How can I determine how old a house is?

Question

I'm investigating the ages of houses in a village near me. How can I fid out how old they are just by looking at them? Is there a visual guide or things I should look out for when undertaking this investigation?

Answer 1

how it looks. =\

if theres brown marks on it or something like vines. if it looks "old" then its what it looks like. its an intuition thing

Answer 2

go to county records

Answer 3

An easy drive-by way to roughly gage a houses' age is by looking at the foundation.

Foundations in the 1800's were rocks,

then mortared rocks,  late 1800's

then 1/2 mortared stones and 1/2 bricks, 1890's to 1920's

then cinder blocks came along, 1920's to 1940's

followed by concrete.

Early concrete walls were formed with 8" pine boards (laid horizontally), and these same boards were re-used as subflooring.

Then lastly came concrete foundations that were made using "forms"

These usually have verticle lines, roughly every 24".

I'm guessing on the dates.  An old mason, or contractor coud be more accurate.  

Answer 4

You could always knock on a front door and ask. They won't shoot you (it's not America).

Answer 5

its better to look up the info

Cuz they could shoot you if you do knock, its called trespassing