[HN Gopher] Vantem builds modular homes out of energy-efficient ...
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Vantem builds modular homes out of energy-efficient panels
Author : cheinyeanlim
Score : 69 points
Date : 2022-08-05 10:28 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (singularityhub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (singularityhub.com)
| intrasight wrote:
| There was a post on HN recently about "open source" house design
| but I can't find it now. Anyone have that link?
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| I'd be all up for a low-cost, IKEA style house (in my locale the
| cost of the building is a small fraction of total cost of
| property in a city anyway). If nothing else, construction work is
| such a gamble, the variance of outcome of quality is enormous.
|
| The thing that hampers it, as far as I know, is generally quality
| constraints. Pre-fab houses just tend to be low quality. This is
| in part self-selecting, there is a stigma to a "pre-fab" or
| "portable" home, but in part also that somehow building prefab
| houses to a good standard is hard. I don't just mean colour and
| feel, but just basics like "not leaking".
|
| The staple of Eastern European bleak suburbs, the high-rise
| apartment buildings, were all built out of prefab components.
| These were built in central locations ("home factories"),
| transported and only assembled on site. These were certainly not
| created equal, and customer satisfaction wasn't high on the
| requirements list, but they generally suffered from this kind of
| problems (leaks, poor quality plumbing / gas connections etc.).
|
| I wonder how this company would tackle these problems.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| My sister lives in a prefab home ordered from Sears 100 years
| ago. They don't have to be low quality or expensive.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| My parents used to collect old sears and roebuck catalogs.
| Looking at the various house kits for sale ($2k at the time!)
| Was one of my favorite parts of those catalogs. They really
| sold some very nice house kits.
|
| One detail though, they were really more like house kits, not
| pre fab homes.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Sears (Crafsman) homes were kits that were field assembled,
| not prefabricated homes.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| That wasn't a prefab home. It was a kit. You can still get
| kits today if you are looking but they are generally not
| targeted at the HN demographics.
| dahfizz wrote:
| The issue is that pre-fab housing is fundamentally about low
| cost. There's nothing preventing a master craftsman from
| building the perfect pre-fab, but it will be so expensive that
| anyone who could afford it would rather buy a "real home".
| cjrp wrote:
| There's other advantages to pre-fab though.
|
| Known costs (building a house from scratch can cost 2x or 3x
| the original estimate)
|
| Assembly time (could be the difference between living on-site
| in a caravan for 1 month vs. 2-3 years).
| bluGill wrote:
| When a builder makes a spec house they will estimate the
| costs to within a very small error every time.
|
| When someone hires the same builder to make the same house
| the price often will be 2x or more of the estimate, but
| that is because it isn't the same house. It starts with the
| same plan, but instead of putting the $10 lights in they
| put in the $300 ceiling fan. Instead of putting in the
| cheap toilet they put in the upgraded one. They put in the
| more expensive doors and trim. they choose the more
| expensive counter tops. they get the more expensive stove.
| And on and on with many little upgrades, each alone isn't
| very much money, but the end total is doubling the cost.
|
| If you are willing to stick with the same cheap choices the
| builder would choose you can build a house for the
| estimate. It is safe to bet money that you wouldn't.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I'm not sure. I mean, in practice it seems it is as you say,
| but I wonder if that's necessary. What would pre-fab look
| like if it targeted a high-quality finish?
|
| First, you'd think high-quality hand-made houses ought to be
| more expensive than high-quality prefab houses, made in a
| well-optimised factory process. Cost, quality etc. should
| just be more consistent.
|
| Second, the amount of general headscratching should be much
| lower. If I can design the pieces together and the on-site
| job is just to put them together well, that cuts out a lot of
| general "how do I connect these pieces" work, not to mention
| all the painstaking work of laying bricks etc.
|
| Finally, as also mentioned by sibling, the variance of cost
| should just be drastically lower.
|
| Clearly it doesn't work like that, but I wonder what the root
| cause is.
