What happens with these concrete homes if new technology is introduced in the future? For example, what would you have to do if 10 years from now you'd want to install fiber optics throughout the house?
You pull out the copper and draw the fibers through the old pipes. You'll need fibers that can do pretty tight turns though, usually fibers cannot be bend too much or else you will damage it.
Usually fiber just comes into the house and people have Wifi in the house though...
As for sparks .. it's actually more common than you think. Electrician/plumbers run their wires first, then the gypsum board guys come in and put it up. Well guess what happens when the electrician pulls the wire to close to the edge of the wood??? You get gypsum board screws that go right through electrical wire!!
Or when a home owner decides to use really long nails to put up a picture, and hammers right through an electrical wire!!
And exactly THAT is the reason why it is mandatory here to use pipes. They protect the wire (of course to a certain extend) from these things happening.
It's actually law now to use special breakers in the pannel that detect this sort of situation, and turn off on its own.
You mean earth-leak detectors. Those are mandatory since 1975 in The Netherlands........
The only time you'd see steel pipes in commercial applications is if you see the wire .. If the wire is in the wall, you don't need to put it in any conduit. Again, this is safety for fires. Plastic burns easily, the steel pipes slow down the fire from spreading (try burning a coke plastic bottle .. it will burn for longer and hotter than paper!)
That is why the plastic used for electrical pipes need to be fire retardant and self extinguishing.
In larger buildings, at places where pipes, cables etc. go through a fire section wall (60 minutes fireproof) or floor, ALL the holes must be filled with fireproof sealant like this:
Back in the 1970's, copper was very very expensive. It was common to use aluminium wire. Over the years, people tended to tie aluminium with copper (which is a huge no-no as you can't mix copper with any other metal). For example, in my house, I found this in the basement. The boxes were all black on the inside (i.e. electrical fire!) But because it was a metal box, it kept the electrical fire within.
Aluminum wire was never allowed here, it has always been copper. The boxes we use also have to pass fire resistant tests, just like the piping and are also fire retardant & self extinguishing.
Plastic also releases toxic fumes that can knock a person out long before the fire kills them. This is why, for example, in high rise buildings, it is illegal to use PVC/ABS for plumbing .. it must be copper/brass! It prevents fires from one unit spreading to the next via the plumbing stacks.
True. That is an issue. For that halogen free pipes are available but regretfully the governments are slow as always and do not demand that these are used. Plumbing pipes can be plastic here, same stuff fire retardant etc. and when they go through fire section walls and floors need to be made 60 minute fire proof in larger buildings.
The point of all of this is that electrical fires are a lot more common than one would want to believe .. I'm sure if my house was poured concrete I could have a camp fire in the middle of the kitchen floor. 
But instead, it's all wood framing, with gypsum board, and hardwood floors throughout the entire house.
Yeah, wood burns pretty nicely. And it also doesn't withstand hurricanes and storms very well. Like you mention yourself, the reason why you guys choose wood is simple: price.
Wood is probably more expensive here plus it takes more labour to build with wood. Labour is very expensive here.
About needing piles of a couple of meters: In the western part of Holland where I live, the ground is so soft that we need to put in piles (usually concrete, either ready made or poored at the location) that are several tens of meters long.Else our buildings would sink into the bottom within a couple of years. It depend on where the steady sand layers are. To determine that a scan (sondering) of the ground is made to make clear at which heights those sands are.
For my house they used "on the spot" poured piles. They drive in a metal hull with a machine like this:
(chose a picture of a model because that makes it more clear how it works).
you can simply see this as hammering an extremely large nail into the ground. Here's a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1_k4yqoN60when the metal hull is in, they poor in the concrete and remove the metal hull. The concrete sets in the ground. The model shows a ready-made concrete pile.
There are also very small machines like this that fit through the smallest of paths (like 1 meter wide) so we can do it everywhere neccesary.
Mmmm, I was just thinking.....I hope Bencao doesn't mind our little discussion in his game room thread !!!! Sorry Jörg !!!!
