Talk:Tag:building=house

single household?

I wonder if the single household should be a strict requirement. In some contexts it might well be possible that a house has a granny-flat as part of it, defacto leading to 2 households, of which one could be considered "minor" (other than grannies, this kind of small apartment is often rent to students or other 1-2-person households). --Dieterdreist (talk) 12:17, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I think that single household is not a strict requirement. I wonder how we could map those houses if it would. Would we conduct a survey who is living there? ;-) Chrabros (talk) 07:09, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

If you perform a survey you would usually see it (2 postboxes etc.) --Dieterdreist (talk) 16:55, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

What about duplexes where a building has two (and no more than two) completely separate living quarters? They often have separate addresses but will sometimes be addressed as A & B. They are common in the US. I have been mapping them as building=house and then placing two markers for the addresses.—Preceding unsigned comment added by MRPockets (talk • contribs) 20:08, 9 February 2016

This is not always the case - in the US, for example, registering an address with the postal system is something which requires more overhead than dividing a house into multiple units. There may be houses which are divided up this way which have no external features to suggest it. However, as far as OSM is primarily concerned with mapping 'on the ground' features, I do not think it is necessary to try and find this information for tagging. The fact that these types of houses can change status from multi-unit to single again after a change in ownership would also complicate things. I think the more pertinent issue is the definition of 'house' here, because in practice the function of a house is much broader than providing shelter for a single 'household' or 'family'. In many communities, the definition of a house as distinct from other types of buildings is still clear, but they are typically shared by more people than one family. (Could be extended relatives, friends, and so on.) In some particularly dense communities where adjoined or terraced style housing predominates, commercial and residential buildings may even be composed of the same housing stock, so the idea of a 'house' as something intended for a specific purpose does not necessary track well.--Bgo eiu (talk) 17:02, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

As far as I understand, a duplex might be not only one building but two sharing one wall? It depends on the case maybe? (I'm not an English native and I have found several translations that suggest that both cases exist). I guess I would use a distinct building type for those (maybe building=duplex? There are currently 4853 of these in the db). --Dieterdreist (talk) 12:12, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Family names

Sometimes family names are seen on houses, "The Williamsons", "廖寓", etc.

Rather than use name= in such cases, see Talk:Key:inscription#Chinese_Tanghao_.28.E5.A0.82.E8.99.9F.29 instead. Jidanni (talk) 13:30, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Name

Add examples of valid name= tags. Probably these:

House naming started many years ago with rich people naming their homes. The rich named their Halls, Houses, Manors, Castles, and Lodges according to ancestry, location, and family titles: Norfolk House (Duke of), Belvoir Castle (overlooking the Belvoir Valley); Castle Droge (named after a 13th ancestor) etc. Gradually over the years other people began to give names to their homes too.

All houses in towns and cities have a number. Very few have just a name and majority do not have names. [1]

And not "37 Nurdsford Road" which is more properly just an address. Jidanni (talk) 22:21, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Addition of house=*

The page was recently added to mention that house=* (house=detached, house=semi-detached etc) is sometimes added to building=house instead of using building=semidetached_house , building=detached etc.

However, that tag is not widely used and about 90% of uses are in Ireland: see https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/house and https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/11xr - in most countries the tags like building=detached are 100 to 1000 time more common: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/compare/building=detached/house=detached

So perhaps house=* is not common enough to be mentioned on this page. --Jeisenbe (talk) 15:46, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

It not being in use as much doesn't mean it shouldn't be mentioned. house=* has 96,732 uses and I think having it documented would be worthwhile. --GoodClover (talk) 11:56, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Certainly it is a good thing that it is now documented at Key:house and the tag pages like Tag:house=detached - thank you for that. But I question whether it is used widely enough to mention on this page, Tag:building=house - in Ireland it is used on 16% of houses so it's worth mentioning on local pages for that country, but in other countries it is used with less than 0.05% of houses (one out of every 20,000 building=house features) so this is very rare in other places. --Jeisenbe (talk) 00:34, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Maybe just remove the table? I agree that having that here is probably too much. --GoodClover (talk) 12:37, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and done that. --GoodClover (talk) 12:39, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Inferring More Specific Options

Can a well-tagged building=house be as good as tagging a more specific housing option (e.g. building=bungalow)? For the bungalow example, if a building has building=house and building:levels=1 (and possibly has no adjoining nodes) does it not have all the properties that may be inferred from building=bungalow? As such should there be some explanation on this page explaining what additional tags, when included in the same building as building=house, make an equivalent "more specific" example? - Coolmule0 (talk) 06:24, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Attached decking

Some homes have impressive decks attached to them that extend the footprint of the house. Are these also mapped as "house"?

There does not seem to be a "deck" or "patio" tag yet, and the "balcony" and "terrace" tags seem to be reserved for tourism. Mecheye (talk) 14:54, 15 April 2023 (UTC)