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| > What would pre-fab look like if it targeted a high-
| quality finish?
|
| It's all around you. I don't even have to ask where you
| are. This has been the dominant construction technology for
| decades.
|
| You know, those 6-8 story apartment buildings with weird
| metal surfaces decorating the outsides, which are in wanna-
| be jazzy colors?
|
| Those are panelized. That's someone playing The Sims on a
| real building, picking weird textures out of a catalogue
| and being bored with regular options.
|
| .
|
| > Clearly it doesn't work like that
|
| It does. You just don't notice it.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I see ordinary family houses built around me. There's
| maybe a timber frame (or not). Then there's a bunch of
| guys laying bricks one by one, sticking some insulation
| on, putting pipes and cables through it all. Surely some
| of it is prefabricated, but it doesn't look like a bunch
| of Ikea-esque bits being just attached together.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> What would pre-fab look like if it targeted a high-
| quality finish?_
|
| Let me introduce you to Huf Haus [1] premium quality
| prefabricated houses.
|
| They go for modern designs, but I don't see why you
| couldn't target a traditional look with the same quality
| level.
|
| [1] https://www.huf-haus.com/en-uk/home-ideas/
| jaclaz wrote:
| ... if cost is not an issue.
|
| Huf Haus is world reknown for their quality, but they are
| not cheap.
| bluGill wrote:
| What you are calling "hand-made houses" are entirely
| factory made. They bring the factory in on a truck, and
| pack it up, but it is still a factory, and the process are
| not much different from what you would do in any factory.
| And most of the parts are made off-sight, most of the parts
| are things like 2x4 that are made offsight in a factory.
|
| There isn't much room for doing more in a factory. Most
| pre-fab houses are cheaper only because they carefully
| limit your floor plans and options, and thus can just pay
| off a few jigs, but there isn't much savings possible
| there. They also often cut quality to save money.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Is that the US process? UK, I believe, is still a lot of
| good old fashioned carpenters and bricklayers on site.
| Mainland Europe is, I believe, further still into that
| corner. In Poland, use of timber is a bit novel, it used
| to be all concrete and bricks really not that long ago,
| and is still the majority.
|
| I'm far from an expert though.
| skyyler wrote:
| I think the person you're replying to considers the
| worksite a factory simply because there are workers
| constructing a thing there.
| turtlebits wrote:
| Manufactured homes tend to be cheap/poor quality.
|
| Pre-fab is different, and generally more expensive per square
| foot than your traditional built on site stick frame house.
| Until people care about energy efficient homes, they are a
| tough sell.
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| > Pre-fab is different, and generally more expensive per
| square foot
|
| Prefab tends to be the second cheapest option, behind
| panelized.
| digdugdirk wrote:
| This is a historical design/manufacturing problem, not a
| factual blanket statement.
|
| Given the higher quality control standards that would be
| possible with a modern automated manufacturing process, each
| individual panel would now be _higher_ quality than the
| variation of contractors building housing from scratch on-site.
|
| From there, its just a matter of ensuring the final build site
| is prepped to spec. Leveling and grading, water runoff, etc.
| This would be the only variation between homes, and could be
| accomplished by a more highly trained crew with specialized
| equipment, as this would be their regular job.
|
| In the end, its just a better way to go than building homes
| from scratch on site.
| notahacker wrote:
| Yup. People would be surprised just how rough the fit of
| stuff cut to size and lined up on site. Manufactured frames,
| panels and modules can be built to much tighter tolerances
| with the benefit of an orderly indoor environment and often
| precision cuts from CNC machines too.
| leftoids wrote:
| jtdev wrote:
| kvetching wrote:
| I can recall when architecture made to last was something to be
| proud of. Nightmare waiting to happen if you live in a Tornado,
| Earthquake, Hurricane etc zone
| traverseda wrote:
| You don't think cement and foam insulation will last long
| enough, or be sturdy enough?
| nemo44x wrote:
| We haven't built residential structures for longevity since
| WW2. Nearly every home built after 1945 is garbage compared to
| pre-war homes that have been taken care of.
|
| The irony is that in 100 years you're more likely to come
| across a home built in 1920 than in 1980. And there's a few
| reasons why.
|
| Old homes were overbuilt. The engineering wasn't good enough to
| really know what they could get away with.
