[HN Gopher] So you want to build a house more efficiently
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So you want to build a house more efficiently
Author : srl
Score : 447 points
Date : 2021-06-26 18:12 UTC (1 days ago)
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| swiley wrote:
| The most efficient way to build houses is in bulk by building
| large buildings with condos/apartments, no one seems to want to
| hear or accept that though.
| ctdonath wrote:
| USA population density is 6.6 acres per person, or 37 people
| per square kilometer. I'd far rather my family be in a more
| expensive larger home on 25 acres (with prospect of self-
| sufficiency) than jammed into a large building with X # of
| strangers and no land.
|
| Funny thing is, that "more expensive larger home" isn't more
| expensive - it's on par or cheaper, even with the land. Blows
| my mind that urban dwellers think paying equivalent of my
| mortgage (on a 2400sqft house) for a couple rooms is
| reasonable.
|
| Building big may be more efficient, but that's not what
| occupants see in their rent bill.
| swiley wrote:
| You're paying with the commute. Sure I pay the same for my
| smaller apartment as some people pay for their mortgage but
| the land near my office is expensive enough that the only way
| to make a profit is efficiency in the form of dense
| construction. The result is I have a 20 minute (round trip)
| walk from my kitchen to cube where many people have 1.5 hour
| drive through city traffic plus maintenance/insurance etc.
|
| WFH changes that some, if you don't mind driving for
| groceries/hang-outs then going far out of developed areas for
| a larger home isn't so bad, although I will say as someone
| who grew up in a place like that it makes your kids
| _significantly_ more dependent on you and _severely_ limits
| their ability to socialize. Some people argue that 's a plus
| and perhaps they're right, many of the most knowledgeable
| people I know came from similar situations but I'm not
| convinced it's all positive.
| xnx wrote:
| Or as large subdivisions built all at once, like Levittown
| mentioned in the article.
| analog31 wrote:
| I grew up in such a subdivision in another state. It was
| fine. With a couple of exceptions, all of the houses were
| identical. They all had the same floor plans, but were
| oriented in different ways, and some were mirror images.
| There were also a number of different facades.
|
| I lived there for upwards of 10 years before I figured this
| out, one day when I was at a new friend's house, and realized
| that I already knew my way around.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Californians would rather preen about with paper straws and
| compost bins and then drive their telsas back to single family
| homes with lawns.
|
| Meanwhile New Yorkers are taking the subway to their apartment
| homes.
|
| Different cultures.
| ianbicking wrote:
| Apartment buildings are expensive to build too! Searching a
| little it looks like condo construction is more expensive per
| square foot than houses. Maybe a condo is more liveable at a
| smaller size, but just from the perspective of construction
| costs it's not a big win. (It feels like it _should_ be easier
| to solve, but the only way to know is if it _is_ solved.)
| IshKebab wrote:
| Everyone knows and accepts that. They just don't really want
| those houses.
| occz wrote:
| I very much doubt that to be true. As far as I've understood
| it, a far too large amount of land in the U.S is zoned to be
| single-family housing, effectively preventing this type of
| home to be built. That precludes any choice in the matter.
| People in the U.S opt for single-family homes because they
| are really the only available option.
| refurb wrote:
| Nah...most of the "we need more dense housing" is in a
| small fraction of the US, typically near big city cores in
| a handful of locations.
| ghaff wrote:
| There are a ton of apartments/condos in the the US. They're
| just expensive in the most in-demand areas.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Which, compared to their European counterparts, are
| flimsy, lacking acoustic insulation and a certain je ne
| sais quois. I've lived in both, and while I'd never want
| to move into most US apts/condos, I'd happily live in
| many European ones, even those built after 1970
| (arbitrary number).
| indigodaddy wrote:
| I sent this article to my builder brother and here is his very
| frank feedback:
|
| ------ interesting. Certainly true that building materials are
| bulky and very costly to ship. Seems to be a reality that is hard
| to change. he has a poor understanding of framing and got
| terminology wrong: "balloon" was a bridge between post-and-beam
| and modern platform framing and is no longer used. Although
| commercial steel buildings are basically balloon. His constant
| reference to "balloon" framing is a joke to a professional. The
| fact is that all the processing of building can be and often are
| quite efficient. If a person wants to keep everything simple it
| can be much less expensive than it often is. I guess he alludes
| to that with mentioning "consumer tastes". for sure custom homes
| are expensive for a reason.
|
| it's hard for someone with absolutely zero experience to judge
| home building, obviously. For example he thinks 4x8 sheathing
| panels don't have to be cut, when of course they do, just like
| boards do.
| dctoedt wrote:
| FTA: "Flexible technologies that work within the current system
| and simplify processes have had the most success. These
| technologies allow the high precision and efficiency of factories
| to make it to the building site. [Example:] Experienced
| carpenters use chisels to create post and beam members on site.
| -> 2x4s and nails are mass manufactured and assembled by semi-
| skilled workers on site."
| frankus wrote:
| I'd love to see someone make insulation displacement crimping
| work for wiring.
|
| Maybe even build it into the wall box rather than the fixture,
| and just have the fixture plug into to wall box.
| elihu wrote:
| If fancy manufacturing facilities with expensive equipment don't
| scale well because construction materials are manufactured in a
| lot of small factories rather than a few big ones, it seems like
| an obvious way to improve construction is to reduce the cost of
| that fancy equipment so that it's available even to small
| operations.
|
| We see this with a lot of smaller-scale tools: 3D printers, CNCs,
| laser cutters, welders, pick-and-place machines for assembling
| circuit boards, etc.. are things that have become affordable to
| casual hobbyists.
|
| I could see augmented reality being a big deal for construction.
| See exactly where everything is supposed to go as you install it.
|
| Maybe eventually a mobile 3D-printing gantry that can be quickly
| deployed on site will be something that a small local business
| would own.
| WalterBright wrote:
| One thing I notice is the large volume of waste from stick
| framing on site. A huge pile of cut lumber that just goes to the
| dump.
| creato wrote:
| I haven't seen this at the job sites I've been on. Most of the
| wasted wood is a small pile of cuttings from the oddly sized
| parts of the build, but it's surely less than 5% of the whole
| build, probably even less than 1%. Any scraps more than a foot
| long will usually get used for something.
|
| The incentives are aligned here, contractors don't want to buy
| more wood than necessary.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| It isn't like walls are 8'2" high. There's a great deal of
| standardization built into modern home design.
| ohyeshedid wrote:
| I've seen large houses framed out and the scrap loss didn't
| fill a trashcan. Running jokes about the tags weighing more
| than the actual wood scrap.
| Syonyk wrote:
| If you ever get a chance to tour a manufactured home facility,
| one of the big things you'll notice is that there is almost no
| waste coming out the back end, and certainly far, far less
| waste than you see in a typical site-built home (huge dumpsters
| of waste being hauled off regularly).
|
| They're designed so that there's just not much in the way of
| waste - because dimensions are standard, and consistency is
| pretty good, you simply make sure that if you have a cut of a
| standard piece, you need the other half of it over there.
| There's just very, very little waste.
|
| On top of that, there's very little transporting of random
| stuff, because it's all built onsite. Cabinets are built as an
| entire unit in a quarter of the factory I toured, and are
| simply run across into the house before the roof goes on.
| There's no need to make sure the cabinets fit through doors and
| such - the entire assemblies are brought in and dropped in
| place (or nearly so) through the top.
|
| The roof, meanwhile, is built at more or less waist height
| (depending on slopes). It's assembled, "drywall up," on some
| jigs that hold it properly, wiring is run, the joists are
| added, and you end up with a roof segment that is then lifted
| up, painted, and set down on top of the house. It almost
| entirely eliminates the "roof work" risk for doing roofs.
|
| I know in most modern tech circles it's incredibly popular to
| hate "trailer homes" - which tells me that most people's vision
| of them is a 1970s single wide, 50 years of limited maintenance
| later. Modern manufactured homes have nearly nothing to do with
| that - ours is 2x6 exterior construction, drywall, Energy Star
| rated, metal roof, good insulated windows, etc. Out of
| curiosity I signed up for the power company's free "energy
| analysis" thing, where they come and check the ducts, do a
| blower door test, etc, and they left saying "There's literally
| nothing we can improve - this is a tight house, comfortably in
| the top range, and your ducts are very well sealed too." I'd
| wager my results against any similar size site built home in
| the area.
|
| People we have over are consistently surprised to find out that
| our place is a manufactured, because it doesn't match the
| "trailer house" image. I think it's blindingly obvious it's
| manufactured, but I also saw it come in on trucks, and I know
| the signs to look for - simple rectangular floor plan, a strong
| marriage line down the center, and typically water only on one
| half of the house (it avoids having to do any water pipe joins
| onsite, which reduces the risk of leaks). We have a concrete
| foundation under the house, and it works great for us.
|
| But, you know, we do legally live in a "trailer home." Doesn't
| bother us in the slightest.
| maxsilver wrote:
| > It's incredibly popular to hate "trailer homes" - which
| tells me that most people's vision of them is a 1970s single
| wide, 50 years of limited maintenance later. Modern
| manufactured homes have nearly nothing to do with that
|
| How do you actually find these? How can you tell the
| difference?
|
| Every 1970's-era trailer house manufacturer has rebranded
| themselves as "Modular, not Mobile". For non-experts, it's
| hard to tell the difference, which might be why everyone
| lumps them all together.
|
| I would love to buy a well-designed actually-good factory-
| standardized home. Every thing I've seen that _claims_ such,
| is just a rebranded trailer house.
| Syonyk wrote:
| In the 80s, the standards changed so you can't have the old
| newspaper and spit style manufactured homes anymore.
|
| But I'm not sure what exactly you're looking for. Our house
| is absolutely a "trailer" - it came in two pieces, has long
| I-beams under the floor, and still has axles down in the
| crawlspace. I believe one can get the "modular" version
| which is the same thing, same factory, and doesn't keep the
| axles (with perhaps a few other changes - it didn't matter
| to me and was more money for the same end result).
|
| Despite that, it's a solid drywall based house, 2x6
| exterior walls, etc.
|
| But if you want more details, you'll have to find someone
| in your area who sells them and go find out more - my
| regional knowledge probably isn't applicable to your
| situation.
| dangrossman wrote:
| > Every 1970's-era trailer house manufacturer has rebranded
| themselves as "Modular, not Mobile".
|
| This isn't just branding. The Housing Act of 1980 required
| the term "manufactured" be used in place of "mobile" in all
| federal laws about homes built after 1976.
|
| If you look at a "mobile" home, it's one built before
| modern standards, where if you look at a "manufactured" or
| "modular" home, it's one that conforms to the National
| Mobile Home Construction and Safety Act (1974) and HUD
| Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards (1976).
|
| Now "manufactured" vs "modular" is whether it's built just
| to the federal HUD standards, or also built to the same
| local codes as a site-built home.
|
| All three (mobile, manufactured, modular) are terms for
| factory-built pre-fab homes, i.e. "trailer homes".
| lostapathy wrote:
| > because dimensions are standard, and consistency is pretty
| good, you simply make sure that if you have a cut of a
| standard piece, you need the other half of it over there.
| There's just very, very little waste.
|
| They also operate at a scale such that if they need an
| oddball length of some material, the lumber mill is happy to
| supply it cut to that oddball length since they are buying it
| by the railcar.
| lazypenguin wrote:
| The amount of waste in general for constructing or remodeling a
| house is incredible. In my experience, even if you wanted to be
| conscientious about the waste (e.g repurpose timber), it would
| require so much more effort that's already going into the
| project that it's just easier to throw all the waste together
| in one bin and take to the landfill.
| alkonaut wrote:
| It's indeed much easier to reduce waste in a factory when the
| production line can optimize for reducing waste.
|
| It's a delicate problem though. I have recently implemented
| such an optimization for wall panel production lines and it's
| not so easy for the operators cutting sheets of material to
| keep too many leftover bits for the following wall panel being
| built, and the order of the panels built can be dictated by a
| specific loading order on the delivery truck so can't be
| reordered to reduce waste.
|
| Working on various bin-packing and cutting stock problems is an
| interesting challenge!
| ohyeshedid wrote:
| That largely depends on the builders, and in particular the
| project managers.
| kristianp wrote:
| I was thinking about how many of the trades would still exist in
| 20 years due to automation. I find it hard to think of houses
| built with robotic electricians or bricklayers reducing the
| costs. Maybe if prefab wall panels came with wiring and wall
| sockets built in?
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| I think the solution to reduce housing costs is simple and three-
| fold.
|
| First: most people can build a house. It's _really_ not
| difficult. Today 's homes are quite complex in terms of their
| layers of parts, and constantly varying building codes don't
| help. But if you can swing a hammer and push a saw, you can build
| a house.
|
| Ikea has shown it's not only possible, but profitable, to sell
| virtually everything that goes in a home to consumers and have
| them put it together themselves. So why not the rest of the house
| too? We've done it before: Sears shipped people houses on the
| railroad along with instructions and (eventually) pre-fab parts.
| They sold them for 30 years.
| https://www.amusingplanet.com/2021/06/sears-mail-order-homes...
|
| A huge chunk of the cost of a home is the labor. So let the
| homeowner handle more of it! They can build in stages, offsetting
| costs and building at their own pace. And if somebody gets tired
| of doing it themselves, they can always hire a contractor.
|
| Second: customers interest in having a unique home is a huge
| cost. So let's focus on building either the variable parts, or on
| making a "core home" that can be customized after the fact by
| customers. Most homes are just boxes. It should be possible for
| us to construct some basic designs that can then be modified or
| "spruced up" by the homeowner later. Most of the features that
| make a home look unique could be turned into add-ons, so that we
| could focus on efficiency of the bare home, and let customers
| take on additional cost when and if they choose.
|
| Third: most people don't need huge houses! Due to the increasing
| cost of renting, most renters rent apartments that are absolutely
| tiny by comparison to the average new home. We can reduce housing
| costs further by simply making the building smaller, and gaining
| efficiencies by taking advantage of that smaller size. Want a
| bigger home? By having simpler designs by default with add-on
| exteriors, we can make it much easier to add extensions on to
| houses. Simply unbolt the exterior facade, build on your
| extension, and bolt the facades back on. This allows us to spend
| less money on materials and labor, while still allowing the
| consumer to add to the property over time.
| greedo wrote:
| I think it's a bit reductive to say that if you can push a saw
| and swing a hammer that you can build a house. Sure in theory,
| but the idea runs into a lot of problems quickly.
|
| 1. Navigating the permitting process 2. Finding a lender
| willing to finance a self-built home. 3. Learning the
| complicated trades (plumbing/electrical/foundation) 4.
| Affording to take the time to build a house.
|
| Just #4 alone makes this a non-starter for most people. The
| average home takes between 6-9 months to build, and that's with
| an experienced crew. Learning as you go would easily add 6
| months to this. Affording to take a year off to build is just
| not something "most people" can do.
|
| I have a neighbor who is a building contractor. He built his
| house on his weekends, doing the majority of the work himself.
| It took him over a year, and he has the skills, tools, and
| knowledge. Joe Six Pack isn't going to know enough to avoid the
| pitfalls that can make this a disaster.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| > most people can build a house. It's really not difficult
|
| You would appreciate some help with raising the walls, but
| that's certainly doable alone. Raising the rafters, though,
| requires at least two people with good upper body strength. Or
| a very ingenious tackle system.
| KirillPanov wrote:
| Or you just rent a telehandler from United Rentals or a
| similar companby. It's not that expensive and they deliver it
| to the jobsite for you.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescopic_handler
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| The biggest forthcoming revolution in housing will be self
| driving EV RVs.
|
| Your house takes you to your job, then takes you somewhere else
| on weekends or evenings. Ultracheap solar, which is still in it's
| main phase of cost improvement, same with batteries and
| drivetrain, will make EV RVs cheaper from TCO. And the guts of
| the RV will be efficiently centrally manufactured.
| csours wrote:
| If there was a way to never have electric cables or plumbing in
| walls, that would speed up construction and reduce the cost.
|
| The savings for this don't just show up in the plumbing and
| electrical categories, but also in framing and finishing, as well
| as hidden inefficiencies - you have to pre-wire and plumb, and
| then late come back to finish wiring and plumbing.
|
| Also, this article is about how to construct a house in an
| efficient manner, not how to construct a house that is efficient
| throughout it's life.
| ianbicking wrote:
| Instead of walls I guess you could use... the floor and
| ceiling? Would that help? Walls at least don't have people
| walking on them.
|
| In some sense just having "channels" through walls or floors
| would make things simpler, if electric and plumbing could be
| installed after the structure of the house was completed. But I
| can't come up with a way that would make sense. If you
| integrate channels into the framing that seems very similar to
| the current process (where "channels" are drilled through the
| wood), only you've added bulk and access panels. If you add
| channels that aren't part of the framing then you've increased
| the wall size with a lot of cascading effects.
|
| Though there are basically channels through the floors that
| align with the joists. Maybe you could save effort by using
| those channels? But at the cost of material unless there was
| some wholistic design change.
|
| Kind of related: it does seem possible that all-electric HVAC
| could be distributed through the house instead of using a
| central unit, and that might simplify things. Like it's unclear
| to me that central A/C is really much better than smaller split
| units, and certainly electric heat doesn't benefit from
| centralization.
| falcolas wrote:
| About cost savings, point 1: If you're putting insulation on the
| outside, why not _also_ put it between the studs (you can blow it
| in pretty dang quickly), and perhaps even another 2" of foam
| insulation inside the studs? You'll turn an R-20 into an R-40+
| wall, reducing the long term cost of the house.
|
| i.e. high efficiency houses.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Ctrl-f "SEER"
|
| No results found
|
| Since nobody has mentioned it yet, I recommend doing some
| dedicated research into the efficiency level and measurements of
| various types of air conditioners, mini split and otherwise.
| There is a great deal of variation.
| cout wrote:
| I wonder if earthbag technology could help to reduce building
| costs. Labor seems to be a big factor, but perhaps this could be
| reduced with the right equipment. Rural homes already need a big
| hole for septic; earthbags would then just make use of the dirt
| that's already sitting there, if not for the whole house then
| perhaps for some part of it.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| It was interesting to see architecture and engineering broken out
| as ~1.5% of the total cost of building a home, and it made me
| wonder: How much does better residential architecture actually
| cost?
|
| If I were in the market to build a home, and the difference
| between building something that looks like your average suburban
| detached versus something modern and striking were, say, an extra
| 1.5% (doubling the cost of architecture and engineering), I
| wouldn't even consider skimping on architecture.
|
| And yet, most architecturally-interesting homes are most
| certainly not 1.5% or even 15% more than average-looking homes,
| being generally restricted to luxury markets. Why is that?
| ghaff wrote:
| Probably because the architecture and engineering is only a
| small part of the cost, the things the architects design in are
| _much_ more expensive to build.
|
| The actual design of the striking granite-block construction
| with large windows on the coast may not cost all that much. But
| the materials and skilled artisans sure do.
