What Are the Advantages & Disadvantages of Building Walls?

Cost

• One of the immediate and unavoidable disadvantages of building walls is the cost. This includes the cost of materials such as timber for framing the wall, hardware and tools, bricks or concrete blocks, drywall and molding and paint to finish the wall. Building walls may also involve the cost of professional installation. This is particularly true of interior walls, which may require the services of a contractor to add electrical wiring or plumbing.

Functionality

• Building walls can enhance the appearance and functionality of a home and yard. This will be the case if you replace damaged walls with new ones or add decorative brick walls around a garden or planting. Retaining walls help keep your landscaping from deteriorating. A home's functionality can also improve once you build interior walls that offer additional privacy, separate rooms and provide more wall space to hang art. Walls that serve a practical purpose or enhance appearances can add value to your home when you choose to sell.

Altered Space

• Another drawback to building walls is the extra space they consume. Adding a wall to divide a bedroom, for example, reduces the length of the room by half, leaving fewer options for placing furniture and reducing floor space by the size of the wall's footprint. Exterior walls that expand the size of your home reduce the size of your yard. Garden walls and retaining walls limit your landscaping options by cutting through the space.

Environmental Benefit

• Depending on the method of construction, building walls can improve your home's environmental impact. Interior walls that you build with adequate insulation, especially in corners and at T-junctions, prevent thermal transmission and allow you to heat only the parts of the home you use. Garden walls help your landscaping thrive by controlling the flow of water and preventing soil erosion. Building exterior walls with modern insulation to replace old ones can improve thermal efficiency throughout the house, cutting down on the cost of utility bills from home heating and cooling.