|
| Old homes are built with old growth wood. This can't be had
| today. This wood is incredible and is naturally rot resistant.
| Taken care of it will last many hundreds of years.
|
| Plastics. They really came into their own during WW2 and found
| their way into construction because they work for awhile and
| are dirt cheap. So we have cheap windows, cheap siding,
| flooring, etc. Gone are the days where great materials were
| necessary and abundant so adding a bit more craftsmanship was
| marginal.
|
| Buy a pre-war home and invest in it. Keep the original windows
| and restore them.
| bluGill wrote:
| Survivership basis. There were a lot of bad houses made
| before WWII, but they have mostly been torn down. The better
| quality houses are still around.
|
| That and most people don't have a clue what makes a good
| house, and look at the wrong thing. You see a large post and
| don't notice the hidden beams that are not strong enough.
| Modern houses are built to stand up to much strong wind
| forces than the houses of old, but all that quality is inside
| the walls where you can't see any difference. In many cases
| they difference is something you wouldn't even notice if you
| could compare the inside of the two walls side by side.
| nemo44x wrote:
| That's a good point about survivorship bias but I do wonder
| about it. There are vast swaths of homes out East that are
| all pre-war. They're in places where people took care of
| the homes though and have had them updated over the years.
| In essence, any home is slowly being rebuilt from the day
| it is finished. And if you don't take those steps then the
| home falls into disrepair and can't really be reasonably
| saved.
|
| We saw a lot of this when people wanted new homes in the
| new suburbs starting in the late 1940's. The pre-war homes
| were sold to poorer people who couldn't afford or didn't
| understand they had to repair the homes. They were quality
| homes but many of them have been knocked down due to that.
|
| And yes, there were also kit homes and other cheaper
| construction. Homes with dirt floors, no plumbing, etc. My
| grandmother grew up in a small 3 room home with outdoor
| plumbing and she had 7 siblings - no one can imagine living
| like that today. It would be considered inhumane. So yeah,
| that kind of stuff is gone too.
|
| But even the highest quality construction today pales in
| many ways. For instance, top of the line windows from
| Marvin aren't as good as the windows that exist today in
| many pre-war homes. So long as they have been restored,
| weather stripped, storm windows added, etc. That 100 year
| window will continue to outlive the highest end windows
| from today's top brands, if it's maintained.
| danans wrote:
| > Old homes were overbuilt.
|
| Except when they weren't. For example, brick foundations that
| preceded reinforced concrete haven't held up well. They
| generally all need to be replaced at great expense.
|
| > Old homes are built with old growth wood. This can't be had
| today. This wood is incredible and is naturally rot
| resistant.
|
| As you say it can't be had today and there aren't enough old
| homes in places people want to live to make it matter.
|
| > Taken care of it will last many hundreds of years.
|
| But the whole point of old growth wood is that you don't need
| to take care of it as much since it is pretty resilient to
| getting wet.
|
| It's newer wood and manufactured materials that often need
| more care since they are less resilient.
|
| Also, prewar homes use huge amounts of energy for heating -
| which is a big reason the old growth wood lasted: it was
| being blasted with heat from the inside the whole winter, so
| condensation got dried out (the people too).
|
| > Plastics. They really came into their own during WW2 and
| found their way into construction because they work for
| awhile and are dirt cheap. So we have cheap windows, cheap
| siding, flooring,
|
| There are incredible fiberglass and UPVC windows being made
| today by companies like Marvin and Schuco. Yes, there has
| been a history of poor quality manufactured building
| materials, but some of the most reliable components today
| contain plastics.
|
| > Buy a pre-war home and invest in it. Keep the original
| windows and restore them.
|
| The reality is that people buy homes for location, and the
| period of the home is a usually a secondary consideration.
| nemo44x wrote:
| > There are incredible fiberglass and UPVC windows being
| made today by companies like Marvin and Schuco. Yes, there
| has been a history of poor quality manufactured building
| materials, but some of the most reliable materials today
| are plastic based.
|
| I have the highest end Marvin windows (Ultimate double hung
| sash windows) in the addition part of my home and they
| don't compare to the original windows IMO. They're great,
| but I expect in 100 years they will have been replaced and
| the original windows will still be hanging.