| plaidfuji wrote:
| > Transformational cost reduction would have to come from
| changing what we think a house is. Imagine you had a thin suit
| that provided heating, cooling, processed your urine and waste,
| and kept you clean. Then you could have a house without
| bathrooms, insulation, heating, cooling, plumbing, and have the
| electrical eliminated with nuclear batteries. No kitchen because
| robotic takeout is so cheap. The house could cost $20 per square
| foot (with low-end finishes) and be smaller. A new home would go
| up in weeks. The technology is in the bodysuit instead of the
| house. Bodysuits can be mass-produced and shipped long distances.
| Ripe for cost reduction. The volumetric value of a home would be
| even lower.
|
| This sounds lovely, sign me up.
|
| But seriously, I was excited about this article having
| misinterpreted the title, thinking it would be a critical
| analysis of the _operating_ efficiency of a house, not the
| construction efficiency. Amortized over the lifetime of the
| house, I have to assume the up-front costs pale in comparison to
| the operating costs of a household. Especially as more work
| becomes remote-friendly, I would expect new construction to be
| required less often.
|
| How about addressing the massive societal drain of doing dishes
| and laundry? Has anybody seriously tried to rethink those
| processes, not just in terms of roboticization, but in terms of
| house design and layout? How about heating/cooling? I guess what
| I'm curious about is more how an increase in capital expense
| could revolutionize operation, not the other way around. And
| certainly not involving a urine-processing body suit and relying
| on Uber eats indefinitely.
| weeboid wrote:
| i think balloon framing fell out of favor because
|
| 1. the length of timber required for two story structures is not
| efficient; old growth stuff has been felled and straight,
| seasoned, 24 and 36 foot lengths of wood are tough to find
|
| 2. and fire; platform framing has far better fire control
| nickelpro wrote:
| I think it's pretty clear the author is using "balloon framing"
| to encompass all forms of light-frame construction. You can
| tell because in the very first sentence he describes them as
| synonyms, "Stick frame construction, also known as light-frame
| construction or balloon framing"
| manmal wrote:
| The concepts in the article sound foreign to me - they are, since
| I live in the EU. In Central European countries, most houses are
| built to last 80-150+ years. People like to use bricks, aerated
| concrete or specially treated wood that will last for a very long
| time. There are other systems too, like walls filled with small
| clay pellets mixed with concrete. Houses built in such a way are
| quite expensive, usually EUR300k or more for a typical family
| home where I live. That leaves some room for prefab
| (Fertigteilhaus) to be cheaper, contrary to what OP wrote.
|
| There are small model cities you can visit where several dozen
| prefabbers exhibit their current model homes, and if you stick to
| their plan, you will usually pay less than building on your own.
| Those are often built on wood frames, but are still quite sturdy
| and supposed to last at least 100 years. Others are built with
| bricks or aerated concrete just like individually built homes.
| Savings are probably achieved by bulk orders, prefab, and a well
| coordinated team who has built the exact same house ten times
| already.
| ajuc wrote:
| Yup, American building culture is so weird.
| fpoling wrote:
| In US in many areas the earthquakes safety requires to build
| lighter houses. Plus many areas are subject to tornados and
| hurricanes when it is rather pointless to build anything that
| lasts 100 years. On that time scale the house will be destroyed
| or badly damaged in any case.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _Atlanta has seen 77 tornadoes in the four counties of
| Clayton, Cobb, Dekalb and Fulton from 1950-2013. This is a
| density of 0.94 tornadoes per year per 1,000 square miles._ "
|
| 1,000 sq mi is about 640,000 acres, so that's .0000015
| tornadoes per year per acre. If I've got my math right,
| that's about a 99.9% chance that your 1 acre plot will not be
| hit by a tornado in 1000 years, if you live in the Atlanta
| area, which is only a middling high-probability area.
| (https://weather.com/storms/tornado/news/tornado-odds-of-
| bein...)
|
| Hurricanes are generally only a coastal problem, although
| flooding is a fairly large issue everywhere. (Don't get a
| house in a low lying area. Please.)
|
| Earthquakes are mostly a West Coast thing, modulo New Madrid
| (pronounced "mad-rid") and various oil drilling operations.
| But then there's fires and termites and everything else.
|
| There are plenty of hundred-year-old houses all over the US,
| as well as plenty of newer ones that could last more than a
| century with proper maintenance.
|
| Few houses today are built to last that long, though, because
| it's more expensive but doesn't add anything to the purchase
| price like granite countertops. Stick frame on slab
| construction is pretty close to mini-maxing housing
| construction as the article describes (even in areas where
| slab foundations are geologically idiotic).
|
| Anyway, when you get down to the second-to-last section of
| the article, remember that, past a certain point, efficiency
| is the enemy of resiliency.
| nkurz wrote:
| > 1,000 sq mi is about 640,000 acres, so that's .0000015
| tornadoes per year per acre. If I've got my math right,
| that's about a 99.9% chance that your 1 acre plot will not
| be hit by a tornado in 1000 years
|
| I appreciate your attempt to come up with realistic
| numbers, but you are making the assumption that each
| tornado only affects a single acre. As discussed in the
| article you linked, if a tornado touches down, it
| frequently causes destruction for a path of several miles,
| making this a faulty assumption.
| axiolite wrote:
| > In US in many areas the earthquakes safety requires to
| build lighter houses. A lighter building does not protect you
| from earthquakes. Less-brittle materials, much more securely
| fastened together is what you want. With wood building this
| means metal strapping around studs nailed in perpendicular to
| the forces. With masonry buildings it means a lot of steel to
| hold the everything together.
|
| > Plus many areas are subject to tornados and hurricanes when
| it is rather pointless to build anything that lasts 100
| years. On that time scale the house will be destroyed or
| badly damaged in any case.
|
| Tornadoes yes, hurricanes, no. Build strong and heavy, with
| durable steel shutters for all windows and very secure doors,
| and there's no reason your home can't survive hurricanes with
| minimal damage. Flooding is another matter, entirely.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I lived in a wooden house with a brick facade from 1905 in
| San Francisco, so I think this is overstated.
|
| They have earthquakes in e.g. Italy and Turkey too, you know.
| fpoling wrote:
| On my visit to SF I saw a warning an a building that it did
| not satisfy earthquake safety standards of the government
| of California. A colleague explained that this was a common
| thing with old buildings in SF.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| I don't want to doubt you, but this sounds like 'folk wisdom'
| or 'common sense' logic, rather than fact. You are not
| seriously claiming that every piece of land is hit by
| earthquakes or hurricanes once every 50 years? While they get
| lots of attention my guess would be this is a shark attack-
| like phenomenon: its so unusual that its news worthy, which
| is why people think it is more frequent than it is.
|
| There are certainly earthquake (and hurricane) areas but the
| majority of the US population does not live in those. I'd
| need some risk/benefit analysis and actual data before
| believing they are even a factor in the equation for most
| people and areas. I can think of 100 other possible reasons
| (eg historically people moved frequently, or it was simply
| cheaper to rebuild than maintain as building
| standards/expectations change frequently, or in the cities
| you anyway expect someone to come in and buy up old building
| stock and rip it all down to put something bigger in, or ...
| ).
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| OP is exaggerating a bit, but mostly spot on. There's a
| wealth of information this.
|
| See ASCE 7-16 Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria
| for Buildings and Other Structures, For wind: Chapters
| 26-31 for 144 pages of wind load design criteria.
| (California Building Code and International Building Codes
| recognize and point to that standard)
|
| Of particular note, is a concept called "Basic Wind Speed"
| which is derived from mapped values. What you'll find is
| that its intimately correlated with hurricane landing. Most
| people live on the coast in the US where the wind speed is
| highest. Depending on the risk category of the building, a
| typical value on the West coast is ~105 mph. On the east
| coast, it vaires by latitude from ~115-200 mph, increasing
| in all the areas that get hit by hurricanes. To address
| your skepticism, I assure you things like hurricanes are
| undeed a significant design concern.
|
| The seismic load is similar.
|
| Both loads are fundamentally designed to give a defined
| risk of failure from storms and earthquakes with particular
| recurrence intervals ranging from 50-100 years. (Offhand, I
| believe this value is ~1% for total collapse with a much
| higher risk of damage.). It is indeed carefully weighted
| and considered balance between risk reduction and
| feasibility, and indeed, having less than 1% risk for
| intervals over 100 years starts to get rather difficult. We
| still require it for schools, police stations, and
| emergency gathering locations and the like, but not normal
| houses.
| manmal wrote:
| Please bear in mind that I don't mean the following in a
| cynic way. Damage from storms is horrible, and I feel for the
| families losing their homes every year.
|
| There was a tornado just a few days ago in the Czech Republic
| (not far from where I live), and as far as I can see, houses
| did lose their roofs, or the shingles at least, but the
| structures remained mostly intact. Many houses have basements
| in which people could hide in relative safety. Five people
| died unfortunately, not sure how many of those were in their
| homes at the time. But I think those rather sturdy houses
| made of bricks did infact save a lot of lives, and prevented
| many more from totally losing their home.
|
| To me it feels deeply illogical to build a house basically
| made of light wood frames when I know a hurricane can blow it
| away while I'm inside of it. I'm not sure about earthquakes,
| we have them of course, but they are less severe than in
| other areas in the world.
| strstr wrote:
| The frequency and maximum strength of tornadoes are higher
| in the central US. Casual skim of the wikipedia page
| indicates about as many F4 tornadoes in Europe as F5
| tornadoes in the US since 2000.
| octopoc wrote:
| There are many tornadoes where I live and most of the
| houses don't have basements. Directly in the path of the
| tornado, houses built on a slab were completely gone,
| leaving only a clean slab. This happened to a few entire
| neighborhoods.
|
| But, tornadoes here follow similar paths over a fifty year
| period. When I bought my house I found a hole in the fifty
| year tornado map and I've never had one come near me. Every
| couple decades the patterns may shift to other patterns,
| but generally speaking both the new patterns and old
| patterns have all happened in the last fifty years.
| ahnick wrote:
| > I found a hole in the fifty year tornado map
|
| What was your source for this information?
| manmal wrote:
| That's devastating. I wonder why houses in such areas are
| not required to provide underground shelter, or at least
| be built more solidly.
| mcguire wrote:
| After the 2011 tornadoes in the Southeast US, many
| communities built above-ground shelters (think "bunker"),
| with the downside being going any distance to a shelter
| is likely to be more dangerous than staying where you
| are. Also, many homeowners bought smaller above-ground
| shelters (think "steel pill-box").
| ghaff wrote:
| You cannot reasonably build solidly enough to withstand a
| high-level tornado unless you're talking underground
| bunkers, which are not an acceptable answer.
| manmal wrote:
| That's a bit defeatist, though? Efforts have been made,
| eg https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar
| ticle=...
|
| It seems a concrete dome would also work if digging a
| bunker is too expensive. Yes it's not pretty, but not
| being afraid of dying during the next hurricane season
| must be worth something. A small dome can't cost much.
| ghaff wrote:
| Sure. Building a reinforced shelter for tornadoes,
| nuclear attack, etc. may make sense. Historically, in the
| US Midwest that meant going into the basement. But you
| don't live there.
| coryrc wrote:
| It's not a problem, people just don't want to pay for it.
|
| https://www.icfmag.com/2012/09/tornado-resistant-
| concrete-ho...
| hoseja wrote:
| There aren't many natural disasters a sufficient amount
| of reinforced concrete can't fend off.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Is it not?
|
| For a few decades the Swiss required building concrete
| nuclear fallout bunkers for every resident. This was
| relaxed only recently, but presumably it was doable for
| five decades. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-
| bunker/swiss-relax-...
| ghaff wrote:
| So you can be in a bunker above ground. At that point
| you're quibbling.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Many places the basement would be under the water table
| or have to be carved out.
| crooked-v wrote:
| I just looked that up and that appears to have been an EF2
| tornado. That intensity deals an order of magnitude less
| damage than the EF3, EF4, and EF5 tornadoes that regularly
| appear in the US, which can literally tear entire houses
| off their foundations. A brick building in those conditions
| would be reduced to individual bricks.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Hurricanes and earthquakes are one thing, but what
| percentage of the US population lives in areas regularly
| subject to EF3-5 tornadoes?
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Much of the Midwest, which is 21% of the US population.
|
| Hurricanes are far more destructive and many spawn
| tornadoes. About 44% of Americans live in a Hurricane
| zone.
|
| Add earthquakes and fires maybe 60~70% of Americans live
| in a place with reoccurring natural disasters.
| [deleted]
| Kalium wrote:
| You might be surprised:
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/tornado-
| all...
|
| EF4 or EF5 tornadoes are around 2% of those in the US (ht
| tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornadoes_in_the_United_State
| s), which means any state with more than 34 or so a year
| can expect to see at least one. That accounts for 14
| states with a combined population of about 106 million
| people. That's approximately 32% of the total US
| population.
|
| 8%-ish of tornadoes rate EF3. At which point any state
| with seven or more a year should expect at least one in
| the EF3-5 range (yay, birthday paradox!). That's _32_
| states totaling 270 million people - 82% of the US.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I find a flaw in your logic, but don't have a pithy name
| for it. Population densities and EF4/EF5 tornado
| probabilities are not uniformly distributed throughout a
| state, and probably are negatively correlated.
|
| Looking at this image (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File
| :Improved_Average_Annual_T...) from the wikipedia article
| you linked shows this, with New Orleans, Atlanta and
| Miami being outside their state's main tornado zone and
| Houston and Chicago right at the border of high-tornados
| and medium-tornados.
| Kalium wrote:
| Oh, you're absolutely right. I simplified immensely by
| aggregating at the level of a convenient political
| division that has only vague bearing on actual geography
| as well as assuming the distributions are uniform across
| the range in question.
|
| I think the overall point is sound, though. A _huge_
| chunk of the US population is in territory regularly
| subject to strong tornadoes.
|
| Also, I would beg to differ that this map puts Chicago at
| the edge of a high-tornado zone. It's solidly in one, as
| is Kansas City.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| EF2 is not a measure of force of wind. It's a measure of
| total damage. . The wind speed was in the F4 category.
| manmal wrote:
| I read it was estimated to be F4. Brick houses are
| definitely less likely to be destroyed than timber.
| syoc wrote:
| Timber can be many things. I have a hard time seeing a
| log house being swept away by almost any force of wind.
| TylerE wrote:
| Then you don't appreciate the forces at play. An EF4 will
| rip deep rooted trees right out of the ground.
| syoc wrote:
| I can see that there are manufacturers selling log houses
| certified for cat-5 (245 mph) hurricanes. I do of course
| understand that any construction will be blown away at
| some point, I just cant picture it. The way the logs lock
| each other at the intersections and how the structure
| still is sound with no roof should help quite a bit.
| TylerE wrote:
| The big danger in a cat 5 is more the debris.
|
| There's a saying: It's not THAT the wind is blowing,it's
| WHAT the wind is blowing.
| mythrwy wrote:
| I worked on a cleanup crew after hurricane Andrew. Huge
| H-frame metal girders on highway structures were bent
| like pretzels. Entire lime groves were uprooted and piled
| like tumbleweeds. Houses were completely exploded. It was
| similar to what I imagine a bomb going off would look
| like.
|
| A log cabin would not have survived the worst areas of it
| I don't believe.
| jaclaz wrote:
| Well, the three little pigs story must have been originated
| somehow from real life experience:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Little_Pigs
| coryrc wrote:
| Insurance is federally subsidized/backstopped so people in
| hurricane or tornado zones don't have to pay for repairs
| directly, so it's cheaper to build a junk house than one
| which wouldn't take damage.
| moogly wrote:
| I also live in the EU. It's not foreign to me because I live in
| Scandinavia where we have plenty of wood. In Scandinavia (and
| the Baltics and parts of Russia) we build houses largely the
| same way as they do in North America. Western Platform Framing
| construction, though lately Swedish Platform Framing is taking
| over since it has improved insulation and fewer thermal bridges
| inbetween floors and thus much better for passive houses. I
| suspect it will take over in North America in a couple of
| decades. Advanced Framing (which is largely meant to lower
| costs, but also leaves more space for in-wall insulation since
| it has 24" studs on center) in the US isn't really taking off
| that quickly, but maybe we'll see a combination of the two.
|
| https://youtu.be/LUthssuOYks?t=262
| dcolkitt wrote:
| It doesn't economic make sense to build homes to last 100+
| years. Equity markets have historically returned 8% per year.
| You're much better off cutting corners, investing the money,
| then fixing the problems in the future with your compounded
| wealth.
|
| Pretend you have two options, you can build a home that lasts
| forever or a house that will fall apart in a half century but
| is 10% cheaper. By year 40, you'll have enough wealth
| accumulated to buy _two_ new replacement homes.
| AngryData wrote:
| I mean there is no reason wooden structures shouldn't last over
| 100 years if not double or triple that except for lack of
| maintenance, usually involving leaking roof or a negligent
| design that traps water. I grew up in a house that was 150
| years old and the only thing not wooden on it was the roofing
| material, although when it was first built it likely was cedar
| shake. The walls were wood, the floors were wood, the siding
| was wood, and any interior plaster was backed with wood. We
| never had to question any of the woods condition despite the
| majority of it being completely original.
| manmal wrote:
| Let's add a lack of termites, no lightning strikes, and great
| care about open fires to the list of requirements. While I
| personally like the idea (and smell!) of pure wood houses, I
| would not want to live in one permanently. Wood is a great
| material for sure, but why not mix it with other materials to
| make things safer and more sturdy.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| IMO this is the kind of stuff people worry about who don't
| really have any knowledge about wood structures. In some
| ways they're the safest and sturdiest choice, especially if
| you get any earthquakes in your region.
|
| FWIW, if you are concerned about fire, you should be aware
| that it's really the contents of the house that pose the
| greatest risk. You can get to flashover temperatures in a
| matter of minutes before any of the wood structure is
| burning.
| insaneirish wrote:
| > but why not mix it with other materials to make things
| safer and more sturdy.
|
| Because wood is a renewable resource, not a source of
| carbon emissions (like concrete), and is absolutely strong
| enough for single family homes.
| belval wrote:
| One other drawback of wooden houses is that wood absorbs
| moisture so in winter you have to run a humidifier because
| the air moisture is basically non-existent and that will
| irritate your nose and throat.
|
| I'll take a typical drywall panels on a wooden frame over
| wooden walls.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Wood can't continually absorb moisture, at some point it
| would become saturated.
|
| I always thought that the reason that winter air is dry
| is because warm air can hold more moisture than cold air,
| so as you heat it, relative humidity decreases. So, for
| example, if it's 5C outside with 50% relative humidity,
| if you heat that air to 22C, then it will have only 17%
| relative humidity.
|
| But modern houses (even wood ones) are so well sealed
| that even in winter you could end up with too _much_
| humidity inside just from normal activities (cooking,
| bathing, breathing).
