Not quite. All that wood and coal burning wasn't very smart. Nor was the lack of insulation, masonry heat bank aside. Most the houses were overbuilt and that wasted a lot of material. But since it was (mistakenly) thought of as cheap and plentiful they didn't care. I'm all for sturdy stuff, but nostalgia is often wrong.
BigJim raises a good question, make sure all that weight is being managed properly. When you start taking off the wall you're potentially removing something that was holding part of the weight in place. Was there a lot of cracking on this wall?
That and what's the chance that was part of an older exterior wall?
Filling homes with ton of glass isn't exactly smart either but that the new standard of construction today.
The fact is that most homes were build with ventilation in mind and more aimed at passive solar heating (large overhang for summer protection and allowances for passive winter heating).
I am not arguing that the technology hasn't come light years in the last 20 years with advancements in building science and insulation, but this is mostly in the last 10-15 years at that.
We weren't even insulating walls until the mid 1970s in most cases.
I have seen more rainscreen wall designs built before the 40's than I have since. Thermal mass walls were more popular back then as well.
Sure, air tightness and envelopes have gotten tighter but they would probably have killed more people in homes back then with all the heating and open burning for heat.
In terms of materials to burn...what does that have to do with building science. That was the available material of the day and coal can still be burned quite efficiently and cleanly with modern scrubbers. I am sure they people of the early 1800s would have loved to had a modern Geothermal furnace if it existed.