|
| > But the whole point of old growth wood is that you don't
| need to take care of it as much since it is pretty
| resilient to getting wet.
|
| I'm just saying, typical home maintenance. Replacing the
| roofing, keeping gutters clear, etc.
|
| > The reality is that people buy homes for location, and
| the period of the home is a usually a secondary
| consideration.
|
| Totally. There are a lot of areas that are a mix of old and
| new. I'm just saying, given the option and things being
| equal, I'd almost always select the old home.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Why build factories in the Dakotas? Wouldn't it be better to
| build them somewhere more accessible to the east coast when
| shipping something so big and heavy?
|
| Also, Vantem's website seems to be having issues. It would have
| been interesting to see what these houses can look like other
| than the "modern" gray thing in the picture, as well as get more
| technical info.
| rhacker wrote:
| shipping them to the west or east coast made easier
| adamrezich wrote:
| I-90 is a pretty great way to access both coasts from SD
| watchdogtimer wrote:
| My guess is for the animal confinement sector. EPS panels are
| widely used in these buildings already.
| giantg2 wrote:
| That makes sense. But then still, why not have something in
| say KY or WV? Plenty of chicken houses and stuff along the
| east coast, and they tend to be temperature sensitive. And
| there's still the human housing market there too.
| watchdogtimer wrote:
| Iowa is #1 by far in the US in laying hens and hogs (23M
| each). Minnesota is #1 for turkeys (48M). KY and WV aren't
| anywhere close to these numbers.
|
| Judging by the photos, my guess is these buildings wouldn't
| appeal to homeowners. The architectural style is too
| different.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I thought there are quite a few in NC, VA, and others in
| the area.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| The technology required to build energy efficient housing has
| been available for many decades at least. What is missing is the
| political will to require energy efficiency.
| bluGill wrote:
| Longer than that. It was already becoming the in thing in the
| 1970s. Sure there have been advances since then, but "super
| insulated" houses built in 1978 would still do well against
| todays code. (they wouldn't meet them, but they wouldn't be
| much worse)
| euroderf wrote:
| I'll wait to see what Construction Physics[1] says about it. He
| has covered the prefab space in detail.
|
| [1] https://constructionphysics.substack.com/
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The first world housing issues are more about land and zoning
| than construction, but for energy efficiency and climate change
| and just cheapness, mass produced factory built homes are a great
| solution.
|
| McDonalds, Starbucks etc. seem to have moved to this model, new
| standalone premises go together like Lego.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| I mostly agree with you on land - but my understanding is that
| there are laws put in place that make modular construction de
| facto forbidden in most jurisdictions. Perhaps this falls into
| your definition of zoning or perhaps it doesn't. But I imagine
| if these were lifted systematically you'd get bigger
| investment.
|
| >One notorious regulation that could go up for review is a
| longstanding rule that manufactured homes must be delivered
| with a chassis still attached, even if the homes are built in
| place permanently.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-20/mobile-ho...
| pydry wrote:
| Unfortunately, as the largest owner of agricultural farmland in
| the US, Bill Gates is unlikely to try and tackle the underlying
| tax policy that rewards land hoarding/discourages building.
|
| A land value tax would hit his portfolio pretty hard.
| kjeetgill wrote:
| All that may be true, but in terms of housing costs the
| zoning and development issues aren't in agricultural land,
| they're in cities and suburbs.
|
| If lead is suitable for feeding people, presumably we'd like
| to keep doing that.
| pydry wrote:
| The zoning/nimby issues are derived from cost/sale price of
| land being driven ever further up. This is partly due to a
| spillover from historic levels of wealth inequality but its
| also due to land untaxing (e.g. prop 13).
|
| Were land made into more of a liability the lobbying to
| inhibit development to keep land values up
| (zoning/nimbyism) would end up being pointless and would
| probably dry up.
|
| Those SF homeowners who want to keep their area "single
| family homes only to preserve the feel of the area" are
| simply trying to inhibit development to keep the value of
| their leveraged investment stable.
|
| Flip the switch to turn land into a financial liability and
| all that ends along with the land hoarding that has
| inhibited property development for decades.