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Termites are not a problem in huge swaths of the world,
| lightning strikes are... very unlikely, and fires will
| destroy any house, wood or not.
|
| All in all, correctly built wooden houses are pretty much
| as safe and sturdy as anything else.
| eloff wrote:
| The no termites thing is a big deal. I would not build with
| wood in the jungles of Panama. At best some solid wood
| beams, hardwood, properly treated. For aesthetics.
|
| Termites are a constant battle for my parents there in
| their concrete home. I can't imagine the carnage with a
| wood frame home.
| dmos62 wrote:
| What happens to a concrete home in termite country?
| eloff wrote:
| It's fine. They still invade the home through any opening
| they can find, build nests in the ceiling, eat cardboard
| boxes, exposed wood and trim, and furniture. They don't
| eat concrete, thankfully.
|
| I lost a piece of furniture there living in a condo,
| downtown in the city. The termites are industrious.
| dmos62 wrote:
| Imagine concrete termites. Yikes.
| quartesixte wrote:
| TIL about concrete eating termites and now I'm absolutely
| horrified. Thanks.
| aiisjustanif wrote:
| > Open fires
|
| Time to bring the Latvian video back up again:
| https://youtu.be/G-J86Ka9MkQ
| syoc wrote:
| Wood houses do not burn very well. Pure wood houses (think
| lumber cottages) are especially hard to set fire to.
|
| The things that do burn are furniture, paint, drapes etc
| and are present in any house.
| manmal wrote:
| > The material used in this type of wood can go up in
| flames much faster than traditional lumber does, meaning
| in a house fire, new homes will be more susceptible to
| something like a floor or roof collapse. Firefighters say
| it will happen quicker, too.
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/idahonews.com/amp/news/local
| /ho...
| mason55 wrote:
| The article also says you'll die of smoke inhalation long
| before the floor collapses
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Because wood is plenty strong and safe.
|
| I've lived in wood houses all my life, all of them built
| between 1920 and 1950.
|
| Balloon construction has, generally speaking, been great.
| The frames are strong and light, easy to run
| cabling/utilities, easy to modify/remove/renovate (You know
| what else I've done in every house I've owned? Moved at
| least one wall - in my current house we just completely
| modified the layout of the upstairs. Moving the walls cost
| on the order of a few hundred dollars each, since they
| weren't structural supports, and it's just wood and
| drywall)
|
| Basically - They're cheaper, better for the environment,
| and when cared for last a LONG time. Do they have some
| specific downsides? Sure. But overall they work
| fantastically well.
|
| Also - if you think concrete is sturdier than wood
| frames... in most cases I suspect you're wrong for
| residential homes. I live in a temperate rain forest
| (Atlanta, GA) the pine trees are HUGE, and they fall
| constantly - they hit houses a lot. Most take damage, but
| it's usually easy to repair, and honestly, the wood frame
| alone usually keeps people inside safe. Hundreds of houses
| a year take tree hits, and having someone die is rare
| enough it usually makes the news. Wood is tough. I've seen
| a 100ft pine literally bounce off a house.
| falcolas wrote:
| Yeah, so, fire. Why don't we go to the - primarily built
| from stone - Notre Dame and ask how that went.
| bombela wrote:
| The roof is/was wood. That's what burned.
| falcolas wrote:
| Well, technically, the roof was lead/tin shingles. The
| support beams for the roof (and a good many parts of the
| church, like the bell supports) were wood.
|
| My point is that building of brick/concrete doesn't
| guarantee you're rid of flammable infrastructure.
| koyote wrote:
| Well if you take into account that the roof framing that
| caught fire was made out of timber I think that
| highlights that even just using wood as part of the
| building is a massive fire hazard.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Every thread that's ever about US housing construction, some
| Europeans chime in to talk about how strange it seems to them
| to build houses out of wood, rather than stone/brick/etc that,
| as you put it, will "last for a very long time".
|
| Here's the thing, though: most Europeans seem to be suffering
| some pretty serious misconceptions.
|
| First, Americans build out of wood because we _have wood_ ,
| lots of it. Europeans don't skip wood because brick or stone is
| superior -- it's because Europe is _largely deforested_. Europe
| doesn 't _have_ wood for people to use at the same scale.
|
| Second, wooden houses last a plenty long time. "80-150+ years",
| as you put it, is entirely expected for a well-constructed
| wooden house. Neighborhoods that date from, say, 1850, e.g. in
| New England, have plenty of old wooden homes that people adore
| because of their character.
|
| Third, wood construction has a ton of advantages. Not only is
| it less expensive to build, but it's _tremendously_ more
| energy-efficient when filled with insulation. Brick and stone
| homes are absolute _energy guzzlers_ both in hot summers and
| cold winters. And remember, e.g. in New York State you 're
| dealing with 100degF (38degC) summers and -10degF (-23degC)
| winters. Insulation _matters_.
|
| The idea that American homes are somehow lower quality or
| shorter-lasting because they're built out of wood is a myth
| through and through. To the contrary, they're built out of wood
| because that's the _best_ construction for local climate and
| availability.
| glogla wrote:
| American houses aren't really built from "wood" as in
| directly from trees - they are build from "engineered wood"
| like fiberboard and particleboard.
|
| That's a lot of industrial processing with a lot of oil-based
| glues and so on. By weight, the houses are almost more oil
| than wood.
|
| Here's an enlightening chapter of "Well there's your problem"
| podcast about this with actual civil engineers
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVodkE47aLw
| canadianfella wrote:
| > Brick and stone homes are absolute energy guzzlers both in
| hot summers and cold winters.
|
| What the heck are you talking about?
| zdragnar wrote:
| Insulation does matter, but American insulation is also
| pretty strange- it is all rated by R value, which is only
| meaningful if you have a really good airtight seal. Any
| drafting ruins the insulative value very quickly.
|
| Aerated concrete doesn't have that issue, because the
| concrete cells are closed and don't draft. If you end up with
| a poorly fitted window or 50+ mph winds, it doesn't let air
| through.
|
| OTOH, totally agree about wood. Cheap(er), plentiful, and
| most importantly, everyone already knows how to work it and
| has the tools to do so.
|
| Masonry work is physically harder, requires a sounder
| foundation that won't settle at all due to the increased
| weight, and there are fewer people willing to do the work.
| Getting anyone to do foam or aircrete is impossible- you have
| to watch a bunch of YouTube videos and DIY it yourself.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Insulation does matter, but American insulation is also
| pretty strange- it is all rated by R value, which is only
| meaningful if you have a really good airtight seal._
|
| You're not wrong, but IMHO the two should be handled
| separately. The fact that airtightness has been less
| stringent in the US is mostly an accident of history, which
| is being improved with recent building codes. It's just
| that in the past it was easy for people to simply buy some
| fluffy stuff and stuff it into the walls: doing blower door
| tests is a lot more complicated.
|
| Building science has also progressed quite rapidly in the
| last 2-3 decades, and we now 'know better' in many areas
| than in the past.
|
| > _Aerated concrete doesn 't have that issue, because the
| concrete cells are closed and don't draft. If you end up
| with a poorly fitted window or 50+ mph winds, it doesn't
| let air through._
|
| First: what's the carbon footprint of concrete? What is
| footprint of wood framing?
|
| Not letting air through (in or out) is actually what you
| _want_. The structures of buildings should _not_ pass any
| air _at all_ ideally, and all air exchanges should be done
| primarily via mechanical means:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIcrXut_EFA
| glogla wrote:
| > First: what's the carbon footprint of concrete? What is
| footprint of wood framing?
|
| Carbon footprint of wood framing is terrible, because its
| mostly made of engineered wood with a lot of oil in it.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _mostly made of engineered wood with a lot of oil in
| it._
|
| [citation needed]
|
| Certainly LVL and LSL products are more processed, as is
| OSB, but those have the advantage of using 'off cuts' so
| they can use up some of raw materials that might
| otherwise be thrown out.
|
| Even with all that processing I find it hard to believe
| that it would be worse than concrete, given the amount of
| (fossil fuel?) energy needed for cement kilns and other
| things.
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_c
| oncre...
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| ... is the oil burned?
| icoder wrote:
| We're living in an airtight, concrete, triple glazed
| house in europe with mechanical ventilation with heat
| exchange, plus heat pump on a ground source for heating
| amd (moderate) cooling. It's amazing, temperature is
| great 24/7 year round.
|
| Having said that, your point about footprint holds and
| building with wood is coming 'back' here especially
| because of that, using cross laminated timber from
| sustainable forests.
| zdragnar wrote:
| I should edit that- I meant that even with a poorly
| fitted window or 50+ mile winds, the closed cell nature
| of the concrete doesn't let air circulate through it,
| while fiberglass does.
|
| Such is, my point was that foam boards and concrete are
| compared to blown / rolled fiberglass, even though the
| fiberglass has more failure modes for insulating. A
| poorly fitted window will seriously compromise the R
| value of the surrounding fiberglass.
|
| As for the carbon footprint of cement, solid is pretty
| high, foam not so much. I don't know about commercial
| stuff, but most DIY'ers seem to use a little under 100
| lbs portland cement to make a 55 gallon barrel's worth
| once the foam is mixed in. Rough math puts a 55 gallon
| barrel of concrete at about 1000 pounds.
|
| Edit: I just realized that 10% seems low, so what I saw
| may have used a 55 gallon barrel but not completely
| filled it. In any case, depending on the structural
| integrity that you need, the weight reduction (and
| therefore carbon footprint from curing) is
| _significantly_ reduced.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| In the United States, masons and concrete (including
| aerated) are quite common; rarity doesn't factor into it.
| DIY is not necessary. You misunderstand
| building construction. American insulation is, indeed,
| rated by R value, its resistance to the conductive flow of
| heat. *Any* draft will bypass insulation of any material. A
| leaky window will leak air, regardless of the construction
| material of the wall. American wooden buildings are sealed
| with sheet plastic, Tyvek, etc. to prevent drafts; all part
| of the insulation.
|
| Tyvek: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyvek
| jiofih wrote:
| Looks like you did not understand that comment. Concrete
| will not let a draft through no matter where the wind
| hits. For fiberglass and others, one bad fitting means a
| current can form through the material. This is _why you
| need_ tyvek to begin with.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| You are misunderstanding the American building system. We
| _don 't_ use fiberglass insulation by itself. You're
| picking a small part of a greater system and complaining
| it doesn't work in isolation. There are multiple layers
| to our construction and it's effective.
|
| As for the wall material stopping drafts in a window
| frame, that makes no sense at all.
| jiofih wrote:
| Exactly, the critique is that you need multiple layers,
| and if one fails, the R values you thought you had go out
| of the window. Whereas a concrete, wattle and daub etc
| wall will tolerate less-than-perfect fitting and
| maintenance. Of course if you assume construction is
| flawless, there will be no issues, and that's the usual
| case.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| How does concrete stop a draft that is going between a
| window frame and the wall itself?
|
| I've never had a draft _through_ a fibercement
| /wood/fiberglass/drywall wall, in any case.
| zdragnar wrote:
| A poor fit, minor damage, or any defect allows convection
| within the fiberglass. R-value assumes zero air movement,
| which is why it is far less useful comparing fiberglass
| to foam or aerated cement. In real world settings,
| aerated cement will outperform fiberglass.
| Retric wrote:
| The same thing can happen when concrete cracks, which is
| quite common. All of this a question of basic building
| maintenance rather than the building materials chosen.
|
| Cracking is why single family homes generally avoid
| concrete walls in the permafrost.
| GlennS wrote:
| Insulation in the UK at least is also rated by R-value (or
| U-value, where U = 1/R). Can't speak to the rest of Europe.
|
| Standard Assessment Producedure (which is used for
| household energy ratings) incorporates both this and some
| fudge factors for draftiness and local wind speed.
| fy20 wrote:
| > Not only is it less expensive to build, but it's
| tremendously more energy-efficient when filled with
| insulation
|
| With modern buiding techniques - building an air tight home
| and then ventilating with mechanical ventilation, and taking
| into account thermal bridging - that's no longer true. If
| anything the extra thermal mass, compared to a wooden framed
| house, helps to keep it more comfortable and reduce energy
| consumption during day-night temperature swings. Some bricks,
| e.g. clay blocks with air pockets inside [0], are both
| structural and somewhat insulating - you could use them for
| something like a garage without any other insulation. If you
| are cheap you don't even need a facade :D
|
| A lot of Central Europe has similar climates to NY - my area
| had -25C in the winter and 36C just this week. We usually
| don't even turn on the heating until it gets below 0C
| outside, as our home is more than comfortable enough (above
| 21C / 70F) inside until then.
|
| Not gonna argue with the expensive part (there's a reason why
| people don't build 5000sqft homes here), however it is worth
| mentioning in most desirable places to build, it is often the
| land that is the most expensive part.
|
| [0] https://www.wienerberger.com/en/brands-and-
| products/wall.htm...
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I think modern American houses are lower quality and shorter
| lasting, but more because of shitty building techniques and
| poor finish materials than wood framing.
|
| I worked in a wood barn in my youth that was built in 1680 in
| upstate NY, and will remain standing as long as the roof is
| maintained. My current home is a circa 1910 wood frame house
| that is in great shape and should be for years to come.
| There's nothing wrong with wood.
| splittingTimes wrote:
| This statement is odd given the fact that the US (and China
| for that matter) are gobbling up all the European lumber as
| it is cheaper than in the states, leading to ridiculous price
| increases over here.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Societal inertia and tradition can be powerful forces. Look
| at all of the people going with green lawns in the desert.
| manmal wrote:
| Unfortunately, while it's definitely possible to insulate
| wood houses, it's often not done [1]. As a result, more than
| half of energy use at home is spent on temperature control
| [2]. Yes, European homes are also underinsulated, but bricks
| provide better insulation per default.
|
| I agree about European deforestation. Wood from the Russian
| Taiga and the Amazon are illegally imported as a result,
| that's so embarrassing and wrong.
|
| I did list specially treated wood in the list of building
| materials btw, you might have overlooked that. I agree that
| wood can be a great material for building modern houses, when
| combined with other materials. Homes purely made of wood
| would be too unsafe for me personally (fire hazard, termites
| in the US, high susceptibility to outside forces).
|
| 1: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ninety-percent-
| of-u...
|
| 2: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-
| energy/homes.php
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > it's often not done
|
| Sure, 50 years ago. Modern code calls for a lot of
| insulation.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Building codes require relatively decent insulation and air
| sealing almost everywhere in the U.S. Builders do like to
| cut corners on things the homeowner can't see, but in most
| areas code enforcement is not lax enough to allow
| insulation that doesn't meet code.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| At least in Florida, modern building codes of the past
| couple decades requires excellent insulation. The reason
| for so many houses being under-insulated (a separate issue
| from uninsulated) is because most houses are older. For the
| very reason you started with, houses last for many decades.
|
| It also matters how one determines under-insulated. Energy
| here is cheap; we use big trucks as commuter cars. Using
| half our electricity for heating and cooling didn't matter
| until CO2 usage became important; now it's huge.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Unfortunately, while it's definitely possible to
| insulate wood houses, it's often not done [1]._
|
| "Ninety Percent of U.S. Homes Are Under Insulated"
|
| Yes, because Ninety Percent of U.S. Homes Were Built With
| Old(er) Building Codes.
|
| > _Yes, European homes are also underinsulated, but bricks
| provide better insulation per default._
|
| A lot of Europe is a lot more temperate than the US and
| Canada, so it didn't make much of a difference. I'm in
| Toronto, Canada, and we regularly get -15C winter weather
| as well as >30C (>80% RH) summer days too. To stay
| comfortable you really need heating _and_ cooling. Many
| buildings in the EU don 't have cooling (which has caused
| all sorts of problems during heat waves).
|
| The US has eight climate zones (AK not shown):
|
| * https://www.ecohome.net/guides/3521/climate-zones-map-
| usa-ca...
|
| And while a lot of the construction techniques would be the
| same regardless of location (e.g., air tightness), other
| things would not (insulation, HVAC equipment).
| manmal wrote:
| > Yes, because Ninety Percent of U.S. Homes Were Built
| With Old(er) Building Codes.
|
| Most public housing projects in Vienna, Austria, were
| retrofitted with modern insulation in the timespan of
| 10-20 years ago. Public funding exists in various EU
| countries for home owners to do the same.
|
| > A lot of Europe is a lot more temperate than the US and
| Canada, so it didn't make much of a difference.
|
| The number of households in Sweden, Finland, and Norway
| combined is comparable to Canada. Temps seem to be
| similar there. In Austria we get -10 and sometimes -15
| degrees Celcius in winter, and up to 35 degrees in
| summer. Same in Germany, where 18% of EU inhabitants
| live. Bricks are a staple in energy conservation in big
| parts of Europe.
| leguminous wrote:
| Maybe someone with more local knowledge can correct me,
| but I am under the impression that most homes in Sweden,
| Finland, and Norway are made out of wood.
|
| They, like Canada, have a convenient source of wood in
| the boreal forests.
| jabl wrote:
| Single family houses are typically wood framed, yes.
| Exterior differs, wood planking and brick are probably
| the most common.
|
| Multi-story buildings in cities are typically
| prefabricated concrete modules, sometimes clad in brick,
| sometimes just painted.
| icoder wrote:
| Wiod yes, but as far as I understood, well isolated,
| which was the point a few posts up I think.
| gumby wrote:
| Wood can also be good in an earthquake (the "willow vs oak
| tree" principle). However modern low-cost manufacturing means
| you'll still suffer various damage due to things like gypsum
| wallboards which are less compliant than the wood framing.
| But those failures won't be fatal.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Wish I had more than one upvote to give. There's a definite
| trend of Europeans looking puzzlingly at things that
| Americans do differently and assuming it must be due to some
| combination of stupidity and greed. Admittedly somethings may
| fall under that umbrella but homebuilding with wood is not
| one of them.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _There's a definite trend of Europeans looking puzzlingly
| at things that Americans do differently and assuming it
| must be due to some combination of stupidity and greed._
|
| I'm an American and I look at the things we do and they
| seem to be a combination of stupidity and greed.
|
| You can look at strongtowns.org and many other places for a
| summary of the illogical, unsustainable and short-term-
| greed fueled quality of American urbanism.
| icoder wrote:
| Many will see there are differences, there will be some
| puzzledness involved by part of those but I think there's
| little % left that then jump to conclusions about stupidity
| and greed.
| eloff wrote:
| Its not just the insulative value, stone and concrete also
| have thermal mass, which can keep you cooler in summer and
| warmer in winter. Some types of construction like rammed
| earth or hempcrete exploit this on purpose.
|
| Wood frame houses don't have that.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| In most masonry homes the insulation is on the inside of
| the masonry, so you don't get the masonry as part of the
| thermal mass inside the insulation envelope.
|
| Wood framed houses can have thermal mass to keep a stable
| temperature. This is more common with homes with exposed
| wood framing, and SIP on the outside.
| icoder wrote:
| Masonry can be basically on any type of housing right?.
| Here in the Neherlands the inside is often concrete with
| lits if thernal mass, also in floors/ceilings, which are
| often big fat slabs of concrete.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Thermal mass is not always a good thing. High thermal mass
| is helpful in a temperate climates where winter nights are
| chilly and summer days are warm, but the average
| temperature all year is comfortable.
|
| We don't have that in most of America. Having a high
| thermal mass in New England just means your heater has to
| work harder in the winter to heat your thermally massive
| house. Ditto for Arizona during most of the year.
| skybrian wrote:
| It seems like this shouldn't be a problem when the
| insulation is outside the the thermal mass? Once it's
| warmed up it will stay that way.
