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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

#251

Post by willi59549879 »

eagleinparadise wrote: post #115

CRE guy here. A lot of this "productivity loss" is also due to government related staffing issues and bureaucracy. Most people are describing more complex building codes, so I'll add something new. I had a project that was delayed by over a year during Covid because the city approved incorrect plans, came back and requested revisions, and then lost the physical plans (without us knowing until we checked in asking wha…

When i read the article i expected something like that to be the reason. Some paper pusher writing down rule books to follow. Then someone else who hasn't gotten his hands dirty in his life writes a report the workers are to blame for bad productivity.

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

#252

Post by SpeedilyDamage »

Diederich wrote: post #161
treeman79 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I grew up in Southern California in the 1970s, and a non-trival percentage of the daily conversations I had with normal people had to be in Spanish, because their English was much worse than my Spanish, which was fair. "Southern California" was/is a very, very big area. I grew up southeast of downtown. Can you share where/when you grew up? Just curious. As far as 'replacement': I can't dismiss such opinions out of ha…

I guess I’m not sure I understand what’s so great about English anyway. Why not switch to Spanish, or at least adopt a more bilingual approach where it makes sense.

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

#253

Post by baremetal »

withinboredom wrote: post #152
CydeWeys wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if you're illegally hiring someone, you're not gonna pay them on the book.

It's on the books, under "toilets" or something. That money has to go somewhere. Also, undocumented workers still have to pay income taxes.

>Also, undocumented workers still have to pay income taxes.

Undocumented workers are sometimes paid in cash.

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

#254

Post by frankus »

Kehvarl wrote: post #149
softfalcon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is why we're seeing some of the industry starting to experiment with pre-fabbed homes that are modular but can be constructed using the automation we see in car manufacturing. The weak link in creating ever more complex homes, with ever more stringent building codes, at faster rates, is to remove the "humans with nail guns and drills" from the construction process. At some point, us meat sacks are the…

Back in 2003-2007, I worked for a home builder who vertically integrated and went for maximized modularity. In '05 we expanded our truss yard to 2 large presses and 4 automated saws, and added a wall-framing yard what worked the same way as the truss yard. Add in that they bought a concrete company to do the slabs, and a 2-story house could go from pour to sheeting in 35 days. Plumbing, electrical, and finishing jobs…

I think the lack of vertical integration could be a part of it. For example the framers don't have much incentive to make things easier for the plumbers or electricians.

There was a recent HN post on a shortage of electricians that got me to thinking why studs, which already come pre-cut to exactly 92 5/8", don't also come pre-drilled for wiring at outlet and switch height (at least I've never seen that in wood studs).

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

#255

Post by brewdad »

runnerup wrote: post #194
eagleinparadise wrote: post #115

CRE guy here. A lot of this "productivity loss" is also due to government related staffing issues and bureaucracy. Most people are describing more complex building codes, so I'll add something new. I had a project that was delayed by over a year during Covid because the city approved incorrect plans, came back and requested revisions, and then lost the physical plans (without us knowing until we checked in asking wha…

> made the required rent higher If, all along, you could have rented it out for more money ... why were you planning to rent it out for less money? I get that you wouldn't have to, but it appears that the "market rate rent" was higher than you initially anticipated. As a corollary, assuming that you had initially planned on the highest rent that the market would bear...it seems that after a year of unexpected delays…

Because outside of an economics textbook, no one has perfect information on what the market will bear.

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

#256

Post by intrasight »

I still say measurement/approach error.

The article defines productivity as "value add per unit of input".

The only measurement of "value add" that makes sense it the sale price. Given how high are those prices are, I don't see how "productivity" could not be super high.

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

#257

Post by s1artibartfast »

runnerup wrote: post #194
eagleinparadise wrote: post #115

CRE guy here. A lot of this "productivity loss" is also due to government related staffing issues and bureaucracy. Most people are describing more complex building codes, so I'll add something new. I had a project that was delayed by over a year during Covid because the city approved incorrect plans, came back and requested revisions, and then lost the physical plans (without us knowing until we checked in asking wha…

> made the required rent higher If, all along, you could have rented it out for more money ... why were you planning to rent it out for less money? I get that you wouldn't have to, but it appears that the "market rate rent" was higher than you initially anticipated. As a corollary, assuming that you had initially planned on the highest rent that the market would bear...it seems that after a year of unexpected delays…

Your comment only makes sense if you ignore the rest of the sentence you quoted.

"It also made the required rent higher to recoup those costs and try to be profitable (that deal will lose money)."

required rent =/= planned rent =/= actual rent

Higher costs than expected can easily cause a project that would be profitable to be a loss.

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

#258

Post by yamtaddle »

eagleinparadise wrote: post #115

CRE guy here. A lot of this "productivity loss" is also due to government related staffing issues and bureaucracy. Most people are describing more complex building codes, so I'll add something new. I had a project that was delayed by over a year during Covid because the city approved incorrect plans, came back and requested revisions, and then lost the physical plans (without us knowing until we checked in asking wha…

State and local governments are, as far as I can tell, simultaneously spending way too much money and are badly understaffed in certain areas. Sometimes even while appearing well-staffed, because there's some bottleneck elsewhere in the system (due to insufficient staffing there) preventing the efforts of an army of other frontline workers from being effective. Like the elevator inspector thing—you may have more than enough electrical inspectors but not enough elevator inspectors, so, the extra electrical inspectors can't improve the situation.

Of course the pay's shit, you're subject to all kinds of quality-of-work-life destroying whims of politicians at the top, the bureaucracy is as abusive and ineffective as stereotypes about bureaucracies would lead one to expect, and if you have an effective union shielding you from some of that, about half the politicians are constantly trying to weaken or eliminate that, plus trying to mess with your pension which is practically the only attractive thing about those jobs... so, no fucking wonder, really. Recent wage inflation has made all this stuff worse by making unresponsive government pay scales far less attractive than market-driven wages elsewhere, so systems and offices that were teetering before are now falling over.

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

#259

Post by goodSteveramos »

harvey9 wrote: post #179
galdosdi wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If I am an unprincipled landlord then it may be in my best interest to change from renting to families to renting to sharers. Four working adults may be able to pay more in total than two parents supporting two children can.

Exactly. This is how immigration has totally screwed family formation and depressed birth rates for Americans. Young couples cant afford to buy or rent a home in their own city and have to either delay marriage to live with their parents or abandon their families and lifelong friends to move somewhere with lower cost of living. All so employers can go 40 years with giving workers a raise.

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

#260

Post by baremetal »

pixl97 wrote: post #225
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you have to re-anchor your safety harness to move 5 feet it's kind of difficult to maintain efficiency.

When you have to close the site and scrape someone's brains up it's really difficult to maintain efficiency.

Construction safety laws are written in blood.
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