|
| It would have to be done nationally, though - and that
| would mean, among other things, deliberately crashing Bill
| Gates' agricultural land investments.
| olivermarks wrote:
| -> 'crashing' Bill Gates' agricultural land investments
|
| I'm assuming Gate's immense holdings in land, big pharma,
| the WHO etc is less altruistic, more long term political
| control and profit driven.
| clairity wrote:
| a land value tax wouldn't crash bill gates' ag land
| investments because ag land has relatively low value, so
| will also have relatively low tax. whether it would makes
| those investments net negative or positive is dependent
| on the specifics of the investments.
|
| i'd disfavor a national LVT however, as i disfavor more
| power being concentrated in fewer hands. it should be a
| state level concern at most.
| agomez314 wrote:
| If we are so technologically advanced, why does it cost so much
| to build a home on-site?
| turtlebits wrote:
| Building a stick frame house on site is the cheapest out of all
| the methods. The expensive parts are the finishes and
| appliances.
|
| Also, houses could easily be designed in a simpler fashion (a
| rectangle without any modulation, ductless HVAC, etc.) for an
| inexpensive build.
| bluGill wrote:
| It doesn't cost that much. The land costs a lot, and permits
| can cost a lot. The labor isn't that much, and materials are
| cheaper than ever (though most houses in the past were built
| with free labor with material prepared on site and so you don't
| realize how much it costs as nobody was getting paid)
| TrueSlacker0 wrote:
| The labor is low because it's minimum wage based for hard
| work (where I am at in Texas, it's basically all foreign
| labor, legal and not). Paid a respectable wage, this labor
| would be expensive. But it's exploited.
| rasz wrote:
| 1 the I cant believe is not cement sure looks like cement on a
| 360p video they provide. Guess BGates ventures cant afford a good
| camera.
|
| 2 walls are soo thin, 2-3x too thin for European standards. Maybe
| they target hot climates?
| aidenn0 wrote:
| The limited tech-info they have[1] says they can go up to 300mm
| thick depending on insulation needs.
|
| 1: https://vantem.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2022/02/VA_B03-TechPan...
| pistoriusp wrote:
| Thick walls are required in hot climates too.
| lbriner wrote:
| This sounds like trying to make a big deal out of something that
| Europe has been doing for years.
|
| Sure, these are "cement like" instead of wooden but otherwise
| nothing that interesting here. It is common to overskin these
| pre-made houses with render or bricks if needed for more
| protection but most wooden framed houses don't get blown down by
| high winds in Europe, mostly roofs getting blown off from
| buildings where they weren't tied down properly.
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| [deleted]
| notahacker wrote:
| I think you're (pretty furiously) talking past the other
| user. I agree the "cement like" material one of them uses is
| relatively unusual, but the article also references Boxabl
| (light gauge steel panel frames with concrete/EPS infill) and
| Node (timber framed panels) as other cutting edge startups.
| The material Vantem uses might be novel, the idea of "flat
| pack homes" referenced in the article isn't, even if building
| homes out of masonry and timber cut on site is still far more
| common and greater use of offsite construction has positive
| sustainability implications
|
| It's also _very_ common to skim panel /SFS/module type
| construction with faux-brick skins or render over here...
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| notahacker wrote:
| > I just spoke clearly about real world regulations that
| you happen to be unaware of, and could easily look up
|
| Coming from a family of structural engineers
| (specialising in offsite construction, no less) I'm not
| sure whether to be more amused by the notion that there
| exists a Europe-wide ban on the use of prefabricated
| concrete panels, or that broad claims about building
| regulations are easy to look up!
|
| It is true that many 1960s-era system built structures
| would no longer be compliant, and that regulations
| governing things such as insulation of dwellings might
| make cement panel walls designed to be single-skin
| suboptimal for many use cases but that is not the same
| thing as a Europe-wide ban on prefabricated concrete
| panel systems. There's actually a pretty varied market
| for them.
|
| Perhaps your condescension towards the OP was not fury,
| but merely an attempt to bolster your apparently weak
| credentials as an expert in European construction. I
| recommend you discard that strategy in future :-)
|
| > In my opinion, what you did here was to say "your
| claims don't hold up when someone replaces the thing you
| were talking about with a different thing."