| Valgrim wrote:
| Insulation should absolutely be kept outside the vapor
| barrier and well ventilated for better performance, but
| thermal mass is less important than building super-
| airtight walls, with lots of insulation, good quality
| windows and controlled ventilation.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| High thermal mass is very much desirable in Arizona.
| Adobe pueblos are used for traditional housing because
| they remain comfortable throughout summer without air
| conditioning due to the high thermal mass. A rug and some
| mild heating is sufficient to keep them tolerable even in
| extreme winters.
| mcguire wrote:
| The desert is typically cold at night.
| vegetablepotpie wrote:
| _Was_ typically cold at night. I've lived in southern
| Arizona since the 90s. 30 years ago it would feel cool
| driving home from the city. Now? Not at all.
|
| Owning a concrete block house feels like all my money is
| going through the walls. Even if you have the AC on in
| the summer, you can touch the walls from the inside and
| they feel warm. I'm definitely going to need to look at
| insulation going forward.
| icoder wrote:
| I think wood, stone, concrete and glass are all not great
| insulators, so that should be found in thickness,
| layering with different materials and airtightness
| (assumjng mechanical ventillation preferably with heat
| exhange). You can do that (and mess it up) with any of
| said materials.
| aledthemathguy wrote:
| can't tell u how many times I asked American construction
| workers/contractors about this, and none knew the answer.
| Glad to finally have an answer. thx.
|
| Site note: can't stand the amount of noise(!) going throw the
| house as opposed to concrete.
| flexie wrote:
| 36 percent of the US is covered by forest (1). 38 percent of
| the EU is covered by forest. That's EU with Britain. Without
| Britain, the percentage is higher (2).
|
| I realize I use different sources, and that maybe all forests
| are not equally good for lumber production. But Europe has as
| much forests as the US. Yes, a lot of it is concentrated in
| Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, so traditionally, that would
| have been less accessible to most central and western
| European countries. Also, traditionally, there was far more
| farm land. But nowadays, Europeans could access lumber as
| easily as Americans.
|
| 1:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forests_of_the_United_States#
| :.... 2:https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-
| resources/statis...
| gjhh244 wrote:
| Unsurprisingly a lot of houses are built from wood in
| Nordic countries and Eastern Europe. It's just tradition
| limiting its use in some parts.
| adolph wrote:
| US: 818,814,000 acres (3,313,622 square kilometers).
|
| EU: 161,000,000 ha
|
| ha = ac / 2.4711
|
| 818,814,000 / 2.4711 = 331,356,076
|
| Ok, the US has roughly double the forested surface area.
|
| EU pop is 448m compared to US' 328m. So with 30% more
| population and half the forested surface area wood does
| seem scarser in the EU.
|
| https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=
| E...
| dmichulke wrote:
| Didn't check the numbers but I'd guess including European
| Russia or non-EU Balkans or Norway would totally change
| your results.
|
| Then again, including Canada would probably as well.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And that's why the US market is eating most of Europe's
| construction wood supply at the moment? Which, by the
| way, is sourced to a significant degree from the former
| Soviet Union. So comparing EU forest surface with the US
| is somewhat misleading.
| pharke wrote:
| If "at the moment" is the past year and a half then it's
| because lumber prices have tripled or quadrupled so of
| course it makes sense to buy far afield and ship if the
| price is lower.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Prices increased _because_ the US and China are buying up
| everything, not the other way round.
| pharke wrote:
| Yes increased demand drives increases in price if the
| supply is limited. Production has been constrained
| everywhere for the past year and a half so buyers have
| had to source material from further away than usual.
| biztos wrote:
| There are very good prefab houses made of wood in Europe. A
| relative of mine paid 600K EUR for one.
|
| Also, while there is more wood in North America, it's not
| like there are no forests in Europe. Take a look at Romania
| or Bosnia if you want to see big wild ones.
| Zababa wrote:
| I don't think it's fair to put brick and stone together like
| that. I personally live in France, where we have lots of old
| house made of stone, and they have a way better thermal
| insulation that houses made of brick, at least on my
| subjective "is it fresh in summer inside?" scale.
|
| > Brick and stone homes are absolute energy guzzlers both in
| hot summers and cold winters.
|
| That is not my experience, but a difference is maybe in how
| we heat things. This article about local heating explains my
| philosophy pretty well:
| https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/local-heating.html
| When it's cold, I tend to stay in the room where my computer
| is and wear a jacket. I do think that it's possible due to
| how Europe and especially France has a more temperate climate
| than the US though.
|
| > wood construction has a ton of advantages. Not only is it
| less expensive to build
|
| The comparaison doesn't really hold as in Europe it's easier
| to leverage old houses, due to the history of Europe. I don't
| think any new houses are made of stone.
|
| It's really nice to have people like you point out
| misconceptions that Europeans can have, but please remember
| than you can have misconceptions too, and that Europe as a
| whole (like the US) is very large and has different climates.
| Not everything you said will hold in France, Spain, Ukraine,
| Greece, Norway.
| peteradio wrote:
| My own home is 121 years old 2x4 framed, with a well
| frequented railroad track within a stones throw. Wonder how
| well a stone home would hold up to that constant mild tremor.
| simonjgreen wrote:
| Absolutely fine. It's common for train lines to run
| straight through the centres of cities and towns in Europe
| including very densely packed industrial revolution era
| areas all made from stone.
| newguy886 wrote:
| ROTFL
| brtkdotse wrote:
| 1) You can insulate stone houses as well
|
| 2) I spent a year working in D.C. and watched 4-5 houses come
| up in the neighborhood during that time. The amount of
| insulation used was _laughable_. Watching builders on YouTube
| I get the same impression. In Sweden 99% of houses are wood,
| but all have at the very least the double amount of
| insulation, often more.
| OJFord wrote:
| Termites though? Those tent things and fumigation companies
| are just a 'television thing' to me; when I was young I
| thought it was some sort of cleaning thing.
| icoder wrote:
| You're saying it like rhe chiming in is bad or at least
| tiring. But that's how we come to insightful discussions like
| this one. Plus there IS a difderenc which does make articles
| like this at least different to interpret for the non-US
| crowd.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| You left out the other advantage of wood - it's
| environmentally friendly. Instead of mining stone (releasing
| greenhouse gasses), sustainable wood growth sequesters CO2
| inside your house.
| simonjgreen wrote:
| I think it's important to caveat that wood CAN be friendly,
| but to imply all wood building materials come from
| sustainable sources is a leap
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Does anyone know how sustainable lumber is now?
|
| I hope empress trees become usable in construction, they
| grow insanely fast.
| reportgunner wrote:
| Wait I thought chopping down trees was environmentally
| unfriendly.
| icoder wrote:
| This is the important part in my opiniom! And it's why
| Europe is warming up again to wood based construction
| (cross laminated timber from sustanaible forests).
|
| All the other differences (ie isolation) can be achieved
| (or messed up) with either form of construction.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Perhaps I can correct some misconceptions. I know mostly
| about the UK rather than central Europe.
|
| 1) New houses in the UK are very well insulated indeed. Walls
| are commonly of cavity construction with 'lightweight'
| thermal blocks or timber on the inside skin, and insulation
| in the cavity. We also indsulate the floors and roofs. Our
| building code is pretty strict about insulation and I believe
| that is also true in Germany for instance.
|
| 2) We use brick on the outside because the UK climate makes
| external wood rot very quickly in normal circumstances. Cedar
| cladding can work if left to 'silver', but you have little
| chance of keeping paint on anything. Exterior woodwork also
| has to be treated with fire retardant if used as cladding.
| Roof coverings are normally clay tiles or slate.
|
| There are buildings in my town that are 600+ years old, built
| out of oak framing with wattle and daub infills...but this is
| a very expensive way to build.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| We generally do not clad our houses with wood in the US
| either. We're mostly clad with brick, vinyl, or stucco.
| Roofing is occasionally wooden shake in dry climates like
| California. But asphalt and clay are by far more common.
| jsight wrote:
| Also cement siding (hardiplank).
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I was going to say. In the PNW at least, probably 99% of
| all new construction uses cement siding for the lion's
| share of the exterior.
| shadilay wrote:
| Here in the PNW most new houses are ugly boxes with some
| kind of flat paneling. Quite the contrasting sitting next
| to far more attractive older brick houses.
| jsight wrote:
| I feel like it is becoming more common here in the
| southeast as well. I don't particularly like it, tbh,
| though it does have some advantages. It seems to block
| noise pretty well.
| grogenaut wrote:
| Most of the houses in Seattle are wood. Seattle has a very
| similar climate to the UK including tons of rain. Many very
| old houses. Besides, with wood siding, you can just replace
| it, it comes right off and you put more on. My house was
| built in the 70s. It's cedar siding. The siding is fine.
| OJFord wrote:
| But why is that better than brick, and (it being a lot
| harder to, sure, but) not needing to?
| einarvollset wrote:
| The notion that you cannot keep wood treatment on anything
| in the UK is ludicrous. You can choose to leave raw wood
| exposed, or you can chose to treat it every 5-10 years.
|
| Source: my family in Norway owns several wooden houses that
| are a couple of hundred years old, and as a kid/teenager I
| spent a lot of time having to treat these houses :)
| dazc wrote:
| Treated external timber in the UK is more exposed to UV
| light than in Scandinavian countries and requires much
| more maintenence, say at least every two years instead of
| five. People just don't want to repaint there houses this
| frequently. Although, you are right, this isn't to say
| that timber cladding can not last for a very long time.
| [deleted]
| wil421 wrote:
| Plenty of house in Florida that are made out of wood. Wood
| rot is not a huge problem and I'd bet the heat, humidity,
| and rain is much more than the UK climate.
| simonjgreen wrote:
| 54" vs 34". Florida has more volume of rain.
|
| 114 days vs 170 days. UK has more frequent rain.
|
| Was just curious so looked it up and shared. Not drawing
| any conclusions. I actually find it hilarious that so
| many of the comments here are trying to distil such a
| complex and nuanced cultural difference down to stats and
| logic :)
| tails4e wrote:
| I'm not sure I get the insulation aspect. Sure when compared
| with concrete block wood is better, but wood is still a
| thermal bridge. In parts of Europe a cavity between two block
| walls is filled with insulation, so no cold bridge, and it
| means the structural materials inherent insulation value does
| not matter. An inner leaf of block also has a thermal mass
| which means the walls maintain the house heat better in
| summer / winter. So we have outer leaf for structure /
| weather resistance, insulated cavity with excellent u values,
| inner leaf for structure and thermal mass. It's a lot thicker
| wall, but serves multiple purposes very well, and better than
| wood frame with insulation between studs.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The reason why us Europeans are so confused is, that over the
| last couple of years we started to see beyond the American
| Dream. And it feels like every time the US is having a
| problem it fails to find a solution for some country in
| Europe or Asia _already_ has one. Not the perfect one, and
| maybe not one that can be copied, but one that works.
| Examples: Health care, elections, public transportation,
| guns, infrastructure, house construction...
|
| Not that I would expect Americans to just copy what we do,
| but the outright refusal to acknowledge that someone else is
| doing things that seem impossible is at times hilarious.
|
| All that with the obvious exception, everything military.
|
| Edit: American houses are lower build quality because of
| lower build quality. Not because they are build out of wood.
| They are also considerably cheaper.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Likewise, some of us are a bit tired of the myopia coming
| from some Europeans. I'm writing this from an old brick
| home in the US, one of hundreds in my neighborhood. They're
| not as old as the ones in your neighborhood since this area
| was only settled 150 years ago, but they'll get there.
|
| We're not asking you to believe in some "American Dream,"
| just notice that we also have hundreds of millions of
| people who make highly varied decisions that conform to
| natural environments and resources, historical contexts,
| cultural preferences and financial limits.
| aktuel wrote:
| US wood supply is currently largely diminished and lots of
| wood is being imported from Germany.
| seb1204 wrote:
| Interesting, why? Source?
| aktuel wrote:
| There are dozens of articles about it. This is the first
| result with duckduckgo for "wood prices soar":
| https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-12/lumber-
| pri...
| turtlebits wrote:
| The problem is that in the US, house structures are built as
| large and cheaply as possibly, with all the spending in
| finish and features.
|
| The US is in the stone age when it comes to wall construction
| (for longevity and energy savings), vapor control, doors and
| windows.
|
| I have a small project and I am having to order my windows,
| house wrap/wrb and tape from European suppliers.
| erentz wrote:
| What's different about US and EU house wrap?
| markvdb wrote:
| Energy is comparatively cheap in the US. As an example,
| average natural gas prices for consumers have recently
| gone up to around 0.3EUR/m3 [0]. In one of the cheapest
| places in Europe, the Netherlands, itself a large natural
| gas supplier, it is about .79EUR/m3[1].
|
| This does not encourage a culture of energy savings.
| Relevant experience just is not as deeply ingrained. Yet,
| if I may hope so.
|
| Some examples, just concerning windows, unfortunately
| without references:
|
| - One can still buy and legally install single pane
| windows in most of the US.
|
| - A significant share of new windows in the US apparently
| still are double pane.
|
| - New windows in the US are still often filled with air
| instead of specialised gases.
|
| - Multi-chambered pvc windows are still being marketed as
| a tech innovation in some places in the US, while these
| are bog standard bottom line products even in the Baltic
| states.
|
| - Try and ask your average window installer about air
| tightness seals and blower door tests.
|
| [0] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_a_EPG0_PRS_DMc
| f_m.htm
|
| [1] https://www.milieucentraal.nl/energie-
| besparen/inzicht-in-je...
| Scoundreller wrote:
| If the US depended on something from Russia, I'm sure
| they'd be huge on conserving it too. I get NL currently
| exports more than it imports, it still means everyone
| else will pay a premium for EU-sourced gas, or wants it
| there as their supply.
| seb1204 wrote:
| Some time ago I spoke to an architect from Europe who was
| living and building in New Zealand. He said that good
| quality double glazed window are not available. Her
| ordered them from Europe. (I'm curious is I remember this
| correctly or maybe the situation has improved now). In
| Australia there certainly are no double glazed windows in
| most single home buildings.
| maratc wrote:
| The reason _might be_ that there is no need in double
| glazed windows in AU /NZ.
| tuatoru wrote:
| It (the reason) is not.
|
| Most of NZ gets cold enough to need (at least) double
| paned windows, and all of NZ needs low-emissivity glass
| to reduce heat gain in summer. I believe the same is true
| of Australia.
|
| NZ's current building standards are state of the art for
| the 1970s.
|
| As gp said, specifying ordinary modern designs, materials
| and and fittings (by European standards) gets you looked
| at as though you're from outer space.
|
| NZ's housing _stock_ is cold, damp, and mouldy inside for
| the most part. Not coincidentally NZ has one of the
| highest rates of asthma in the world.
| oblio wrote:
| First of all, that's generically false. Almost every new
| housing unit in this world should use triple glazing.
| It's just great insulation and it will reduce both
| heating and cooling bills and you know, climate change
| and all that jazz.
|
| Secondly, NZ, OK, maybe it won't need even double
| glazing. But aren't AU summers super hot?
| matttproud wrote:
| You pay for the land and all that other blah-blah-blah aside:
|
| Having grown up in the United States and lived over a decade in
| various parts of Europe, I find U.S. construction quality and
| expectations (esp. modern) absolutely dismal. It's truly in the
| space of relative deprivation. In no way are most of the
| property structures worth their market prices (pre-bubble).
|
| I spoke to a Swiss colleague who lives part time in the States
| recently about this. He attempted to have a house built to
| modern Swiss design spec. where he was living (climatically
| similar to the Schweizer Mittelland) and gave up due to
| infeasibility. Money was not the problem; knowledge, at-grade
| quality inputs, etc. are all lacking in the United States. And
| I'd believe it being in CH now and today. I've kept an eye open
| for quality execution on all of my return trips (various parts
| of the country), and I just don't see anything that can hold a
| candle to modern construction in DACH.
|
| Simple quality of life improvement for many buildings Stateside
| would be retrofitting these onto more doors:
| https://planet.ag/produkte/produkteuebersicht/. Folks deserve
| noise, smell, and climatic isolation. You don't know what you
| are missing. I'd easily spend $50 a night more for hotels
| that'd use these. I don't want to be able to hear a mouse fart
| from a room down the hall unattenuated at perfect fidelity.
| manmal wrote:
| To add to that - it's a totally different industry, but Tesla
| cars made in China are known to be superior in quality
| compared to the US produced one's.
| oblio wrote:
| What's that thing in your link?
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| The US has very different environmental constraints than Europe
| when it comes to construction. We have strong earthquakes
| across much of the country, which does violence to masonry. We
| have more severe and extreme weather than exists in Europe. The
| US has prodigious quantities of cheap timber for construction,
| which is increasingly an anachronism in Europe. American
| construction is optimized for the American environment. Also,
| the idea that this construction doesn't last centuries is
| evidently false, many people live in wood houses built in the
| 19th and 18th century.
|
| The tl;dr: US housing is highly optimized for local conditions,
| as is the case everywhere. If you built European housing in
| much of the US it would be destroyed by the ambient environment
| or not compliant with safety regulations.
| bumbada wrote:
| Europe has much more density of people living in the same
| space. And Asia is even more dense.
|
| In the US there are things that do not make sense because
| people density is so low there, even in places like New York,
| most people live in individual homes, spread over a big area.
|
| When I was living in China I saw lost of things made sense that
| do not make sense in Europe just by the economic of scale of so
| much people living in such small areas.
| marcinzm wrote:
| >In the US there are things that do not make sense because
| people density is so low there, even in places like New York,
| most people live in individual homes, spread over a big area.
|
| That's patently false. In NYC only 9% of homes are single
| unit detached and in NY state it's only 41%.
