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Why hasn't prefab construction taken over?

fastcompany.com

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Re: Why hasn't prefab construction taken over?

#2

Post by OldHand2018 »

As the article points out, the cost of the house is the same as the cost of a traditionally built house in the most expensive home construction area of the United States, and at the same time you are extremely limited in the geometries you can use.

Does that answer the question?

Re: Why hasn't prefab construction taken over?

#3

Post by FullyFunctional »

I really like the concept and would take that any day over the California homes built with toothpicks and cart board by a random crew (I'm sitting on one right now and there aren't two straight lines).

The bone system even looks like something I might be able to put together myself (besides stuff like foundation, pluming, and electrical).

Re: Why hasn't prefab construction taken over?

#4

Post by jeffbee »

Prefab is the wrong optimization. It targets a minor improvement in a small part of the overall budget. Most of the time and money of construction in America is tied up in land prices, permitting, and regulation. Prefab solves zero of these issues.

There is a building going up in Oakland right now where Factory_OS put out a press release that they had built it in ten days. But they spent 7 years getting approvals, 18 months in site prep, and they've been detailing and finishing the building for more than a year since the press release, so it doesn't seem like the method of construction was a very important factor.

Re: Why hasn't prefab construction taken over?

#7

Post by ThenAsNow »

OldHand2018 wrote: post #2

As the article points out, the cost of the house is the same as the cost of a traditionally built house in the most expensive home construction area of the United States, and at the same time you are extremely limited in the geometries you can use. Does that answer the question?

While this is fine as the high-level answer, the interesting question seems to be why the as-installed cost would be the same as typical wasteful North American "stick building"? I've spent some time thinking about better ways to build houses, spoken with like-minded architects, etc., and haven't gotten to the bottom of this question.

Intuitively, it seems like there should be quite a bit of room to decrease costs by using engineered, pre-fabricated/panelized construction. There should be less waste, less manual labor, and less re-work. Yet the best case seems to be approximately the same costs, though I would expect at improved quality or improved first-time quality.

Another system for engineered building, though based on wood, is Blueprint Robotics: http://www.blueprint-robotics.com/

I actually started my personal line of inquiry favoring steel construction as well, though some research convinced me that using a home as a carbon sink through wood construction from sustainably-managed forests made significant sense. For something like an airtight, well-insulated (Net Zero or better) home using wood-based sheathing, the coefficient of thermal expansion compatibility with wood structure also makes sense. That being said, it appears the Bone structure folks have their own solutions to prevent thermal shorts between the exterior and the steel structure, as they have apparently used their system for Net Zero and Passivhaus construction.

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