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Why America has so few carpenters

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Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#151

Post by tomohawk »

I know a few carpenters who left. They were driven out of the business (US).

The main cause was non-citizen, illegal workers being employed, with active encouragement by the elites through non-enforcement of the law.

As soon as some companies in an area started displacing citizen workers and reaping the financial rewards of that, it was a race to the bottom. No longer able to support a family or maintain dignity, carpenters had to find other things to do.

The quality of work has dropped precipitously. Just look at the lousy finish carpentry, and that's just the stuff you can easily see.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#152

Post by nemo44x »

webwanderings wrote: post #76

All these professionals from vocational fields are horribly expensive in America. And then there are articles like these claiming they don't make money. BS. America has no public/private vocational school/training culture. People don't even teach each other unless you are born into the family of craftsman.

Yeah in the north east, carpenters with good reputations (they reliably show up, work to code, can think) make 6-figures easily. There’s no end to the work and they can pick and choose.

The price to do a renovation or build out here has gone through the roof with labor and materials becoming expensive.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#153

Post by v-erne »

tuatoru wrote: post #141

For people thinking "pre-fab"/automation is "the answer" to this shortage, I recommend reviewing Brian Potter's blog, Construction Physics.[1] It ain't so simple. Building sites vary a lot, even in the same neighbourhood. Buildings are very complex, and individuated to meet customer demands. Crucially they are low value per unit mass, so transport starts costing more than on-site construction after two hundred kilome…

>> and individuated to meet customer demands

So maybe we as a society make them stop demanding? I believe that greed has no limits if we allow people to believe that they always deserve more. Its like this famous chinese dragon that eats its own tail.

>> Crucially they are low value per unit mass, so transport starts costing more than on-site construction after two hundred kilometres/miles

So this would maybe put some pressure on people to stop building those stupid (from the point of sustainability) suburbs and rationalize city population density and organization ? (Like in some european cities with walkable neighbourhoods)

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#154

Post by maccard »

nicoburns wrote: post #146
dragonwriter wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also 50 years ago if you were building new housing, if your work was sub-standard you did not get paid. There would be a clerk of works checking it was up to scratch. Now it is a race to the bottom I’m old enough that one of my earliest memories of advice being given on house buying (not to me, I was still to young for that) was of people advising against buying anything from around the time you were praising (whic…

I suspect they’re both correct. House building standards seem to have been trending downwards for at least 100 years if not more. Some things have gotten better of course (fire safety, insulation, etc), but the construction itself tends to be optimised for cost over quality these days.

Remember that there's a survivorshio bias in the 100 year old buildings you see still standing today. In many cases they are impractical for modern standards too - my home has 2ft thick external sandstone walls, and all the internal walls are brick. It's massively overengineered for the use of the building.

At the same time there is nowhere to put any insulation on external walls meaning that during the winter were leaking huge amounts of heat and during the summer we live in an oven. Compare that to my friends modern new build in the same city (Edinburgh) their internal temperature is mostly stable.

There's also things like "you can't run any extra cabling"- adding ethernet to my existing cabling isn't happening without replastering my entire home. And lets not start with modern 5GHz WiFi not passing through my internal walls.

Needs have changed, materials are more consistent and easier to get, efficiency standards have changed. All of these things have had a huge impact on materials and costs. It's unfair to just say that buildings are built worse without considering anything else.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#155

Post by mariusmg »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #90
georgeoliver wrote: post #28

You can make a living as a carpenter, and the work is often glorious, but like lots of industries wealth is often built on the exploitation of labor. Unions have been gutted over the last 100 years, so if you want to run an honest business and earn a good income you need to do high-end work. But who are you working for? The upper classes. Of course these lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc. are not specifically to blame…

I remember watching a presentation on a high-end woodworker who just happened to be the son of a celebrity. He was working quite a bit with vacuum formed pieces that would sell for several thousand dollars in the 90s, with enough capital outlay from his father's money that he could build a dozen or so items at a time. It was then that I realized that the ability to make a living from crafting high-quality, modern fur…

This is the stuff that "hurts" the most. The realization that not everyone starts from the same place and most of us are way back from starting line. And no matter how hard you work there isn't a way to recover that "lost distance".