|
| Someone more familiar with European offsite construction
| techniques would interpret the OP's point that low rise
| construction from manufactured panels like the three
| different companies mentioned in TFA (two of which do not
| involve concrete walls) is not a "hip" novelty in Europe,
| and that timber-framed panels may incorporate a variety
| of facade systems used to provide equivalent weather
| protection to cement-like facades [also similar ease of
| assembly for the most part]. They are, in fact, very
| similar approaches to speeding up onsite construction
|
| I'm not sure my remarks to that effect involved more
| reinvention of the original argument than your extended
| analogies to software and 1950s construction.
|
| > But sort of the core concept here is that once it's
| cement-like, that's no longer necessary
|
| Cement like material does not have the aesthetics of
| brick. Which is the chief reason to prefer a panel with a
| brick-like cladding instead of a lower cost alternative
| panel. Which is why brick-like skins have a place in
| panel wall based construction.
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| jaclaz wrote:
| >No, Europe has not been doing cement-like prefabs for years.
| They're not legal in Europe. Concrete prefabs haven't been
| built in Europe since the Soviets left in the 1980s. What the
| Soviets were building were prefab rooms, not prefab panels.
| It's a night and day difference.
|
| Well, I have been working with a firm that made prefab panels
| houses much later than the 80's, and I don't think they were
| ever made illegal at least here (Italy) maybe you should
| restrict your definition of Europe to the specific EU country
| (if any) where concrete prefab houses are actually illegal.
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yeah, I'm interested in what "cement like" actually means. It's
| possible it might not support venere or siding depending on its
| properties. Hard to say though since their site is down, so I
| can't get more info.
| femto wrote:
| Fibre cement (aka 'fibro')
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre_cement
| giantg2 wrote:
| Used for "cladding"
|
| That sounds a little scary. Basically a Styrofoam house
| with stucco as the other commenter stated.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| fibre-cement and stucco are _very_ different. Just like
| FRP and plastic are very different.
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| It used to be the most common approach in the United
| States, because it was so effective, reliable, safe, fire
| resistant, cheap, and insulating.
|
| Then we paniced because it was asbestos.
|
| This is just an asbestos replacement. You put a shell
| outside it for impact resistance. This is a bunch of
| people loudly misunderstanding a simple evolution in a
| common technology.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| Based on their construction video, it appears to be styrofoam
| with a layer of stucco.
|
| The problem I have with the video is the fact that they're
| installing these panels on short, thin little stub walls made
| of concrete. These have almost zero insulation factor. They
| basically have a large thermal gap under each wall.
| turtlebits wrote:
| You're never going to have a high R value throughout a
| whole house, the best you can do is to maximize it where
| you can. Windows and doors provide very little insulation
| as well.
| stdbrouw wrote:
| But this is a solved problem. You build the base of your
| wall with glass foam bricks or aerated concrete. Pretty
| standard these days. Or a partially above-grade basement
| that can be insulated, as is common in the US.
| kolanos wrote:
| I don't know how similar this is to Insulating Concrete
| Forms (ICFs), but I've owned a house constructed that way
| and it had considerably better insulation than any stick
| built I've owned.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It seems this is the inverse of ICF. ICF has the
| insulation on both sides of the reinforced concrete. This
| has a thin layer of fiber reinforced concrete on each
| side of a core of insulation.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| Probably high density styrofoam with a fiberglass mesh
| and stucco. More mesh, glue and stucco is probably
| applied by hand at the corners and seams.
|
| It appears to be basically a styrofoam house --- not
| nearly as sturdy as ICF.
| peteradio wrote:
| I'd bet they have a layer of plastic to screw into.
| skc wrote:
| Sadly, I get a CPanel error page visiting the website of the
| profiled company.
|
| I'm mulling over building a little office detached from my house
| so this stuff is super interesting to me.
| jokoon wrote:
| I'm curious about the durability of such homes.
|
| Moisture, heat, sun, insects, and humans will deteriorate
| anything in 10 years.