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| While it's true that Europe has a few cities that are
| significantly more dense then new York, your phrasing makes
| it sound like the average town is more dense then NY is...
| And that's not the case
|
| I don't know the exact number, but there are very few cities
| in Europe with a density higher then NY (10,716.36
| people/km2), and i'm pretty sure they're all in France,
| Greece and Italy
| IshKebab wrote:
| The use of bricks over wood can't be due to population
| density because the practice goes back hundreds of years.
|
| I think it is partly due to tradition, and partly due to
| climate differences.
| manmal wrote:
| I think it has to do with prices and available know-how.
| You can build a typical US home for 1/2 or less than a
| Central European home. Right now, if I were to build a
| 150m2 (1600sqft) home, that would cost me at least EUR250k.
| More likely 300. Zoning often requires houses to be of a
| certain build and look, so building cheaper than that is
| often not even an option. As far as I know, a US home of
| that size usually costs $100k? Please someone correct me if
| I'm wrong.
| greedo wrote:
| The average cost per square foot for new construction is
| between $100-$155 in the US. That might be a bit low
| considering current lumber prices though. So a 1600 sq/ft
| house would be between $160K-$248K.
| manmal wrote:
| Thank you!
| xyzzyz wrote:
| I think it is pretty conceivable that structural lumber
| could have been more expensive than bricks in the past.
| Before modernity, there was scarcely enough food for
| everyone, so using it for something like forest would have
| been relatively expensive. For this reason, today more
| Europe is covered with forests than in 1700. On the other
| hand, bricks only need small amount of land for extraction
| of substrates, and some fuel, which didn't have to be prime
| firewood like we're used to now, but more like thin twigs
| from coppiced trees.
| Someone wrote:
| I doubt food scarcity, when it occurred, was for lack of
| land. Also, not all forest land can be used well for
| agriculture, and if there wasn't much forest, there
| weren't many twigs, either.
|
| IIRC, bricks became popular because wooden house were
| forbidden in dense cities, and clay beat stone in
| availability/price/suitability (wouldn't know which)
|
| Certainly, after London burnt, _"much of the old street
| plan was recreated in the new City, with improvements in
| hygiene and fire safety: wider streets, open and
| accessible wharves along the length of the Thames, with
| no houses obstructing access to the river, and, most
| importantly, buildings constructed of brick and stone,
| not wood."_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_
| London#Aftermath)
| xyzzyz wrote:
| > I doubt food scarcity, when it occurred, was for lack
| of land.
|
| Food scarcity was a constant reality of premodern times.
| I'm not talking about occasional famines, where people
| literally died en masse, but rather about normal times.
| The food had to be scarce, otherwise the population
| wouldn't have been a small fraction of the current one.
|
| > Also, not all forest land can be used well for
| agriculture,
|
| Sure, but back then people used even marginal lands if at
| all possible, precisely because of land scarcity. Ever
| seen those terraced farms on mountain slopes in China? We
| don't do that anymore, but it made sense back then.
| Moreover, land that wasn't good enough for farming was
| mostly used for animal grazing, not forest.
|
| > and if there wasn't much forest, there weren't many
| twigs, either.
|
| No, as I said, you can get twigs from coppiced or
| pollarded trees, which yield more fuel per acre than
| normal forest, but don't yield any structural lumber.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| To add a counterpoint to the conversation: I recently had to
| deal with a house built in the 70's, western Europe. It's now
| basically four walls and a roof. No isolation. No central
| heating except for the first floor. Gaz boilers for hot tap
| water, connected to outside gaz cylinders you replace every two
| months. Electricity will be hard to redo, actual central
| heating too. The costs to get it up to date will be another
| house. Utility costs while it was inhabited were through the
| roofs.
|
| In the 70's, it was easy money and full employment for a lot of
| people and single house income could buy you such house. Some
| people built houses for themselves that wouldn't last more than
| a generation and wouldn't care at all about their descendants.
| gjhh244 wrote:
| In Finland we have 100+ years old log houses still in good
| condition. Wood lasts just fine, as long as design, building
| and maintenance are done right.
|
| As some have pointed out, wooden buildings are also way, way
| more ecological than concrete ones. They capture carbon long-
| term, while concrete production causes major carbon emissions.
| [deleted]
| carapace wrote:
| Some relevant tidbits, apologies for not writing this up in more
| detail. (Especially since the article was so detailed and well
| thought out.)
|
| Bucky Fuller had the idea to build houses in factories and
| deliver them by helicopter.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_house
|
| Or build whole cities at once:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_River%27s_City_project
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology
|
| Christopher Alexander thought that we should build our houses
| ourselves (using foamed concrete):
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircrete
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| I am just going to say one thing: Superadobe.
| brianolson wrote:
| Framing is a plausible place to optimize, so how about steel? The
| factory cuts all the pieces to be assembled on site. It goes up
| real fast. This is what we want, right?
| robocat wrote:
| Note that steel framing is available in Australia, I think
| partially because of termites.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=australia+steel+frame+homes
| sgerenser wrote:
| They're generally quite a bit more expensive than wood 2x4s and
| conduct heat and cold so well that they almost totally defeat
| any fluffy insulation used between studs. This basically
| requires a layer of board insulation on the outside (this is
| commonly part of an EIFS system used in commercial
| construction). They also aren't as amenable to hanging stuff as
| wood studs which is a common requirement in residential homes.
| lostapathy wrote:
| At very small scales, this is already done with wood framing.
| There are vendors that will send out a pre-cut framing package
| with every piece of wood cut and marked, and even stacked in
| the right order for fairly optimal assembly.
|
| The trouble is that most house plans are not put together to a
| sufficient level of detail for this to work - contractors rely
| on all kinds of field decisions/adjustments.
| ianbicking wrote:
| How many house plans does the world need? 100? 1000?
| lostapathy wrote:
| I don't disagree. This shouldn't be an insurmountable
| problem, but it's definitely the current state of the art.
|
| I'm currently in the process of having a house built, and
| it's infuriating to me as an engineer how little detail I'm
| allowed to have either before or during the process. I have
| to rely on change orders to fix things that were totally
| preventable/plannable.
| ianbicking wrote:
| I'm sure it's my naive hubris that makes me think someone
| should just design a dozen houses, each with a handful of
| well defined modifications (including to the facade), and
| do it with enough specificity that it could be turned
| into very exact instructions and material lists that
| suppliers could easily fulfill.
|
| Hubris in particular because I'm sure architects think a
| lot about this and if they don't do it it's for some good
| reason... or they have done it and it just doesn't effect
| the market like I imagine it could.
|
| I read about a government research program into building
| (70s?) that failed to reach its own goals but did advance
| building standards, and this does feel like something
| where government funded research could help. Something
| closer to how highway safety research is done, as opposed
| to scientific research.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| >> Replace gas appliances with electric or nuclear versions,
| eliminate gas piping
|
| I closed the tab here. Not today, satan.
| seniorsassycat wrote:
| * drywall taping and mudding makes plumbing and electrical
| inaccessible.
|
| * moulding could be built into drywall panels or eliminated in
| favor of reinforced panels.
|
| * houses are unmonitored, I should be able to see how much
| electricity or water every fixture uses. How hot, how humid is my
| house or the attic.
| trunnell wrote:
| I recently read Gates' book _How To Avoid a Climate Disaster_
| which left me with the impression that the overriding factor in
| building costs is the energy required (and CO2 produced) for
| construction, heating, and cooling.
|
| Unfortunately I didn't see any mention of energy or carbon in
| this post.
|
| Seems like the biggest breakthrough would be a pre-construction
| estimate of energy costs over, say, 30 years. Similar to the
| Energy Star sticker on appliances sold in the US which tell you
| the cost to run a given appliance with typical usage compared to
| the range for other models.
|
| This would allow you justify spending more upfront for better
| insulation, HVAC, air sealing, etc. and recoup that over time. At
| scale this would allow our civilization to be more energy
| efficient and reduce the need to build more power plants.
|
| This suggestion stood out: "...move to resistance heating and
| thermoelectric cooling"
|
| Unless I'm missing something, this would be a step backward.
| Modern heat pumps are 3-4x more efficient than resistance
| heating, since they aren't creating heat but moving it from one
| place to another. For cooling, if the author is referring to
| Peltier type thermoelectric cooling, the same applies: heat pumps
| are many times more efficient.
|
| The building revolution we need is one that cheaply produces
| extremely energy-efficient homes, IMO.
| wyager wrote:
| > I recently read Gates' book
|
| I hope you didn't intend to extract any valuable information
| from that.
|
| > the overriding factor in building costs is the energy
| required (and CO2 produced) for construction, heating, and
| cooling. Unfortunately I didn't see any mention of energy or
| carbon in this post.
|
| That's because when an eco-activist like Gates, who has no clue
| about environmental economics, talks about "costs", he is
| completely bullshitting. Clearly he gave you the wrong
| impression, at least.
|
| The overriding factor in the cost of essentially _everything_
| is energy, if you decompose the cost network far enough.
|
| Obviously engineers and home builders are not stupid and if
| there was some massive efficiency increase they could exploit,
| the would do so.
| NumberWangMan wrote:
| Good point. Also note that a 4-family home is going to be
| generally much more energy efficient than 4 single-family
| homes, since there are fewer walls that leak heat to the
| exterior. So the author's recommendation to build more multi-
| family dwellings is on point in that respect.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Shared-wall homes have pretty terrible tradeoffs in terms of
| privacy, air quality, and (lack of) soundproofing, though.
| foobar33333 wrote:
| They don't have to. The apt building I live in must be
| built really well because I have never heard a single sound
| from the people around me. I can only just hear muffled
| talking/music while standing in the hallway but never from
| within my own apt.
| hinkley wrote:
| Some states have code that fixes the sound problem, but the
| cost is higher $/sq ft costs.
| 41b696ef1113 wrote:
| Do you have a sense on how bad the increased cost is for
| reasonable sound isolation (talking/tv not garage band)?
| Because I have dealt with loud neighbors, and if the
| problem could be ameliorated for an extra $1/m or
| something else trivial, I will be enraged that it is not
| mandated everywhere.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| Shouldn't we also account for housing density? A dwelling may
| be as energy efficient (in terms of cooling/heating) on a per-
| dwelling basis as a high-rise apartment, but this may not be
| the case when considering the impact on things like
| transportation etc.
| rhinoceraptor wrote:
| This video is a great explainer on heat pumps [1]. The TL;DR is
| that they are essentially nothing more than air conditioners
| that run in the opposite direction. Plus, a heat pump and an
| air conditioner can be combined into a single system.
|
| 1: https://youtu.be/7J52mDjZzto
| sgerenser wrote:
| Not just can be combined they effectively always are. I'm not
| aware of any residential heat pumps sold in the US at least
| that don't also operate in cooling mode. The additional cost
| is basically just a reversing valve.
| perceptronas wrote:
| in EU we have these stickers. You cannot build houses with
| lower "tier" energy "stickers" anymore. New houses have to be
| built very efficiently and be certified where their yearly
| energy costs will be calculated. (HVAC, air sealing, building
| materials like windows/insulation and so on are taken in
| account)
| wffurr wrote:
| Heat pumps need plumbing and installation which increases the
| construction cost.
|
| Agreed that they are the way to go, but it's not going to bring
| down construction costs.
|
| The author's strawman proposal was a nuclear battery for
| effectively unlimited onsite power with no marginal cost in
| order to minimize construction costs.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Heat pumps need plumbing and installation which increases
| the construction cost._
|
| So do radiant floor heating or straight-out radiators. And
| force air needs ducting, which takes up a lot of volume: and
| unless you use floor trusses instead joists, you have to be a
| creative with the design of your runs.
|
| What HVAC system would you suggest?
| wffurr wrote:
| How should I know? It depends on what you are trying to
| optimize for. The author seems to think if you want to
| minimize on-site construction costs, a radioisotope thermal
| generator is the way to go. That's pretty far out there. My
| comment was simply explaining why the author brought up
| resistive electric heat at all. Though why not just use the
| waste heat from the RTG, but then we are back to needing
| ducting I guess.
|
| Ultimately it depends on what tradeoffs you want to make
| and your local climate.
|
| I think district-based aka neighborhood scale geothermal is
| promising from a sustainability perspective, but introduces
| a significant coordination problem.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| If anybody's interested in learning the nitty gritty details of
| the process of homebuilding, especially with an eye towards what
| drives costs, I highly recommend _Contracting Your Home_ [1]. If
| you're a neophyte like me, it's pretty illuminating how much you
| don't know. All the steps involved, what are the tradeoffs
| between the major approaches, issues that you might not even
| consider, and the like.
|
| [1]https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Contracting-Step-
| Step-...
| bumbada wrote:
| >Vinyl flooring, vinyl siding, one-piece shower stalls, and
| laminate countertops are examples of innovations that reduce the
| cost and increase durability.
|
| Vynil is one of the worst thing you could have in your house. And
| the production of it is horrible for the environment too.
|
| Vynil chemical group is not toxic, but the "Polyvinyl chloride"
| people are referring to when they talk about "Vynil" is. It is
| extremely toxic because of the chemical additives it has like
| plasticizers that are breathable and never go away in your body.
|
| It is also extremely toxic when burn as it generates dioxins, and
| flame retardants are added to it, also very toxic.
|
| It is also extremely cheap so people use it so much over big
| surfaces.
|
| It is great for plumbing and I would only use it for that use.
|
| But don't use it on big surfaces because you and your family are
| going to breath its additives when it is exposed to sunlight.
| jackcosgrove wrote:
| I think we already have the future of housing: mobile homes.
|
| With remote work gaining acceptance, location will lose its
| premium for many. Socially we have pared down our living
| arrangements to small nuclear families if that, which can fit in
| a mobile home.
|
| Mobile homes offer better protection against deterioration of a
| real estate or job market, and also better opportunities for
| moving to a growing market. Mobility is in the name.
|
| Trailer parks have a bad rap because of classism. But the less
| well-off are often trailblazers because they need to make things
| work with less.
|
| The mobile homes of tomorrow need not be run-down single-wides.
| They could be more luxurious and larger if broken apart into
| components.
|
| I think this is mostly a marketing and image problem which is
| only starting to change, mostly because of cost-of-land
| pressures.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| Condo style mobile home ownership is an alternative to renting
| a lot that fixes a lot of the problems with mobile home parks
| toast0 wrote:
| > Mobile homes offer better protection against deterioration of
| a real estate or job market, and also better opportunities for
| moving to a growing market. Mobility is in the name.
|
| Mobility is in the name, but not in reality. Once you install a
| mobile home, it's expensive and unlikely to move it and install
| it somewhere else. It's better to call these buy their new
| name, manufactured homes, which eliminates the misconception
| from having mobile in the name.
|
| Now, that doesn't mean they couldn't be the future of housing,
| but it doesn't seem to be what developers are building or what
| people are buying when they've got choices. I think the cost
| difference vs a wood framed house built on site doesn't make up
| for the lack of flexibility.
| handrous wrote:
| > Mobility is in the name, but not in reality.
|
| "Mobile" wasn't in the name, originally. "Mobile" (Alabama)
| was.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| I so want this to be true, but a quick skim of Wikipedia
| makes me think it's unlikely.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| A few people have made this point in this thread. There's
| still actual trailers ("RV") though, which is what the
| grandparent poster meant.
| jokoon wrote:
| The tiny house movement is interesting, but in the end, what
| matters is health and durability when faced with heat, cold,
| water, dust, mold.
|
| I would certainly like to buy a quality tiny house or cheaper
| housing for residency if I could be taught how to maintain it.
| landryraccoon wrote:
| If I'm reading this correctly, optimizing construction costs is a
| very difficult problem because a huge part of the costs is
| transportation, not the material itself or assembly thereof.
|
| Transportation is by nature highly distributed among a wide range
| of actors, unlike industries like semiconductors where the costs
| are centralized in a factory where a single agent can optimize
| everything.
|
| In other words, the majority of improving construction costs is
| actually a political problem, and engineers are unsuited to
| optimizing it. Transportation costs can be reduced, but only at a
| collective, national or state-wide level. Moving vast quantities
| of lumber, insulation, wiring, drywall, roofing and other housing
| materials across state lines is much more a political
| coordination problem than an engineering one. Sure, a team of
| engineers could design a more efficient, cost effective
| transportation method - but how would consensus ever be achieved
| to actually build the thing and align all the disparate interest
| groups to rally around it rather than opposing it?
|
| My hot take is that in the current era (at least in the United
| States) "Smart" people have neglected political concerns in favor
| of technical concerns. But the risks aren't technical, they are
| political, so this is inefficient. The problem will not be solved
| simply by engineering, no matter how clever the engineers are, if
| they are limited to purely technical approaches.
| pharke wrote:
| The cost of transportation scales with density of the object.
| If it takes up a lot of space like insulation or a house, which
| is by design full of empty space, then it costs a lot to move.
| To decrease transportation costs you'd have to increase the
| volume of space available both in depots and in the vehicles
| doing the moving. You'd also need to make it easier to move
| large items. The best example of this are container ships which
| have drastically reduced the cost of transportation. You'd need
| to replicate that for land or air transport _and_ the last mile
| delivery to site.
| wallacoloo wrote:
| I think I need a more concrete example. In many distributed
| networks, you can add a new path to it, and if that path is
| cheaper, then neighboring entities will (gradually) adopt it
| for cost savings. So if I developed a way to transport material
| between Seattle and NYC more efficiently, a bunch of individual
| actors will gravitate toward using that route. In a distributed
| system, I wouldn't need any external approval to do that, and
| other participants would be free to choose to interact with me:
| it's not political so much as it is markets.
|
| Is your claim that any improvement to the system will
| inevitably conflict with a centralized authority -- like a
| regional government that has to approve commerce or land use?
| Is your argument that it's a political problem because it's
| _not_ , actually, distributed?
| landryraccoon wrote:
| > Is your claim that any improvement to the system will
| inevitably conflict with a centralized authority -- like a
| regional government that has to approve commerce or land use?
| Is your argument that it's a political problem because it's
| not, actually, distributed?
|
| In the United States, most centralized authorities do not
| make decisions in the way you imply. There isn't a single
| decision maker, from President Biden down to any particular
| state Governor that is able to exercise authority to
| materialize an infrastructure project. Thus regional
| governments are themselves highly political in their decision
| making; you cannot simply get the local magistrate to buy
| into the project and suddenly the coast is clear.
|
| Let's take a concrete example that is strictly easier. Let's
| consider broadband internet connectivity. Google attempted to
| disrupt local internet providers via Google Fiber. They
| failed at that attempt. [1]
|
| Not only did Google face issue getting approval from
| municipal governments, they were opposed by entrenched
| existing interests and faced continuous lawsuits attempting
| to delay their efforts and increase their costs.
|
| Now consider that any new transportation network would face
| the same political opposition and be even more controversial.
| After all, fiber optic cable is a proven technology and there
| were no technical challenges to deploying it - all of the
| issues were purely political. Those issues would be an order
| of magnitude greater with any significant new transportation
| network.
|
| [1] https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-google-fiber-
| failed...
| judge2020 wrote:
| You're right for Google Fiber's failure being political,
| but that article is pretty garbage, mainly points 2 and 3
| being price and 'partnerships'.
|
| Google's entire plan wasn't to make an insanely popular
| internet offering that generated an overall profit within
| 10 years, it was to make internet itself better for
| _everyone_ so that they can make profit via their other
| products over the next 10 years - and that meant going into
| every single market possible and becoming a competitor.
| They were ready and willing to drop hundreds of millions of
| dollars in actually getting their network deployed, but at
| a certain point the lawsuits against incumbents indeed
| squeezed way too much out of them that it would be truly
| reckless to continue fighting them in more suburban
| markets. In this vein, they did succeed in making a lot of
| people's internet better across the board as ISPs know that
| municipalities could greenlight access to new ISPs easily
| or make their own. Now all they need is Starlink to take
| the bill for rural internet.
|
| The fifth point about outages is also terrible as the
| example of the world series outage was a problem on the
| network's end with blown generators[0]. It doesn't seem
| like outages are any more rare on GFiber.
|
| 0: https://www.wired.com/2015/10/world-series-
| outage/#:~:text=B...