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#156

Post by bluGill »

nicoburns wrote: post #146
dragonwriter wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also 50 years ago if you were building new housing, if your work was sub-standard you did not get paid. There would be a clerk of works checking it was up to scratch. Now it is a race to the bottom I’m old enough that one of my earliest memories of advice being given on house buying (not to me, I was still to young for that) was of people advising against buying anything from around the time you were praising (whic…

I suspect they’re both correct. House building standards seem to have been trending downwards for at least 100 years if not more. Some things have gotten better of course (fire safety, insulation, etc), but the construction itself tends to be optimised for cost over quality these days.

Standards have been trending up. Modern houses are much more likely yo survive a hurricane, and have much better insulation. Most people have no idea what makes a house good and so are impressed by things that don't matter. A lot of this is because the important parts are hidden inside the walls where you can't see them.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#157

Post by rascul »

tomcam wrote: post #93
rascul wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difference between a large construction company and a small one remodeling your home can be in the five figures. I work by myself, for myself, and I'm able to charge much less than most simply because I have almost no overhead and almost everything goes in my pocket. I don't need to pay for a building lease, employees, company vehicles, etc. But it'll take me a week to do what those other companies can do in a…

I hope you experiment with raising your prices from time to time.

Indeed, I just recently raised them.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#158

Post by c_o_n_v_e_x »

I started as a helper in the summers for a small HVAC company. I stayed in the business for 7ish years, eventually getting my state of Texas HVAC contractor's license. After graduating college, I got out of HVAC and moved into controls which wound up taking me across the world. I got tired of the field and moved into product management.

The toll that construction takes is real. I have too many scars from sheet metal cuts to count; burns; exposure to asbestos, phosgene, and benzene; heat stroke; electrocutions; falls from ladders; etc. My boss previously broke his back after falling through a ceiling. I've been on sites where people cut off multiple fingers in stupid accidents, have nearly died, or have fallen to their death. I'm in my late 30's and have been diagnosed with hearing loss which I attribute to working around heavy equipment and construction sites.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#159

Post by nikita2206 »

maccard wrote: post #154
nicoburns wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect they’re both correct. House building standards seem to have been trending downwards for at least 100 years if not more. Some things have gotten better of course (fire safety, insulation, etc), but the construction itself tends to be optimised for cost over quality these days.

Remember that there's a survivorshio bias in the 100 year old buildings you see still standing today. In many cases they are impractical for modern standards too - my home has 2ft thick external sandstone walls, and all the internal walls are brick. It's massively overengineered for the use of the building. At the same time there is nowhere to put any insulation on external walls meaning that during the winter were l…

In my experience I like living with stone walls a lot more than in a cardboard. It’s true though that doing any changes to the stone wall is a lot harder than with drywall, but it kind of proves the point that current construction techniques are optimized for cost (I like to say they optimized for the builder a lot more than for the ones living in that building).

I think this is very much subjective in the end though. Also because current building techniques still make use of stone, bricks and concrete which all have the same downsides. But as you said they can be an overkill for some people who don’t mind the walls being quite soft for instance.

Re: Why America has so few carpenters

#160

Post by maccard »

nikita2206 wrote: post #159
maccard wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that there's a survivorshio bias in the 100 year old buildings you see still standing today. In many cases they are impractical for modern standards too - my home has 2ft thick external sandstone walls, and all the internal walls are brick. It's massively overengineered for the use of the building. At the same time there is nowhere to put any insulation on external walls meaning that during the winter were l…

In my experience I like living with stone walls a lot more than in a cardboard. It’s true though that doing any changes to the stone wall is a lot harder than with drywall, but it kind of proves the point that current construction techniques are optimized for cost (I like to say they optimized for the builder a lot more than for the ones living in that building). I think this is very much subjective in the end though…

> but it kind of proves the point that current construction techniques are optimized for cost

I don't think that's a fair takeaway - drywall lets you do things like insulate, run cabling, provide moisture barriers, easily change room layouts. These are all things that people want to do in their homes today that are straightforward (mostly) with drywall, and borderline impossible for a DIY'er in an older building.

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