| Glyptodon wrote:
| Prefab wall panels are a thing, but I'm not sure I've seen ICF-
| form style ones. I have to imagine this should be able to do
| pretty much what ICF construction does but faster. On the other
| hand, I imagine transporting the forms is cheaper than
| transporting actual panels.
| cabirum wrote:
| I'd rather look into innovative formwork construction and cast-
| in- place concrete (pr slap labels here: concrete-like, energy-
| efficient green, zero-emission, insulated).
| [deleted]
| joebidun wrote:
| Its solar city all over again
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Couldn't find _anything_ on Vantem 's site describing how
| plumbing and electrical go in; it was not possible to see on
| timelapse either. They had an elevated floor, so maybe the
| utilities went in there? But it's also used for multi-story, so
| it can't _just_ be that...
|
| With concrete blocks you would cut a chase in the wall, but the
| primary rigidity seems to come from the panels on either side, so
| that seems like it might be a bad idea...
| turtlebits wrote:
| For traditional SIPs the manufacturer can run chases for
| electrical and plumbing. I would assume the same for these.
| nabla9 wrote:
| >As you might have heard, we're in the midst of a housing crisis
| ...
|
| That has relatively little to do with building homes. More to do
| with zoning and nimbyism.
|
| You can get a home in area where there are no jobs or the commute
| distances are too long.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Costs of materials follow real estate prices therefore it's
| always beneficial to seek ways to build homes cheaper.
|
| Zoning and nimbyism, while contributing factors, are not the
| root cause. It's the idea that real estate should be seen as an
| investment - it gained popularity in China in recent years,
| causing a lot of unnecessary construction and spilling over to
| the rest of the world.
|
| Fortunately(for us at leat) there are early signs that this
| scheme is collapsing:
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-08-03/china-rea...
|
| Funnily enough in my neighbourhood (Eastern EU) there's already
| a:
|
| - Block of so-called "microapartments" - units too small to be
| legally considered housing. This one was started before the
| respective law was changed due to an explosion in such
| projects.
|
| - A project which took people's money in 2019 and then... never
| did anything. It's not even a hole in the ground - it's the
| _previous building still scheduled to be demolished_.
|
| Apparently the madness also spilled over outside of China.
| themitigating wrote:
| What?
|
| You're first comment is a pointless argument to the statement
| "As you might have heard, we're in the midst of a housing
| crisis" which is simply stating a fact not the reason behind
| it.
|
| You then switch to a sarcastic comment making light of what
| could be a horrible situation if you can't find a job because
| of where you live.
|
| The Gates Foundation is doing something, who did your comment
| help?
| giantg2 wrote:
| "The Gates Foundation is doing something, who did your
| comment help?"
|
| I think they're comment is valid conversation.
|
| The Gates Foundation is likely more interested in the
| company's impact in South America, or in being climate
| friendly. I don't see anything in article that actually makes
| the case for why these would help alleviate the housing
| shortage. Maybe the could, but the info on that isn't in the
| article.
| themitigating wrote:
| I don't see anything in the article that implies either of
| those motives
| giantg2 wrote:
| If you have any background on the Gates Foundation it
| should be easily implied. If not, here's a quote. Also,
| the article talks about low cost housing in South
| America. Housing is another topic the gates foundation
| typically focuses on.
|
| "Breakthrough was founded by Bill Gates in 2015 to invest
| in sustainable energy and emissions-reduction
| technologies"
| themitigating wrote:
| That's an unrelated organization founded by bill gates in
| 2015. The gates foundation was founded in 2000.
| giantg2 wrote:
| _That 's the organization that invested in this company._
| Please read the article. At this point it seems you're
| just trolling.
| credit_guy wrote:
| The GP is talking about the biggest problem that America has
| now: people can't afford homes.
|
| The article it trying to hook the reader by promising to tell
| them about this problem. What follows is implicitly delivered
| as a solution to this problem.
|
| GP is correctly pointing out that it's not a solution. They
| are further lamenting that the current solutions to the
| problem (earn little of commute a lot) are sub-optimal.
|
| The Gates foundation is doing something, kudos to them, but
| they are unlikely to make a dent in solving this problem.
