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The Pretty Good House

prettygoodhouse.org

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Re: The Pretty Good House

#211

Post by alanwreath »

topkai22 wrote: post #91
alanwreath wrote: post #27

Love this new resource. I've been geeking out over what seems to be some near term changes on what it means to build a home. For the longest time it seemed to mean (in the US at least): - wood - waste - lifelong high expense - manual and with the sudden explosion of - 3D printed houses (https://communityimpact.com/austin/georgetown/housing-real-estate/2022/11/17/3d-printed-homes-in-georgetown-offer-new-approach-to-bu…

I was talking to a (housing) developer friend who is also into many of these technologies last year. In short, 3d printing and modularization can reduce cost, but not as much as I would have thought 10 years ago. Framing is only 1/6 of the construction code of the average house, with another 1/6 going to roofing and siding. The other 2/3 of constriction costs are things like design, permitting, dirt work, plumbing, e…

That is interesting, I was predisposed on thinking about the cost of labor.

I wonder beyond price what it means for the longevity (or persisting value) of a 3D printed home vs one that

  - is made of wood
  - is made by humans (and so possibly deviating from approved spec)

Re: The Pretty Good House

#212

Post by alkonaut »

michpoch wrote: post #139
Y-bar wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't most single- or few-family homes made of wood? I'm living in in the farming belt (i.e. not the actual forested parts of our country) and over 80% of these houses are wooden. It's mostly apartment buildings over three floors being built using cement.

Not in Europe, besides some old mountains huts. It's always a very strange feeling when I see how in the american home-reconstruction TV shows they're tearing the walls and it's all wood. Same case when I see the effects of hurricanes... it all feels very fragile comparing to what we have here.

I live in Europe and probably 90% or 95% of (single family) houses here are wood, both existing and new construction. For larger homes like tuplexes/townhouses and even up to 10-apartment buildings it's quite common. Even single family houses with brick facades often have wood framing behind them.

I work in the wood-construction industry so we are trying to get more people to build from wood, so we have a pretty good picture of which regions traditionally build from wood and which don't. It's really hard to generalize across Europe as usual. If anything, wood construction is certainly becoming more popular, not less.

Re: The Pretty Good House

#213

Post by alexb_ »

KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #15

This is one of the areas that ML robotics companies should look into. Prefabs for whatever reason do not seem to work for the American market. Enough is enough, time to start throwing ML robotics models at zoning and building code regulations, instead of those silly game environments that DeepMind use for their RL demos. Replace those overpriced and incompetent tradespeople and builders. They do not have enough real…

I refuse to believe this comment is anything but a troll.

Re: The Pretty Good House

#214

Post by adamgordonbell »

willis936 wrote: post #207
adamgordonbell wrote: post #203

> Local is good. While we can get materials from nearly anywhere on earth, buying locally typically keeps the carbon footprint smaller. Is this true? Shipping things from where its more efficient to produce them I thought was better? The scale of ships and shipping containers means the carbon involved per item is pretty small.

What are the economies of scale involved with a tree farm or gravel pit? These are building raw materials. The amount of processing needed is minimal.

It's not about scale, but about the efficiency of growing.

Trees, for instance, don't grow well in areas with little soil. Or for extreme example they don't grow at all in places that are cold enough. So shipping them in from places where they do make more sense then attempting to grow them locally.

I mean I'm sure there are scale advantages in gravel quarries and logging mills, but I'm not certain how much that matters.

The example I always heard about growing locally was tomatoes. Tomatoes grown in Canada, in greenhouse – and eaten in Canada – have a larger carbon impact than importing Tomatoes from Brazil where they grow without a heated greenhouse.

Trees are obviously able to grow in lots more places, but that doesn't mean they grow equally well everywhere I'm guessing. I'm not an expert but the carbon cost of moving things around the world is often quite small comparatively.

