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The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

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Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#101

Post by loandbehold »

arcticbull wrote: post #81
nxm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But people still want and yell for “affordable housing”. Can’t have your cake and eat it too

Affordable housing is just a zoning issue. The cost of construction is a tiny fraction of the cost of a new house in major metros. The cake you can't have and eat at the same time is: "I want affordable housing" and "I want my house to be a good investment."

That's not even remotely true. Cost of construction is typically 60 to 80% of the cost. In high cost of living areas land is more expensive but so are construction costs.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#102

Post by dumpsterlid »

kodah wrote: post #41
belval wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure this is the right answer and calling this "worker productivity" seems a bit harsh. A "Pretty Good House" (book that was on the front page last week) includes insulation above and below the foundation slab, vapour barriers, double studs to break thermal bridges, complex window installation (again thermal bridges), air exchangers and heat pumps with ducts (or mini-splits). New constructions (for cold zone),…

I have no data to back this observation up, but everyone (especially in the media, but also in corporate life) is attacking "worker productivity" lately. Everyone's got a reason, but when you dig into them they all stink.

[dead]

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#103

Post by galdosdi »

goodSteveramos wrote: post #95
nxm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But people still want and yell for “affordable housing”. Can’t have your cake and eat it too

Immigrant labor does not carry their own housing on their backs. It competes in the housing market for homes built by past generations of the native born.

Very true. That said, to be fair, the average poor undocumented immigrant demands far less space (simply because that's what they can get under the circumstances). Living multiple unrelated people to a room is not unusual, ie, even more cramped than college students, NYC 20 something year olds, etc.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#104

Post by antman »

Having worked in a construction site in another country my observation would be that we used to have countless undeclared labor for tax reasons anf now we have countless divided by two...

Now working as an analyst it is important each time to have a ground knowledge and business expert to avoid obvious measurement biases. Especially when comparing different eras.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#105

Post by CydeWeys »

arcticbull wrote: post #81
nxm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But people still want and yell for “affordable housing”. Can’t have your cake and eat it too

Affordable housing is just a zoning issue. The cost of construction is a tiny fraction of the cost of a new house in major metros. The cake you can't have and eat at the same time is: "I want affordable housing" and "I want my house to be a good investment."

And building code too. There are plenty of cost-efficient designs built in Europe that can't be built here because we effectively require e.g. doubly-loaded corridors through stairwell requirements. The Europeans can put up more housing units on a smaller plot of land than we can, and for a cheaper price, because of these requirements.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#106

Post by nradov »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #7
latchkey wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm remodeling my place right now. You're totally right, the building codes are a lot more complex and there is more 'work' to do as a result. No more just hiding electrical boxes in the walls. Heh. That said, the products being used have improved a lot. Things like PEX tubing for plumbing (instead of copper) and glue on walls for showers (over doing tile work), make some aspects go a lot faster. Edit: Oh, I forgot t…

The big builders like DR Horton and Lennar target build times of 100 days per home that meets minimum code requirements, which is pretty good productivity. A community of 100 homes can be up and running in 2 years.

And that 100 days target is mainly for achieving optimal efficiency. If you want to optimize for time it's totally possible to go from an empty lot to a finished house in under a week, provided that all the workers, inspectors, and materials are available.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#107

Post by CydeWeys »

loandbehold wrote: post #101
arcticbull wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affordable housing is just a zoning issue. The cost of construction is a tiny fraction of the cost of a new house in major metros. The cake you can't have and eat at the same time is: "I want affordable housing" and "I want my house to be a good investment."

That's not even remotely true. Cost of construction is typically 60 to 80% of the cost. In high cost of living areas land is more expensive but so are construction costs.

There's no way. Most of the value of housing in expensive areas is the land itself, not the cost of the building.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#108

Post by samstave »

pirate787 wrote: post #39

In this time-period there has been a large-scale introduction of undocumented workers into the construction labor force. They are a quarter of some construction labor categories. Perhaps using undocumented subcontractors may play a role in lower productivity growth (cheap, unstable, and relatively unskilled labor) or maybe just distorting the statistics. https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/...

Have you heard of Bangledesh, India, Phillipines and their relation to middle east construction practices project-managed by NL, UK pms?

I hope you understand, because of the implications.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#109

Post by mindslight »

belval wrote: post #9
hindsightbias wrote: post #2

> number of houses or total square footage built per employee Average house size has probably doubled in the last 50 years. Nail guns can't make up for building code and higher finish work demands. It's not uncommon to see 6 or 7 layers in sheathing today.

Pretty sure this is the right answer and calling this "worker productivity" seems a bit harsh. A "Pretty Good House" (book that was on the front page last week) includes insulation above and below the foundation slab, vapour barriers, double studs to break thermal bridges, complex window installation (again thermal bridges), air exchangers and heat pumps with ducts (or mini-splits). New constructions (for cold zone),…

Don't forget all the roofline complexity for "aesthetics". Or higher pitches because they look nice too.

It'd be interesting to see these stats broken out by trade, with an appropriate unit (/sqft might make sense for roofing, but it doesn't for wall sheathing).

I'd think a good chunk of this is due to safety expectations as well. It's a lot easier to walk around a roof if you aren't concerned with fall protection.

Re: The strange and awful path of productivity in the US construction sector

#110

Post by rascul »

jessaustin wrote: post #44
Der_Einzige wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copper is superior. I specifically went out of my way to find a house with large swaths of the plumbing done with copper. Pretty neat to have anti-microbial properties built in.

Better keep that copper out of exterior walls. It doesn't stretch and rebound like PEX when the water freezes. Those who care about homeopathy can run their drinking water through a loop of copper.

Ideally there wouldn't be water lines in exterior walls. But not everything is ideal.
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