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| How are you going to transport materials more cheaply? I work
| in manufacturing and a large part of the ultimate bill is
| S&H. We need to pass that onto our customers. Shipping is
| bearable outside of the US but as soon as you enter into the
| US it will eat your margins and leave nothing.
|
| As I understand it the main cost in S&H is personnel, as with
| most businesses. So either you need more automation or higher
| wages for the people who need to buy S&H services.
| wallacoloo wrote:
| > As I understand it the main cost in S&H is personnel, as
| with most businesses. So either you need more automation or
| higher wages for the people who need to buy S&H services.
|
| You just highlighted one opportunity for a technological
| improvement ("automation"). Warehouse automation: a
| decades-long trend which -- while it can be slowed -- so
| far seems to be unstoppable by political force. Driverless
| vehicles and drones: which, which technical solutions, and
| contingent upon political outcomes. OTOH 90% of the
| politics is around how these will be deployed on _public_
| land and air space, and those politics could be avoided if
| the players decided to build their own infrastructure like
| the big railroads did back in the day. Etc.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| Yes, but you're handwaving away the complexity of
| actually doing it. The article, to me, seems to be
| approaching this from a "earth shattering revelation"
| viewpoint where people think we can fix systemic issues
| we have suffered for decades and just make houses
| cheaper. The only viable solution either of us has so far
| is not immediately viable.
| wallacoloo wrote:
| I'm not focused right now on how complex the solutions
| will be: I'm focused on whether they're solvable
| technologically, or _only_ politically.
|
| People like to dodge problems by saying "high housing
| cost is a political problem, therefore engineers cannot
| improve the situation because they're ill-equipped to
| solve problems that are political in nature". That's a
| rephrasing of what OP said and IMO it's throwing the
| towel in too soon. This problem has political components
| and technological components. There are enough
| technological components that's I think engineers can
| have a positive impact. No, I'm not saying that
| implementing those improvements is _simple_. Just that
| those technological improvements are _possible_.
| lostapathy wrote:
| > So if I developed a way to transport material between
| Seattle and NYC more efficiently
|
| I think the point wasn't that we need to make this trip
| cheaper, but that we need to figure out a way to build houses
| with materials that travel less.
| wallacoloo wrote:
| Two sides of the same coin, no? You can lower the
| transportation costs of materials either by doing less of
| it (as you suggest), or by decreasing the cost per
| weight/volume/distance (my earlier comment).
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| It's complicated. Here in southwest, we have suitable
| (clayish) soil for building adobe with all over the place.
| Very little transportation in terms of miles compared to
| lumber, bricks etc.
|
| However ... extremely labor intensive and compared to stick
| framing, relatively slow. So, despite its local-ness, huge
| thermal mass and excellent karma, adobe loses out and
| stick-framed OSB sheathed things that look like adobe win.
| lostapathy wrote:
| But perhaps that's exactly where we need investment - to
| figure out a way to apply automation to adobe type
| building?
|
| Unfortunately this isn't the kind of thing the market is
| good at sorting out, but there could well be some
| breakthrough tech that makes adobe building cheap. We
| just don't look for it.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| There have been attempts over the centuries. Rammed earth
| walls attempt to do away with the "dealing with lots of
| relative small pieces" problem (adobe bricks). But they
| require form building, which adds a significant labor
| component that isn't there for the "lots of small pieces"
| approach.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| > If I'm reading this correctly, optimizing construction costs
| is a very difficult problem because a huge part of the costs is
| transportation, not the material itself or assembly thereof.
|
| You have to go beyond the first section.
|
| His main points are that (a) it's hard to standardize on the
| larger parts and (b) there is no low hanging fruit.
| gpm wrote:
| > You have to go beyond the first section.
|
| Please don't imply people didn't read the article. It's
| boring, unnecessarily rude, against the guidelines [1], and
| at least in this case I _did_ read the entire article and
| agree with that comment.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| > (b) there is no low hanging fruit.
|
| There is no low hanging fruit _when you divide up the pricing
| the way he did_ , but transportation is part of nearly every
| category that he divided it up into. From the data he shows
| we don't have any reason to think that transportation is not
| a single substantial fraction of the house cost, when you
| some up all the different transportation costs between the
| different sections he uses.
|
| To make an analogy to programming, transportation is like an
| allocator, and his data shows that execution time is spent
| evenly between 20 different functions. But all of those
| functions allocate, it's perfectly plausible the program is
| spending 50% of it's time in it's allocator and that speeding
| up that allocator by 50% would reduce the overall execution
| time by 25%.
| Fiahil wrote:
| This kind of article depress me to the highest point. I'm not a
| "consumer" with "expensive taste", nor someone who put a brake on
| innovation.
|
| I want a house built to last, by a skilled professional, with
| wood, steel, stones, and slates. Less plastics and only locally
| sourced materials. If I'm going to live there for the next half
| century, it better be a place I love.
|
| Please stop pushing your capitalism and your economy of scale in
| every corner of the world.
| cies wrote:
| > I'm not a "consumer" with "expensive taste"
|
| Saying so does not make it true. If you want to live in a
| house, your a consumer of house. If you like a nicer than most
| basic/economic house because "I'm going to live there for the
| next half century, it better be a place I love"; voila there
| come the expensive taste.
|
| Author explained where and where not the scale-upping worked in
| construction. It seems author was on point, even in your case.
|
| To author does not shove anything down our reader throats by
| saying how it is. You link to capitalism is pretty far of: the
| scale-upping worked really well in socialist places as well, in
| fact Marx himself obsessed over industrial scale-upping. You
| seem to be misguided over what capitalism actually means
| (spoiler alert: a system of law/govt that protects a person's
| hoarded wealth ad infinitum).
| jessaustin wrote:
| You don't have to let the capitalists build your house. All
| building trades of today and (especially) yesterday are
| accessible to capable people.
|
| First, however, you're going to have to come to terms with the
| fact that "professional" is a capitalist word.
| readflaggedcomm wrote:
| Capitalists build for ourselves as amateurs, hobbyists, or
| artisans, too. Do we offend you as much as dog whistles do?
| jessaustin wrote:
| Who is offended? Building for yourself is great, but it is
| not an activity that is approved by the capitalists. If you
| didn't know that, you _might_ not be a capitalist.
| macinjosh wrote:
| Oh no Capitalism, how scary! It has only brought us most
| every modern convenience including smartphones, this website,
| the COVID 19 vaccines, etc. Why so much disdain for something
| that has brought such good to everyday people? I didn't even
| mention the number of people it has brought out of poverty
| across the world.
| [deleted]
| WJW wrote:
| > I'm not a "consumer" with "expensive taste",
|
| But also
|
| > I want a house built to last, by a skilled professional,
|
| > only locally sourced materials
|
| Pick one or the other mate, those points don't mix well.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Having natural materials instead of vinyl isn't exactly
| extravagant...
|
| Did that article suggest vinyl siding, as in the exterior of
| a building using plastic?
| Kalium wrote:
| It specifically mentions vinyl siding as a cheap option
| that better-off consumers spend money to avoid in favor of
| more expensive wood or brick.
|
| Extravagance is perhaps, at times, a matter of perspective
| and opinion. Some might consider consciously choosing more
| costly materials, even if they happen to be natural
| materials, to be matters of aesthetic choice that increase
| cost. Or even expensive tastes.
| alkonaut wrote:
| I think in any scenario I'd rather refurbish half as
| often or build half the size and use "better" materials.
|
| Same as buying "good" meat at 2x (better cuts, organic,
| etc) isn't a costly extravagance if you simply buy half
| as much by eating less of it each time or having meat
| less often.
|
| If there is one thing you immediately notice when you
| visit the US for example is you often see homes that are
| of quite shoddy quality but might be 2500sq ft or even
| 3000. I'd trade 500sq ft for a decent countertop alone...
| Kalium wrote:
| That's an excellent point! It also provides a handy
| analytical framework. I'm going to try apply it to
| siding.
|
| The cost differential between brick and vinyl siding can
| easily be a factor of five, and wood vs vinyl a factor of
| six (stone is more like 25). At this point you're trading
| 2400-2500 sqft of that 3000 sqft house to use "better"
| materials, assuming shapes that scale surface area
| directly with flooring size.
|
| I expect this resulting cottage will be of wonderfully
| high-quality materials, but you may run into a few limits
| on how many people you can have comfortably living there
| compared to the original 3000 sqft building. I imagine
| you might want to be somewhere in between, at which point
| your choice of "better" materials may become an
| extravagance in the eyes of some.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Not sure why wood is so expensive, I'm paying under $2/m
| or for cladding wood for the extension I'm building now.
| Its around $1 per square foot. It gets slightly more
| expensive before it's painted 3 times though (repeat
| every 15 years as is standard with softwood).
|
| I'm fairly sure I couldn't find a cheaper exterior
| cladding. And obviously the cladding is a tiny percentage
| of the total cost of even just the wall, let alone the
| whole construction. Cladding will be sub $300 and the 150
| sq ft extension is north of $50k all together. Insulation
| is probably 3-5x what the cladding is, and so is the
| flooring.
| Kalium wrote:
| The numbers I'm using include installation costs too.
| Wood and brick are more labor than vinyl as I understand
| it.
|
| I think my key lesson here is that even building smaller,
| using "better" materials is an expensive matter of taste.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Painting is a bit of work but just nailing up standard
| wooden cladding is such a tiny part of the work it hardly
| even shows up on the total, including labor!
|
| Perhaps this is partially because of the high buikding
| costs to begin with (It's cold so walls are 3-400mm, a
| single window is $6-700 (triple glass) and so on. The BOM
| for my extension was $25k which is half the total.
| Cladding _including_ labor is a lot less than $1k. I have
| never seen a vinyl clad house but I doubt I'd pick one to
| save that little.
| [deleted]
| tootie wrote:
| I feel like that's based on some naturalism fallacies. Durable
| plastic is more efficient to produce that growing a tree. And
| sourcing thingy locally isn't always practical. You want the
| best lumber for the job that will last and that's usually
| cultivated at scale. You can chop down trees from your backyard
| or you'll destroy your neighborhood.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| There's almost no such thing as durable plastic when you're
| talking about the lifetimes of traditional building material.
| As a result, without a genuine recyling process for plastic
| (rather than just "down cycling"), even if there was nothing
| wrong with it during its normal lifetime, it just becomes
| more trash at the end. Quite different for wood (stone,
| glass, adobe, even concrete).
| 015UUZn8aEvW wrote:
| Great essay. This is a much more sophisticated analysis of
| construction efficiency than you typically find; most of them
| basically imply that construction is inefficient because
| contractors are dumb.
|
| One minor comment: balloon framing is not a synonym for light
| wood framing, it's a (mostly archaic) version of it. Balloon
| framing features long exterior wall studs that extend up multiple
| stories, as opposed to modern "platform framing", in which the
| studs stop at each floor.
| jakewins wrote:
| Came here to say exactly this. Balloon framing was abandoned
| due to fires. This made me hesitant about the rest of the text.
| brudgers wrote:
| Balloon framing is, like all construction, more common in
| some regions than others.
|
| Short construction seasons are somewhat favorable to it. Dry
| in can be quicker. A trade base familiar with the necessary
| fire blocking makes it practical. Same with designers and
| inspectors.
|
| The sun belt tends toward platform framing. Being the
| sunbelt, construction tends to be more year round.
| lostapathy wrote:
| Where specifically is balloon framing done now? Genuinely
| curious as I know people who have posted construction
| pictures all over the country and I've never seen it.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Dry in can be quicker.
|
| I find that concept pretty fascinating. Here in the PNW we
| don't typically see balloon framing, but even so the dry-in
| time is still really quick. A two-story house can be framed
| up and have roof sheathing on in a week or so, and in
| another week have the roof and tyvek on. Even if the entire
| process was done in a downpour it still doesn't take long
| after that before it's dry enough to start interior work.
| 015UUZn8aEvW wrote:
| Platform framing is done in the north too.
| weeboid wrote:
| yah; clearly author knows far less than he thinks
| aardvarkr wrote:
| Saying something is invalid due to a personal choice in
| vernacular is quite brazen and ignorant... it's like writing
| off someone's opinion because they used the wrong
| their/they're/there
| gpm wrote:
| If I was reading an article about grammar and the author
| used the wrong version of their/they're/there I would
| seriously consider whether or not I should stop reading it.
| earleybird wrote:
| Would you clarify your comment please. Are you saying
| balloon vs platform framing is a personal choice?
| function_seven wrote:
| It's more than "personal choice in vernacular". Someone
| speaking authoritatively on construction methods should
| know the differences in terms. Calling a vertical wall
| framing member a "joist" would be just as wrong.
|
| Balloon framing and platform framing are different,
| exclusive terms. Author uses it as a catch-all for stick
| framing throughout the article.
|
| The rest of the article seems fine and insightful, but it's
| totally reasonable to see that incorrect terminology usage
| as an indicator of knowledge gaps. And the author appears
| to be more involved with cryptography and related concepts,
| so it tracks.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| > most of them basically imply that construction is inefficient
| because contractors are dumb.
|
| I don't think contractors are dumb. But I do think that they
| don't accumulate productivity efficiencies the way other
| industries do. There's a rule in economics that every X units
| of a product that gets made, manufacturers tend to improve by
| Y% percent efficiency. Because they learn by doing, and the
| more experience the industry accumulates the more chances it
| has to make continuous improvements off gradual innovation.
|
| Moore's Law is probably the most extreme example. But it's well
| known in virtually every industry. For example Toyota kept
| getting repeatedly better at building cars more efficiently and
| reliably because they carefully observed the process and kept
| making improvements.
|
| The problem with the contractor model is this doesn't happen,
| because you don't have large firms that can exploit economies
| of scale. At anything above lower management, every one is in
| their own isolated fiefdom where they can keep making the same
| mistakes and not learning from each other. If one contractor is
| 20% more efficient, it's difficult to grow fast into a national
| brand and export those productivity improvements.
|
| Simple example. Copper plumbing is still widely used in most
| parts of the country. Pex plumbing is strictly superior. It's
| much cheaper, easier to install, more reliable, and less likely
| to damage the framing. Despite being around for decades, most
| contractors still use copper.
|
| If you really want to see gains in construction, I think you'll
| need a large Amazon-like org where every one on site works
| directly for the company and they're all centrally managed. As
| soon as you're outsourcing something, you should no longer
| expect to have it done efficiently. This is fine when it's
| something ancillary to your business. But when you're a
| homebuilder, especially a homebuilder aiming to achieve
| sustained productivity improvements, everything being done on
| site is core and should be directly under your management team.
| 015UUZn8aEvW wrote:
| >you don't have large firms that can exploit economies of
| scale.
|
| There are also diseconomies of scale in residential
| construction, partly for reasons described in the original
| post. Having many layers of management is inefficient when
| you're dealing with work that involves a lot of customization
| and homeowner input.
|
| >Despite being around for decades, most contractors still use
| copper.
|
| No, they don't. Pex is ubiquitous in single-family and
| smaller multifamily construction now. Copper is used in
| larger and nonresidential projects where the plumbing codes
| require it. The idea that professional plumbers and
| homebuilders haven't heard the news yet that Pex is cheaper
| is silly.
| sgerenser wrote:
| I was thinking the same thing, I live in a booming part of
| the US with dozens of home builders putting up tract
| housing everywhere you turn, and I'd be astounded if a
| single one of them used copper plumbing. Everything is Pex
| around here, even on custom 1M+ builds.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Maybe for someone who never sees the inside of the walls
| it's easy to be fooled. Where I live, the typical
| construction uses pex everywhere up to the point where it
| goes through the drywall, at which point it switches to
| copper. So if you only ever see the house with all the
| drywall up, you could be fooled into thinking the pipes
| are all copper, instead of just the nubs where the valves
| are installed.
| DennisP wrote:
| From a quick google, PEX plumbing is not "strictly superior"
| because it does have some disadvantages compared to copper:
|
| https://smartchoice.plumbing/pex-plumbing-disadvantages-
| what...
|
| (I think your overall point is a good one though.)
| astura wrote:
| >Copper plumbing is still widely used in most parts of the
| country. Pex plumbing is strictly superior. It's much
| cheaper, easier to install, more reliable, and less likely to
| damage the framing. Despite being around for decades, most
| contractors still use copper.
|
| Which parts of the country? Not in my area.
| aardvarkr wrote:
| As a layman I hadn't heard either term so I looked it up while
| reading the essay and the overwhelming opinion I found is that
| platform framing is a variant of balloon framing that has
| completely replaced the original method due to fires in 1860
| (Chicago) and 1903 (San Fran). most of what I read said the
| terms used the terms interchangeably
| steffan wrote:
| Another likely reason is that balloon framing makes use of
| single studs that extend the height of the structure, with
| the 2nd floor suspended. The nature of available framing
| lumber has shifted and it would be likely much more expensive
| and difficult to obtain satisfactory 16'-20' studs vs. the
| more common 8' length.
| avernon wrote:
| Thanks! If I would have known it would go to front page of
| Hacker News I would have had one of my construction science
| friends proof read it first!
|
| I've been writing for fun and to learn and have always been
| curious about construction productivity.
| ncmncm wrote:
| That said, contractors are regionally dumb.
|
| Carpenter acquaintances in California make vicious fun of
| carpenters in The East (which probably includes most of what
| easterners call "The West") continuing to use Skil saws long
| after geared designs, with a high-speed motor running
| perpendicular to the sawblade axis, have proven overwhelmingly
| superior by every measure.
| brudgers wrote:
| The problem is that construction schedules are NP hard. And
| that optimization is expensive due to market efficiency for
| labor.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| >most of them basically imply that construction is inefficient
| because contractors are dumb.
|
| Yeah, that's a problem.
|
| Usually, next up is some handwaving about building homes from
| shipping containers because they're rectangular.
| iandanforth wrote:
| I was onsite at a modular manufacturer today and I can tell you a
| lot of what is said here is just wrong. The cost estimate is not
| quality adjusted. If you look at cost per square foot and don't
| take into account the quality of work provided then you haven't
| calculated anything worth knowing. Also the article doesn't price
| out the value of speed. Modular can take half the time to move-in
| as stick build.
|
| I agree there are plenty of points for improving efficiency. For
| example the builder I visited was not vertically integrated at
| all. They bought manufacturing time on a modular line for their
| box plans, worked with external designers and all kinds of subs
| they can't guarantee for onsite work. But having seen it up close
| I can tell you there is far more opportunity for process
| improvement on a assembly line (even if each build is custom)
| than there is in the field.
|
| If you look to Japan, Toyota is getting into modular with steel
| framing that is way ahead of anything in the states. I look
| forward to that being available here.
| 015UUZn8aEvW wrote:
| Modular home manufacturing has been around for many decades. It
| certainly has a role to play, but if it were that much better
| it would have put the traditional contractors out of work long
| ago.
|
| The main problem is transportation. You can make every box the
| size of a standard shipping container, and thus greatly reduce
| your home design options and size of rooms while still spending
| plenty on shipping. Or you can make bigger boxes, which gives
| you more design flexibility but still a lot less than stick
| building does. And with the bigger boxes you need special
| highway permits, escort vehicles, etc.
|
| And then, when you have everything on site, there's still a lot
| to be done. Tree clearing, grading, excavation, concrete work,
| paving, utility lines, on-site assembly of the boxes (using an
| expensive crane)...
|
| When you've added it all up, modular isn't the obvious
| improvement that it seems to be at first glance.
| aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote:
| Site preparation is a fixed cost, certainly?
| megameter wrote:
| I suspect that transportation is not the issue, because any
| way you slice it, building materials come with large
| footprints. The footprint can be in the factory or on site,
| but you need big trucks moving stuff around in all cases, and
| every day the site has a crew on it is a day that generates
| vehicular traffic. Since the total time for the build goes
| down in modular, it can be surmised that less public space-
| over-time is used, even if more bandwidth is used at certain
| points.
|
| As grandparent says, modular's biggest selling point is in
| quality control, which improves project risk profile. Factory
| assembly lends itself to systematic controls; one of the most
| common headlines in construction failures is "contractor used
| wrong parts or materials". That can quickly spiral into
| massive cost overruns when we're talking about something they
| assembled on site and realized they screwed up only after
| it's buried in the ground. If the whole subassembly arrives
| on site pre-checked, there's less that can go wrong. And
| "subassembly" is the way to think about it, not "box". It's
| certainly possible to devise a clever modular structure that
| ships packed but encapsulates more of the desired features
| with less sawing, nailing and bolting. Boxy shape language is
| not unique to modular, it appears all throughout industrial
| goods.
| jaclaz wrote:
| I have had some professional experience with pre-fabricated
| houses (typically multi-flat buildings) in the '90's, and of
| course it may well depend on the country, on local codes and
| availability and cost of site workers, but the overall lesson
| we learned at the time after n designing and manufacturing
| tests was that the only real difference was construction
| times (at the same level of quality), an old related post of
| mine:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24764117
| kixiQu wrote:
| I grew up in a "manufactured home" and have been shocked by the
| ambient draftiness in every site-built house I've inhabited
| since. Similarly rated materials end up with nowhere near as
| tightly sealed an end result. Now I'm in an extremely high-
| efficiency condo, and while there are certainly no _drafts_ ,
| air sensors confirm the windows don't open enough to get decent
| ventilation. Makes me miss the huge banks of properly openable
| windows on the manufactured home...
| [deleted]
| hanniabu wrote:
| @dang The link preview for eth.link domains should be shown with
| the subdomain and probably without the TLD. So for this case
| instead of eth.link it should show austinvernon.eth.
|
| For reference in case you're unfamiliar, .eth domains are ENS
| domains (Ethereum Name Service), a decentralized domain system,
| and are resolved for casual browsing by Cloudflare with the .link
| TLD for people not running an Ethereum node.