Re: The Pretty Good House

#215

Post by ztetranz »

bruce511 wrote: post #34
qbasic_forever wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1000 square feet is so small there isn't much to do and only so many ways to design it. IMHO you could easily find a small bungalow of that size, have the interior ripped out and taken down to studs, then totally rebuilt to exactly the layout you want and still be way under the cost of commissioning an architect to design something from scratch.

I'm intrigued to see that you consider 1000 sq feet (100 sq m) to be "so small". It's twice the size of the first house I owned (which was also 2 bed, and pretty typical starter size here) [1] To me 1000 sq feet for 2 bedrooms sounds fantastic. So many ways you can use that space creatively. So many different layout options and shapes. My recommendation would be to start with an architect. Given a good budget and def…

I'm living in the US but from a country where houses are generally smaller. Lots of land here in the US in suburban subdivisions seem to have minimum size restrictions. I think a few lots I looked at had minimums of 2500 sq ft. You don't have the freedom to build a smaller house.

Re: The Pretty Good House

#216

Post by alkonaut »

tdiff wrote: post #145
bjarneh wrote: post #88

> Even the best windows and doors on the market perform much worse than even an average wall New windows here in Norway are often triple or quadruple glazed, and they have a pretty good R-value; so they are not that much worse than average walls at least.

In Russia triple-glazed windows have been as well pretty much standard for decades.

Somehow I think that might vary a bit. 20% don't have indoor plumbing, I'd be shocked if they had 3-glass windows in those homes. Of course, standard for new construction could be it ,as I guess there is also very little new construction in poorer areas.

Re: The Pretty Good House

#217

Post by poooogles »

bjarneh wrote: post #93
ssl232 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TIL quadruple glazing is a thing. Is the light noticeably more attenuated through 4 panes of glass compared to 2 or 3?

> Is the light noticeably more attenuated through 4 panes of glass compared to 2 or 3? I don't notice a difference now that I have two double glazed windows on top of each other (kobla vindu - I don't know the English word for it), I'll include a picture here: https://spesialvinduer.no/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Skaara_...

>kobla vindu - I don't know the English word for it)

In the UK we'd call this secondary glazing if I'm understanding the image correctly.

Re: The Pretty Good House

#218

Post by goodpoint »

carabiner wrote: post #11

I'm looking at building a home as a first time home owner in the next few years. One thing I'm wondering is how many headaches can I avoid if I just choose an expensive builder and not try to haggle or save a buck at every turn? I just want a 2-bedroom, 1,000 sq ft bungalow and am willing to pay 60-70% more than the average $/sqft in my city if they do a good job. I'd rather have a nice small place rather than a huge…

> 1,000 sq ft bungalow

And you call that a bungalow!?

Re: The Pretty Good House

#219

Post by darkwater »

jq-r wrote: post #172
darkwater wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's normal, there are varying degrees of competence in each trade. If someone asks who should they hire to develop a software solution, the answer is "a software company", even if there are software companies that develop awful software full of bugs.

Slightly sarcastic a bit, but isn't the point of all that engineering schooling, certification, titles, social prestige etc some kind of assurance that those people don't make mistakes? Or if they do, very slight ones? In a sense you cannot have it both ways right?

The idea behind is surely that, but it doesn't mean they can screw things anyway... the difference is that they will be accountable by law for it (which is an important difference, especially if compared to the world of THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS")

Re: The Pretty Good House

#220

Post by bjarneh »

poooogles wrote: post #217
bjarneh wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is the light noticeably more attenuated through 4 panes of glass compared to 2 or 3? I don't notice a difference now that I have two double glazed windows on top of each other (kobla vindu - I don't know the English word for it), I'll include a picture here: https://spesialvinduer.no/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Skaara_...

>kobla vindu - I don't know the English word for it) In the UK we'd call this secondary glazing if I'm understanding the image correctly.

OK, an absolute nightmare to clean though. 4 surfaces on each window; and dirt/insects etc. can sneak into the space between the windows. But they look old cool and authentic I guess :-)
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