| themitigating wrote:
| The gp said zoning and nimbyism.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It would be nice if we didn't have such a herd mentality and
| some companies decided to revitalize some of the old rust belt
| cities by creating jobs there. There's some tech presence in
| Pittsburgh. Some of the smaller cities could benefit too
| though.
| giantrobot wrote:
| I don't think the problem is herd mentality. If you open an
| office in Silicon Valley you've got local talent for all
| types of positions, proximity to funding, and in general
| somewhere executives and upper management (likely) want to
| live.
|
| Rust Belt cities don't really offer the same advantages. They
| might have cheaper rent but that doesn't help if no one wants
| to relocate to there. No company wants to be on the hook for
| revitalizing a city.
| bluGill wrote:
| There are a lot of people who want to live there. Sure more
| people want to live in the Valley, but there are still a
| lot of smart people who don't. And also a few people who
| moved to the Valley who want to get out. Most of this is
| about family - it is very hard to move to a new city as
| your family support network is gone. Those who had a bad
| family life growing up don't care, but those who had a good
| family life will accept a lot of pain to stick with family.
| (I live 300 miles from my family, I'm jealous of my
| siblings who call grandma for an emergency babysitter at
| the last minute)
|
| With remote work there is no reason you can't hire people
| who want to live in whatever rust belt city, and there are
| a lot of them. Just giving good salary to people in rust
| belt areas would go a long way to helping those cities.
| giantrobot wrote:
| There are smart people that live in rust belt cities,
| there's just fewer of them in any given city than in all
| of the Bay Area. For a company it'll be harder to keep
| that rust belt city staffed. It's also unattractive for
| employees to move there since there's fewer tech
| employers. In the Bay Area someone can walk out of Google
| and find a job pretty quickly with the same length
| commute. If someone relocated to Cleveland they can't
| necessarily do the same thing and face a prospect of
| relocating again.
|
| Remote work is one way rust belt cities can revitalize
| themselves. There's a lot those cities can do to attract
| remote workers even if they're not attracting the
| companies themselves. Their states need to help by
| harmonizing some employment and tax laws with the states
| where tech companies are based. No one is moving to
| Cleveland if a "no working for competition" clause in an
| employment contract is legal in Ohio.
|
| Side note: I don't mean to pick on Cleveland but it's
| sort of the rust belt poster child.
| giantg2 wrote:
| That's basically the herd mentality I'm talking about -
| people wanting to live in the same areas. People don't want
| to live there because nobody is moving there and making
| improvements. It's easier to just move where everyone else
| is moving.
| danans wrote:
| > That's basically the herd mentality I'm talking about -
| people wanting to live in the same areas.
|
| Call it what you will, but people generally want to live
| around other people - preferably people they care about
| but at least people who are not dangerous to them or
| impose much social or financial cost on them.
|
| > People don't want to live there because nobody is
| moving there and making improvements.
|
| Actually many previously declining places have reached
| critical mass and people are making improvements and
| attracting more people. But those places (i.e.
| Pittsburgh, Cincinnati), are sucking up most of the
| interest and creating their own gravity, leaving little
| left for Youngstown and Flint.
|
| > It's easier to just move where everyone else is moving.
|
| Of course it's easier - it's simple economies of scale.
| People seek access to physical and social resources. Raw
| land or emptied cities and towns with crumbling
| infrastructure don't provide that.
| nabla9 wrote:
| It's not mentality, it's basics of urban economics called
|
| Economies of agglomeration
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration
|
| Productivity increases in urban centers. Bigger, the better.
| At some point negative externalizes and bottlenecks that
| limit growth but if those would be solved, the potential
| upside could be even greater. For human capital the benefits
| from labour pooling and matching and knowledge spillovers are
| enormous.
| turtlebits wrote:
| These look like cement board SIPs, I'd like to see how much
| better these are than the standard plywood panels.
| pcdoodle wrote:
| Gates Box will rule the market and absorb or destroy other Boxen.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Well first off the strategy will be to embrace the LEGO like
| assembly method but to extend it with a few other useful
| connectors that people will find really useful, and in a decade
| should be able to extinguish the old fashioned Boxen.
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