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| ENS is not DNS, and ETH is not a TLD since it is not in the
| Root Zone Database maintained by IANA.
|
| If ENS is recognized, where does it stop? What happens when
| there is a collision and IANA makes a TLD that collides?
|
| Why should Hacker News recognize domain names that are not
| recognized in browsers or operating systems by default? Why
| should Hacker News start redefining domain names as commonly
| understood and widely supported?
|
| What about OpenNIC, FurNIC, Zilliqa, Namecoin and New Nations?
| Should they also be recognized?
| madars wrote:
| That's a minor point. The fact that eth.link seems to have a
| public suffix list [1] type status stands, so HN should
| display abc.eth.link as abc.eth.link (not eth.link), just
| like abc.github.io is shortened to abc.github.io (not
| github.io).
|
| [1] https://publicsuffix.org/
| judge2020 wrote:
| You saying "For reference in case you're unfamiliar" is
| also "a minor point".
| hanniabu wrote:
| I never said eth was a TLD and TBH your comment sounds like
| you were in a bad mood and just looking for something to
| nitpick to take some frustration out.
| nottorp wrote:
| > Precast concrete panels are another small success story. Post-
| WWII, Eastern European countries built apartment buildings using
| this technology.
|
| No. No and no. The precast concrete panel apartment buildings in
| Eastern Europe are so badly insulated that such a house will ruin
| any building savings with the heating/cooling costs. That is, if
| you don't get water infiltrations through the spaces between said
| concrete panels which are obviously filled with ... something
| else.
|
| I guess you could do it properly, but then it won't be cheap.
|
| Source: I live there. They're that bad.
| opportune wrote:
| I don't understand the worldwide disdain for the concrete paneled
| construction the article briefly mentions:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka
|
| Most of the "badness" people associate with these, IMO, are due
| more to the fact that 1. in recent times they are inhabited by
| less well-off people 2. they usually need to be washed or
| painted, probably because they are inhabited by less well-off
| people who don't make it a priority 3. to the extent they are
| seen as crime/drug dens, that's because they have a stigma/are in
| disrepair so only poor people want to live there. It is possible
| for them to be nice, even moreso if they are new (and not poorly
| maintained, 60 years old). See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelenograd as an example of a city
| with this style (go to Google images for more pictures). The
| whole city is like a park.
|
| From an urban planning perspective, they have a lot of benefits.
| People can actually end up with a lot of green space in between
| buildings. They make it easy to set up bus or train-based public
| transportation, with walking a viable way to navigate toward a
| hub. The density creates obvious economies of scale in other
| areas. From a cost perspective, they are inexpensive to construct
| because of the economies of scale. The article mentions them as
| one of the few building styles amenable to mass-
| production/assembly off-site.
|
| Probably my main gripe is that they are not often 'mixed use' and
| could perhaps do with shops on the first floor, though this is
| partially an artifact of the economic regime under which they
| were mostly built.
| OminousWeapons wrote:
| The worldwide disdain arises from what you said, the additional
| association with communism / cheapness, and the fact that they
| are mass produced, generic, and boring, and no one wants to
| spend a lot of money to get generic and boring.
| nine_k wrote:
| If McMansions aand cookie-cutter suburban communities are any
| indication, some still want to spend a lot of money on
| generic and boring.
|
| The reasons must be different.
| OminousWeapons wrote:
| McMansions are ugly but they're not boring or generic.
| Unless you're in a housing development, most are fairly
| unique. Units in housing developments do suffer from the
| same stigma though, and a lot of people won't buy them for
| that very reason, even though they are generally cheaper
| than units located outside of those developments.
|
| The problem is really the combination of all 3 factors.
| McMansions definitely make people think the inhabitants
| have no taste, but they don't make people think the
| inhabitants are poor. Buildings that look like public
| housing make people think the inhabitants are poor, which
| is worse for a lot of people.
| aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote:
| Reference materials:
|
| https://mcmansionhell.com/
| nine_k wrote:
| That's hilarious! Thanks.
| [deleted]
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| It seems to me... people will spend a lot of money to get a
| generic, boring, mass produced version of what their
| parents generation thought was luxurious or classy.
|
| McMansions + perfect lawn in a suburb full of curves and
| crescents; and various kinds of "luxury" cars, big TVs,
| etc. All things _just_ out of reach of many of our middle
| class parents or grandparents. So now you 've _made_ it
| when you have it... until you look close and see there 's
| no actual class differentiator in it, no taste to it, no
| art to it, or any particular advantage to it...
|
| Just my, like, opinion, man...
| goblinux wrote:
| Totally opinion and preference. I'm a millennial and
| dying to get out of the city into a master planned
| community with beautiful lawns and big homes and
| properties
| orthoxerox wrote:
| Seam insulation is an issue, modern apartment blocks in Russia
| use monolithic concrete instead.
| Animats wrote:
| It's hard to rent out all those street level shops. The tenants
| of a 4-6 story structure can't support those shops. There are
| not enough residents per shop for that. Such places are not
| usually convenient to drive to. The SF peninsula is getting way
| too many of those things. Many shops are vacant.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Then the rent is too high for the ground-floor businesses.
| Lower the rent to allow niche retailers to use those
| storefronts as the physical presence for a largely online
| business. However, it's often in the owner's financial
| interest to leave them vacant at a high rent so they can make
| up the difference by charging extortionate rents to the
| businesses who bring in enough revenue to afford it. That's
| why those first floors are inevitably filled with banks,
| Starbucks, and Chipotle.
| opportune wrote:
| I used to live on the Peninsula and know what you mean. It's
| worth mentioning though that you don't need a shop, or
| multiple, in every building. It would be enough for there to
| be a smattering of convenience stores and basic common
| services like barbers and salons. Moreover, they are not
| meant to be driveable so long as the surrounding density is
| sufficient. Polk Street in SF is very inconvenient to drive
| to but the shops there seem to do quite well.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _The tenants of a 4-6 story structure can 't support those
| shops._
|
| See Queen Street West (amongst many others) in Toronto for an
| example of having street-level retail and an apartment above:
|
| * https://www.google.com/maps/place/720+Queen+St+W,+Toronto,+
| O...
|
| All the major thoroughfares in Toronto (Queen, King, Dundas,
| College, Bloor, St. Clair, Yonge) were built like this. The
| residential, single-family unit side streets then have
| convenient, walking-distance retail.
|
| Most of these were built pre-WW2, so they're only 2-3
| stories, but recent condo redevelopments of lots have
| generally followed the template of street-retail:
|
| * https://www.google.com/maps/place/506+College+St,+Toronto,+
| O...
| marcinzm wrote:
| >The tenants of a 4-6 story structure can't support those
| shops.
|
| In the polish version of these, the stores are in one
| building of the cluster of 4+ buildings, generally on the
| main street of the area. The US has a retail store for every
| 500 people or so which is about how many fit into a few of
| these buildings..
|
| >Such places are not usually convenient to drive to.
|
| You don't drive to them, you take whatever local public
| transportation there is or walk. It's dense enough that you
| can visit all the important stores without driving or leaving
| your local area.
|
| >Many shops are vacant.
|
| That has more to do with the increasing rents and commercial
| rates being locked in for 5+ years. More economical to keep
| the place vacant for the landlord.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Agree except for the US _does_ have way to much total
| retail, out of line with other countries.
|
| But that's a minor point.
| marcinzm wrote:
| Do you have data for that? Having visited a number of
| countries in Europe, Japan and the US I've found roughly
| the same number of retail stores (at least in terms of
| area). The US tends to have fewer but larger stores in my
| experience. For example, Google indicates that Germany
| alone has almost as many grocery stores as the US despite
| being a fraction of the population.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| To be clear, I was referring to retail floor area per
| capita.
|
| A quick google gave me
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1058852/retail-space-
| per...
|
| I wouldn't be surprised, based on my own anecdotal
| understanding, if the average distance to nearest grocery
| store is less in Germany.
| DecoPerson wrote:
| Agreed. In Australia, we call this tilt-panel construction, and
| it can look great.
|
| This strip-shop complex in a neighbouring town was built using
| tilt-panel: https://thatsne.at/file/memmgd.jpeg
|
| Just like with movies, what you need to achieve a good-looking,
| functional building is a competent vision holder with taste.
| Too many buildings have winding passages because no one with
| any influence thought sufficiently deeply about the day-to-day
| usage of the building, how it will connect with neighboring
| areas, how the interior will be divided later by fitouts, etc
| etc.
| foobar33333 wrote:
| Concrete exteriors can look nice. I'm not sure if its just
| because its newer but I think this building (green one) pulls
| off raw concrete nicely https://i.imgur.com/gikmvgG.jpeg
| snemvalts wrote:
| I'm writing this inside one. The main problem with
| khrushchyovkas is that sound isolation is horrid. You can hear
| steps from 1 (maybe 2) apartments over.
| layoutIfNeeded wrote:
| That's just a matter of installing a better floor with sound-
| insulating materials.
| grouphugs wrote:
| i don't have a home
| 4b11b4 wrote:
| I was hoping this was going to be an article about building with
| earth, but it's stuck in the same framework of thinking.
| abraxas wrote:
| Earthships are not cheap nor any other rammed earth style
| building. It's cool stuff but definitely not cheap.
| 4b11b4 wrote:
| I wouldn't recommend rammed earth either.
| zarzavat wrote:
| Semi-autonomous road convoys and electric trucks are technologies
| that are in development. That may completely alter the calculus
| of the article and unlock those economies of scale that are
| missing at the moment.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Not related to the post content, but does anyone know how to
| actually register a .eth domain (eg subdomain under eth.link) ?
| On the following page it appears the instructions assume that one
| already has/owns a (sub)domain, and I don't see anything talking
| about how to actually register one..
|
| https://eth.link/#how-to-access-ethdns
| avernon wrote:
| First you need to get a metamask wallet. Then you buy some ETH
| for the wallet. Finally go to ens.domains and register your
| name.
|
| It is very friendly with IPFS, which is how I host my blog. So
| I put the IPNS permalink in my ENS name contract (managed on
| ens.domains). The .link is there because browsers can't resolve
| ENS names. Cloudflare runs a system that checks Ethereum for
| the browser and redirects to the correct IPFS name if you add
| the .link.
|
| I wrote a post on how to set up a blog like this. It is way
| simpler to use something like Fleek, though.
|
| edit to add link:
| https://austinvernon.eth.link/blog/ipfsbasics.html
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Thank you so much for this summary! Extremely helpful.
| foobar33333 wrote:
| This seems like the same issue namecoin was trying to solve
| but never got anywhere. Does eth.link look more promising?
| avernon wrote:
| austinvernon.com was taken, I had the ENS name, and I was
| curious about IPFS, so I used it. The system works
| surprisingly well, mostly thanks to Cloudflare. I've only
| been using it for a month, though. And its a static site
| with zero JS or any analytics. I haven't tried to add it to
| google search console or anything.
| KirillPanov wrote:
| Namecoin failed mainly because it was way, way, way too
| cheap to register names, so everything got squatted in the
| first few years.
|
| ENS appears to have fixed this; the registration and
| renewal fees are denominated in USD (but paid in ETH) and
| cost about the same ($5/yr) as ICANN names.
|
| Unfortunately ENS has the same problem that a lot of "new
| crypto" does: the rules can be changed at any time by a
| tiny handful of (mostly) anonymous people who hold the
| magic multisig keys to update the special contract. There
| is no developer/user separation, where the users can simply
| choose not to upgrade. The ever-present threat of this
| "declined to upgrade" situation is a major check on the
| developers' power in bitcoin/namecoin-style
| cryptocurrencies, and it is the central topic of discussion
| in any hard fork proposal.
| [deleted]
| blendo wrote:
| Can I suggest that smaller homes (700-1200 SF) are the "low
| hanging fruit" to reduce single family home construction costs?
|
| Perhaps incentivize by basing property taxes on home size?
| Grakel wrote:
| That's a long way to say construction is already optimized for
| our current level of technology.
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| A somewhat less meandering explanation for the modern dominance
| of balloon framing, which also draws parallels to software
| development:
|
| https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/balloon-framing-i...
| redtexture wrote:
| Balloon framing has been gone for nearly a century, which
| implies no firestops between floors.
|
| Stick built framing is the follow on, also called plate
| building, the plates constituting inter-floor fire stops.
| nickelpro wrote:
| That link describes platform framing as a variant of
| balloon framing: "The balloon frame addressed this by way
| of a variant known as 'western style' or 'platform
| framing'"
|
| The piece uses the term "balloon framing" to encompass all
| light-frame construction as opposed to heavy-frame
| construction like post-and-beam. It think that's fine, I've
| certainly heard the term used that way before.
| wreath wrote:
| I spent the last year watching This Old House videos. What I
| gather is that wooden houses are easier to remodel and maintain
| yourself than brick or cement houses (but also cement/brick
| houses don't require much maintenance.
| aaron695 wrote:
| > Almost every advancement in construction is small enough for
| someone to carry
|
| > Each advancement fits within a simple construction system.
|
| Powerful idea.
| robotbikes wrote:
| Nuclear batteries removing the need for electrical wiring seems
| very pie in the sky to me but perhaps I'm just ignorant of the
| practical application of it.
|
| Concrete seems far more common in residential construction
| outside of the U.S. I wonder if technologies such as aircrete
| (concrete with uniform foam produced air bubbles).
|
| Also well There's Your Problem had an interesting article about
| the 5-1 construction that is used for a lot of new apartment
| buildings in the U.S.
| https://wtyppod.podbean.com/e/episode-46-five-over-ones/
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Aerated concrete is extremely popular in Kazakhstan and Russia
| in private houses. It's cheaper than bricks, it's sturdy
| enough, it provides good insulation, it does not require much
| skill to use, pieces are huge, so it's much faster to build.
|
| There are drawbacks, of course, but overall it's a very popular
| technology.
| jessaustin wrote:
| _...it provides good insulation..._
|
| This might be true, but it would be surprising, since even
| "aerated" concrete would still be made of highly thermally
| conductive... _concrete_.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| The thermal mass of your house is part of the perceived
| insulation. In the desert especially nights are cold, the
| house chills, and retains that chill throughout the day,
| keeping it cool inside.
| earleybird wrote:
| Thermal mass to manage comfort could be seen as tuning
| latency for your arrival and departure of your heat
| packets.
| elihu wrote:
| If memory serves, normal concrete has an R value of about 1
| per foot, whereas AAC is more like 1 to 2 per inch. So, an
| 8 inch wall would have an R-value of about 8-16. That
| doesn't seem like enough for a cold climate, so I'd assume
| for those applications you'd probably add an extra layer of
| actual insulation. (This would mean having pretty thick
| walls.) You wouldn't need as much supplemental insulation
| as you would with a regular concrete wall, though.
|
| The thermal mass is also nice, though it doesn't really
| help much in winter-time. I think AAC is a bit more suited
| to warm desert climates where you have a daily hot/cold
| cycle.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| 20-inch wall is enough for pretty cold climate according
| to my calculations. Either that or thin wall with
| insulation (or thin wall and more money on heating which
| might be an acceptable solution, if you have cheap coal
| and your country does not care what you build).
