absent in walls, which shows up in both comfort and bills. In the northern valleys that is a winter problem; in Washington County a summer one. **Plumbing.** Galvanized supply lines corrode from the inside. Older sewer laterals fail. [Whether to get a sewer scope](/blog/should-i-get-a-sewer-scope) is not optional on an older house. **Windows.** Original single-glazed units are charming and thermally poor. **Layout.** Smaller rooms, fewer bathrooms, closets sized for a different era, and a kitchen placed where nobody now wants one. [What to check in a house built in the 1970s](/blog/what-should-i-check-in-a-house-built-in-the-1970s) covers one specific era in detail, and the method generalizes. ## The thing happening in the market right now Worth naming because it changes what is scarce. Almost everything refreshed is doing the same move, vintage with a modern twist, the same finishes, the same palette, the same open-plan intervention. It sells, and it is everywhere. Which is exactly why the houses that kept their original detail are getting rarer. A cottage where somebody did not rip out the built-ins is now an unusual thing rather than a dated one, and the buyers who want that have fewer options every year. That is not a prediction about price. It is an observation about supply, and if original detail is what you want, the pool is shrinking. ## How to judge a specific house Ignore the era and look at four things. **Has it been maintained, or just decorated?** New paint over old problems is the commonest trap. [What to look for when touring a house](/blog/what-should-i-look-for-when-touring-a-house) covers the walkthrough discipline. **What has been updated, and was it permitted?** Unpermitted work has to be disclosed and it affects what an appraiser can count. [How to check permit history on a house](/blog/how-do-i-check-permit-history-on-a-house) is a free afternoon. **What is the state of the four expensive systems?** Roof, electrical, plumbing, heating. Ages, not appearances. **What did the renovation remove?** On a refreshed older house this is the question nobody asks. Sometimes what was taken out was the reason to buy it. Add a sewer scope and a radon test to the standard inspection. [What happens during a home inspection in Utah](/blog/what-happens-during-a-home-inspection-in-utah) covers what the base scope misses. ## The Utah version of the trade Different in each of my markets. In the Salt Lake Valley the older stock is genuinely old, pre-war cottages and bungalows in the older neighborhoods, and the trade is character against systems. [Whether to buy an older home in Sandy or a new build further south](/blog/should-i-buy-an-older-home-in-sandy-or-a-new-build-further-south) is that decision in its most common local form. In Washington County "older" usually means something quite different, and the climate issues are different too. Soil movement and roofing matter more than frozen pipes. [What an inspection should look for in southern Utah](/blog/what-should-a-home-inspection-look-for-in-southern-utah) covers that properly. ## What it costs to bring one forward Rough ordering rather than figures, because the numbers depend entirely on the house. **Electrical is usually the first real expense.** A panel replacement is a known job with a known price. Rewiring a whole house is a different order of magnitude, and whether you need it depends on what is behind the walls. **Insulation is the best value of the group.** Blown-in insulation in walls and a proper job in the attic changes comfort and bills for comparatively little, and it is non-destructive. **Windows are expensive and they are also the charm.** Replacing original windows solves the thermal problem and removes something you may have bought the house for. Storm windows and restoration are the middle path and people forget they exist. **Plumbing depends on what is there.** Galvanized supply lines are a when-not-if replacement. A sewer lateral is a single expensive day. **The kitchen is the one to do last,** not first. It is the most visible and the least urgent, and doing it before the systems is how people run out of money with a lovely kitchen and an old panel. Get quotes before you offer, not after. On an older house the inspection tells you what; a contractor tells you how much, and the gap between those two is where budgets fail. ## What I actually see Buyers who fell for the millwork and had not priced the electrical. That is the pattern. The things that make an older house lovely are visible in forty minutes, and the things that make it expensive are behind the walls. The house is still often worth buying. It just needs to be bought with the panel and the sewer line in the number. The opposite pattern is real too. Buyers who ruled out everything pre-1980 on principle and bought a new build further out, then spent the commute wishing they had the shorter one. [Whether Herriman is too far from everything](/blog/is-herriman-too-far-from-everything) is the honest treatment of that trade. ## What to do next Judge the house, not the decade. Get the ages of the roof, panel, plumbing and heating in writing. Add a sewer scope on anything older, and ask what a renovation removed as well as what it added. I am Kelsey Earl, a Realtor with Keller Williams South Valley, and I have talked people into older houses and out of them. [Send me one you are considering](/contact) and I will tell you which it is. --- Source: https://homesbykelseyut.com/blog/are-older-homes-better-built Any market figure in this post is accurate only where a date and source are stated alongside it.