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Fairly sure that AAC has less thermal mass than regular
| concrete. It's more air, less concrete, and the thermal
| mass comes from the concrete.
| elihu wrote:
| Yeah, that sounds right. Still, a lot less than concrete
| can still be a lot. And I think in most cases I'd rather
| have better insulation than more thermal mass.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| Here in Russia it usually requires an external layer of
| insulation plus cladding, you don't just stucco it and call
| it a day. I did the math and a wall two blocks thick should
| be barely sufficient, but needs a vapour barrier inside, or
| the dew point will be inside the wall, ruining it. A vapour
| barrier and a drywall finish means no reduction in
| construction costs.
| fpoling wrote:
| In has been popular in the whole former USSR. But for some
| reason in past it was not considered as a suitable material
| for houses, only for storage facilities etc. But it could be
| just a cultural perception.
|
| For example, my father built a temporary house from it in
| Belarus in 1980s while waiting for the main house
| construction that was using ordinary bricks. I remember as a
| child that building from aerated concrete was indeed very
| quick affair.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| Disadvantages From Wikipedia:
|
| "Installation during rainy weather: AAC is known to crack
| after installation, which can be avoided by reducing the
| strength of the mortar and ensuring the blocks are dry
| during and after installation.
|
| Brittle nature: they need to be handled more carefully than
| clay bricks to avoid breakage.
|
| Attachments: the brittle nature of the blocks requires
| longer, thinner screws when fitting cabinets and wall
| hangings and wood-suitable drill bits or hammering in.
| Special, large diameter wall plugs (anchors) are available
| at a higher cost than common wall plugs.
|
| Insulation requirements in newer building codes of northern
| European countries would require very thick walls when
| using AAC alone. Thus many builders choose to use
| traditional building methods installing an extra layer of
| insulation around the entire building."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoclaved_aerated_concrete
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| >Aerated concrete is extremely popular in Kazakhstan and
| Russia in private houses.
|
| In California (FWIW), I expect that you hit seismic issues.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Problem in California is insane mandated R values for
| walls. Aerated concrete can meet previous standards. But
| not the new ones. So it's use is effectively banned.
|
| Old saw about Generals fighting the last war. Energy
| efficiency standards assume the need to conserve limited
| supplies for fossil fuels. And the need to not interfere
| with building large houses for upper middle class people.
|
| Bad thing is R value is a metric designed to upsell
| insulation. R30 insulation is twice as good as R15, if
| you're the guy selling it. If you're the guy buying it, not
| as much.
| falcolas wrote:
| Considering that you can put foam on the inside and
| outside of walls (exceptionally common in high-efficiency
| homes), this is likely _not_ the issue.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I run my furnace for 5 months out of the year. Total
| yearly cost for nat gas is about $600. And my house is a
| really drafty 1950's era one. So the max that insulation
| could save me is $600, that's it.
|
| A heat pump and solar installation needed heat my house
| in the winter would cost about $12000. But actually the
| heat pump would only run as I mentioned above for 5
| months out of the year. So really just to offset the
| energy, $6000.
|
| Economically high performance insulation systems lose to
| solar panels.
|
| That wasn't true 10 years ago. But it's true now. And
| it'll get worse going forward.
| falcolas wrote:
| When you're building a house, it's not hard to add
| additional insulation on either side of the framing. Not
| terribly expensive, either. You also save on the
| installation of the furnace (and AC) because it just
| requires very little heating and cooling.
|
| Since insulation is low maintenance, you'll get those
| savings over the whole lifespan of the house.
|
| Now, if you're in an existing house, it likely _doesn 't_
| make sense to tear down all your siding and drywall just
| to add insulation, since you're having to both demo and
| build.
| bolangi wrote:
| I know a guy who researched aerated concrete. He used a slimy
| additive to help hold the bubbles. Basically, the compression
| strength of concrete is so much higher than necessary that
| addition of a large portion of air results in a material that
| is much lighter with more than adequate compression strength.
| He couldn't find interest among concrete companies in his
| state.
| falcolas wrote:
| Can you pre-tension aerated concrete? Concrete is already
| poor in tensile strength, it feels like creating voids in it
| would only make that worse.
|
| And tensile strength is largely required for larger,
| earthquake safe concrete fixtures.
| elihu wrote:
| I think in the U.S. the only place that makes the stuff
| (Aercon) is in Florida, and there's Hebel that has a plant in
| Mexico near Texas.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| > Nuclear batteries removing the need for electrical wiring
| seems very pie in the sky to me but perhaps I'm just ignorant
| of the practical application of it.
|
| tl;dr very feasible sans NIMBYs
|
| The DoE investigated this exact thing. I happened across the
| papers while browsing microfiche. It makes the most sense to
| serve a neighborhood off small house/shed sized generating
| facility. As you scale up you can switch to normal turbine
| operation, as you scale down you move back to thermoelectric
| operation. Single houses could be powered from thermoelectric
| piles but this would probably have been reserved for expensive,
| remote vacation homes.
|
| Closer to battery sized, you can layer radioactive material
| against quantum dots that turn alpha particles into photons and
| emit those photons directly onto a PV cell.
| falcolas wrote:
| What's the estimated kWH for one of those "nuclear
| batteries"?
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| Abysmal. A current design you can see is the tritium
| nuclear battery. I misspoke, it is beta particles that
| generate the photons. The reaction produces nanowatts.
|
| If you remake this system with quantum dots and layered
| materials it is actually useful and can power small
| electronics, like a bug. But it needs light shielding.
| tootie wrote:
| I thought the point about modular wiring was interesting. Why
| aren't all wall studs fitted with grommeted mouseholes at
| outlet and switch height?
| falcolas wrote:
| Some are. Especially engineered studs (like those which are
| closer to beams and filled with insulation) and joists. But
| holes are fairly quick to add to wood.
| mikebelanger wrote:
| Most wall studs don't have an outlet or a switch attached.
| Besides, wires come in from all heights, making the height
| for the hole of the wiring highly variable. Also people's
| preferences for switches and outlets varies (albeit probably
| not much).
| falcolas wrote:
| Not to mention requiring a certain distance between wires
| for high (plugs, lights, etc) and low voltage (i.e.
| ethernet) applications.
| 015UUZn8aEvW wrote:
| You only need holes in certain places and they can be drilled
| in seconds. Electricians use specialized right angle drills
| called "hole hawgs" to drill them.
| elihu wrote:
| I think that was kind of a whimsical suggestion; like, even if
| you had a magical technology that eliminated all need for
| electrical wiring, you'd still only reduce building costs by a
| small amount.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I've thought that creating a 100-150 watt power over Ethernet
| standard for home wiring would be a win. Advantage faster
| install, cheaper cabling, and better safety. Better safety
| because you can limit the default power to under 15W. Faster
| install because you use crimp connectors.
| imgabe wrote:
| What if you want to plug in a vacuum cleaner, hair dryer,
| space heater, curling iron, or any other thing that might
| use more than 150 watts?
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| > vacuum cleaner
|
| Battery powered.
|
| > hair dryer, curling iron.
|
| Bath room.
|
| > space heater
|
| Just no.
| imgabe wrote:
| Desktop computer? Large TV + stereo system? Refrigerator?
| Toaster oven? Printer?
|
| There's a lot of things that use more than 150w. I can't
| imagine how you're going to sell people on "here let's
| make your house fundamentally worse and less capable. Oh,
| and you also need to buy all new appliances with
| different plugs"
| tapland wrote:
| So you created a system for providing lamps with
| electricity.
|
| Why not battery power those low power items as well?
| ben_w wrote:
| Nuclear batteries have their place, but consumer products are
| not it.
|
| First, you can't switch them off, so they are either always
| warm or the are trickle-charging another storage system
| (batteries, capacitors, whatever) within the device.
|
| Second, the radiation. You can do various things to limit the
| risk, but the LD50 is something like 0.25 watts of absorbed
| ionising radiation sustained for 18 minutes, so damage to the
| batteries (malicious or accidental) would have significantly
| greater harms than, say, asbestos, CFCs, or domestic carbon
| monoxide sources.
|
| You absolutely do not want a 10 watt lightbulb powered by
| built-in atomic batteries anywhere it can get messed with, let
| alone a 2 kW kettle or a 5 kW oven.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_radiation_syndrome
| jeffbee wrote:
| The article does not even mention planning and permitting until
| the last sentence, but in my city that is virtually all of the
| cost. Fancy cabinet faces have _nothing_ to do with the fact that
| a house costs $2 million.
|
| When I look at what techies are trying to do I just shake my
| head. Factory_OS built an apartment building on Union Street in
| Oakland "in ten days " but planning, permitting, site prep,
| finishing, and inspections added up to seven years. Believing
| that off-site fabrication helps this problem is right up there
| with believing that hyperloops can solve traffic jams, in the
| universe of nonsensical American beliefs.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| Favelas tin-roof shanties would be cheaper too.
|
| In the US, why not distribute value, transportation, and land
| sufficiently so people can have a better basic standard of
| living? Right now, I'm looking at 1000 homeless people and tents
| huddling under a highway, while my drunken idiot neighbors shout
| and dance with glee feet from them in a gentrifying, mixed-use
| development pool. The people who have just enough have no shame
| or consideration because their motto is "F U, I got mine."
| lelanthran wrote:
| > The people who have just enough have no shame or
| consideration because their motto is "F U, I got mine."
|
| What do you expect them to do? You just said that they "have
| just enough".
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| I wrote too quickly. I meant to say "plenty," as in the jerk-
| off neighbors who act like their lives haven't graduated past
| freshman year Spring Break. I suspect this to be true because
| they're single, aging their bodies rapidly, smoking, doing
| drugs, sharing diseases, every forced smile and idiotic snark
| is for Facebook and Gram, and letting their dogs pee in the
| hallway and not cleaning it up... from their door to the
| elevator 80 feet / 27m away.
| axiolite wrote:
| The author has some interesting points, but with a labor price of
| $104.62 per sq. ft. it seems like there's a huge opportunity to
| reduce housing prices. That would be $157,000 of the price of a
| 1500 sq ft home. If factory-built homes could be assembled in a
| few days, instead of a few months, that would be a big savings.
|
| Of course transportation is a big problem. Something like pre-
| assembled wall sections which can be more or less flat-packed
| with several other sections could get the transportation costs
| down. And if they could fit in shipping containers from China (or
| trucks from Mexico) the price could be even lower.
|
| Consumer preference shouldn't be a show-stopper. Changing the
| color of the paint isn't any more difficult in a factory than it
| is on-site. Switching the model of window as well (though I can
| see how each change would eat a bit into the factory efficiency.
| There are only so many ways to lay-out a house, I seriously doubt
| each site-built home is such a custom design that it can't be a
| model number for a pre-fab factory. Regular home builders are
| already usually going off a small set of plans, not re-
| engineering home design on every outing.
| lrgzdmn wrote:
| Anyone have any experience with SIPs (structural insulated
| panels)? The claim is that their use reduces waste and labor, but
| I'm not aware of any independent analysis to corroborate the
| claims.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| I tried to price them out. They definitely save on labor but
| they are not particularly cheap. Depending on area your codes
| may not permit them and/or your local PEs may not want to sign
| off on them, even though they're fine. (This usually comes
| about by the local codes only assuming a finite set of valid
| structures, and some structure you wish to build not neatly
| fitting into those classifications.)
|
| They _could_ nebulously reduce "waste" but with how much more
| you're paying for them, it seems economically unviable to use
| them. In the sense that money is a signal, the waste is still
| there, you're just not seeing it and being put at an economic
| disadvantage for paying more.
| twothamendment wrote:
| I worked with them twice and loved it. But three times I've
| built my own house and passed them over.
|
| By my math, it makes sense to spend on a really good envelope
| like SIPs or a very efficient HVAC like ground source heat
| pumps - but buying the best of both is only for bragging rights
| and never pays off. Pick one or the other to go all out on and
| your bills won't be that much different if the other is just
| above average.
|
| The downside of spending extra on anything that isn't seen by
| the buyer is that they done want to pay extra for it. To bring
| it back around to SIPs, if two similar houses are for sale,
| nobody picks the more expensive one because it has SIPs. (ok,
| not nobody, maybe I would)
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| Great article.
|
| It would be interesting to compare the US to Japan and Japan's
| tendency to favor new construction (plus the differences in
| features and styles).
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > It would be interesting to compare the US to Japan and
| Japan's tendency to favor new construction
|
| You make it sound like these are opposing views but doesn't the
| US also heavily favour new construction?
|
| In the US and Japan I understand that a new build is seen as
| attractive and the best option for people with money to do it?
|
| If you want a real contrast, in the UK new build is seen as the
| worst option, for people without any money. People with money
| in the UK buy old houses. The older the better. I would
| literally never buy a new-build in the UK unless I had no other
| option whatsoever. I'm saving up to upgrade to an older house
| here.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| > but doesn't the US also heavily favour new construction?
|
| I don't know if my view reflects the majority, but around
| where I am from, older and even historic homes are the crown
| jewels because they were built before the race to the bottom
| occured in construction -- namely cheaper, thinner walls,
| smaller usable space, etc. Older homes are built with old
| growth lumber, and often come with thicker plaster walls and
| better layouts.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > I don't know if my view reflects the majority
|
| It doesn't. For example this article expressing surprise:
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-26/previous
| l...
|
| Even the term 'previously owned' for a house is baffling to
| UK ears. Of course a house is previously owned. Why would
| you be building your own?
| jjeaff wrote:
| I have never seen a home listed as previously owned. In
| the US, homes are by default assumed "previously owned"
| unless specifically advertised as new. And only the very
| well off tend to demo and build fresh. Most people will
| remodel and add in to existing structures.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > I have never seen a home listed as previously owned.
|
| Ok but Bloomberg have.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Yeah, but I concur with the gp: I've never seen the
| phrase "previously owned" applied to housing; it sounds
| made up. Listings either specify "new construction" or
| it's assumed that the house is currently occupied.
| redtexture wrote:
| And older structures have much less insulation, compared to
| the present building code, as put forth in the so called
| International (actually US) Residential Building Code,
| adopted by most states.
|
| Energy use for heating and cooling is typically much higher
| in older buildings, over a lifetime of decades.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I don't know about building codes, but I know a 1900
| house built from foot-thick stone is better insulating
| that anything we build today.
| Pxtl wrote:
| I have never seen a building from that era with foot-
| thick stone, you have to go back further for that here in
| Canada.
|
| The century homes here in southern Ontario are double-
| wall brick with beefy 2x4 framing within the interior
| wall, then lath and plaster, and no insulation.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| My 1930s UK house is foot-thick stone and brick on all
| walls, even internal. It doesn't have insulation except
| in the attic because it's one absolutely massive heat-
| sink mass - by the time it's warmed up from the summer
| it's already autumn and then it starts emitting the heat
| usefully instead.
|
| That's the way to build, in my opinion.
| earleybird wrote:
| Thermal mass as a tool is so very under utilized. When
| it's considered, it's often only on a 24hr cycle. As you
| point out, the 365 day cycle may be even more important.
| For a modern take (with for realz engineers and
| measurements even) have a look at Drake Landing community
| in southern Alberta. https://www.dlsc.ca/
|
| edit: They've discontinued the 'Current Conditions' part
| of their website but I followed it with some regularity
| in the early years
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I can't argue with your personal experience, but I pay
| less to heat a 17 year old, 3300 sq. ft. house than I did
| a 900 sq ft one that was built in 1950.
|
| Insulation matters, especially when you have temperature
| swings from 100F in the summer to -25F in winter.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| It's not that we particularly favor new construction; it's
| more that we have a _lot_ of empty land. Most new houses are
| going up on land that was either unused or farmland
| previously as opposed to having to demolish an existing house
| and rebuild on the plot.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| In Japan, my understanding is that it's common to tear down a
| perfectly good home and build a new one on the site. That
| pretty much never happens in the US.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| No. Nimbys have been in control for decades and only starting
| to lose their grip. In our city most folks are trapped in
| shitbox two story apartments from the sixties, that are now
| being renovated into luxury-light because supply is so highly
| constrained.
|
| Older mostly exists on the east coast with a few exceptions.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > shitbox two story apartments from the sixties
|
| Literally not sure if you consider these old or new-builds
| for the purpose of this conversation?
|
| I'd call anything post 1950 'new-build'.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| New means now or recently.
|
| Populations grow, so expecting everyone to live in homes
| from a century ago simply won't work.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > or recently
|
| Right but 'recently' is relative. To me 1960s is
| recently. That's when people started building 'modernly'.
| But I guess not for you?
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I've read that build quality in Japan is significantly lower
| due to the depreciating nature of houses as an asset and the
| bias toward building new.
| xivzgrev wrote:
| Seems like it's a self-reinforcing cycle: houses are built
| lower quality, people thus don't value older houses, so
| builders build lower quality to lower "new" cost
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-
| reusabl...
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| I admire the Japanese presence for building new because it
| means that the owners build the house they want rather than
| build for what the imaginary buyer 20 years in the future
| would want. So many people here in the states have nonsense
| houses for their family situation because their eye is
| incessantly on resale appreciation value.
| jbay808 wrote:
| With few exceptions, houses are a depreciating asset just
| about everywhere; it's only land that appreciates. Japan is
| no different except that the depreciation rate of the house
| may be somewhat faster, and appreciation of the land
| significantly slower than in other countries.
| greedo wrote:
| I'm not sure this is accurate. I purchased my house in
| 2004, and it's currently valued at $349K (purchase price
| $199K). The lot itself sold for $40K in 2003.
|
| Looking at available lots in my neighborhood, they average
| about $70K for my house size. So that means my house itself
| is valued at $280K.
|
| So yes, the land has appreciated by $30K (over 18 years),
| but the house itself has appreciated $120K in the same
| timeframe. The land appreciated at roughly 3% per annum,
| while the house appreciated at roughly the same rate.
|
| Of course this doesn't include any improvements, or
| maintenance costs associated with the house.
| jbay808 wrote:
| By "improvements" do you mean sewer hookups and so on?
| Japan is no different in that those add value, and they
| don't redo them when rebuilding the house (barring some
| problem).
|
| Also, depreciation of the house includes things like
| maintenance costs -- did you spend money on your roof?
| Redo the wiring? Renovate the kitchen? Unless they're
| intended as a teardown, old houses are often sold post-
| renovation, and that investment can counter the
| depreciation but won't show up if you just compare the
| selling price against the price of the bare lot.
|
| Lastly, it sounds like if your lot is $70k and houses are
| $350k, maybe construction costs have gone up a lot in
| your area since 2004. That could cause an old house to
| appreciate by increasing the cost of new houses.
| greedo wrote:
| By improvements, I meant things like finishing out a
| basement (thus adding more usable sq footage),
| kitchen/bath remodels, decks etc.
|
| Maintenance, at least in my area isn't a large cost over
| the life of a house. In the last year we've replaced a
| roof ($8K), furnace/AC ($9K), and the water heater
| ($800). The water heater we've had to replace twice
| before, so in total we've had roughly $20K in maintenance
| costs since we purchased the house. We're getting to a
| point where we need to repaint both inside and out, and
| replace some carpet. Probably around another $10K for
| that. So $30k in maintenance over 18 years is pretty
| small potatoes.
|
| I don't know that construction costs have gone up much
| more than the inflation rate; I do know that material
| costs have gone up in the last 18 months, but that should
| drop back down to "normal" in another year or so.
| jbay808 wrote:
| So would your house sell at a premium relative to a
| buying the land and having a new house built? If so, it's
| definitely appreciated, but that sounds like a very
| uncommon scenario!
| greedo wrote:
| It's hard to say. I don't know the permitting costs in my
| city, nor the costs for water/sewer hookups either. My
| house is nice, but nothing special for the area. Assuming
| a $125/sqft cost, a house like mine would be around $225K
| plus the lot ($70K) for a total of $295K. The only thing
| I've seen that might have helped the house appreciation
| is the completion of an elementary school in our
| neighborhood.
| ianmiers wrote:
| From what I've seen in residential Tokyo, houses are usually
| one offs built when the owner buys the land. And look, at least
| superficially, to be similar construction methods to American
| construction rather than European: i.e. wood framing as opposed
| to masonry/concrete.
|
| Maybe some of it is prefab, but given the narrowness of roads,
| I wonder.
| coryrc wrote:
| You are correct. The SFHs in Tokyo are usually built roughly
| similar to stick-built (slightly post-and-beam, but walls are
| load-bearing). Wood can be precut to length, but they are
| constructed on-site.
| aktuel wrote:
| The future of efficient housing construction will be 3D printed
| on site.
| agumonkey wrote:
| So far the ideas are not amazing, but let's see how it goes
| aktuel wrote:
| It's already more than ideas:
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/apr/30/dutch-
| cou...
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