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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

#31
post #15

Houses were much simpler 50 years ago. The building codes have changed a lot since then and modern houses have added construction complexity with better waterproofing, air sealing, fire proofing, bracing, and more advanced mechanical systems.

Agreed. Although it's very surprising to me that the efficiencies of mass production haven't gone to housing. They are often still created by manual labor instead of assembling prefabricated modules. I think it should be possible to build panels that are well insulated and have all the needed wiring and everything else already built in.

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

#32

This is absurd. Houses are so much more complex than in the 1970s, and so much larger. In 1972 central AC was not common, now it's basically required. Square footage is way higher. Number of electrical outlets and switches per room. Moulding and trim are expected in many houses. Porches, decks, patios are much more ornate. Today's average house ia closer to the house of a millionaire in the 1970s than the average hou…

I'm not sure I would say much of anything is more ornate today compared to prior. Especially if you actually look at the details of the craftsmanship, anything of "standard" quality of times past are high-end details now.

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

#33
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…

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.

My pipes are all copper, and the hot water contains a non trivial amount of lead (from the solder used to join the pipes). I had it tested - around 20 ppb.

We don't drink or cook with the hot water, but in theory if the plumbing was PEX we could.

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

#35
It doesn't seem like an uncorrelated observation that "construction worker" is one of the most undesirable occupations, alongside "janitor" and "line cook". If it's a terrible career, only the people lacking options will choose it.

Housing, healthcare and education are the three sectors infamously outpacing inflation in the modern economy. In the latter two, workers usually have at least a decent, if not good, career prospect. Construction, meanwhile, is considered a gig for noncitizens who can't be hired in the regular economy — notwithstanding the special subsets like electricians and plumbers.

Part of this likely has to do with the incredible amount of unemployment risk faced by a construction worker; construction volumes may plummet in any region at any time, forcing workers to move hundreds of kilometers away or change jobs entirely. Worse, these fluctuations are often correlated among regions, practically guaranteeing that many builders will be out of a job in downturns. Education and healthcare, at least, suffer almost none of this, despite other stressors.

One mitigation may be a sort of "Keynesian public housing" apparatus: while the populist thing to do is to call for public housing when prices are at their highest, this just puts more strain on a squeezed construction market. But if the state picks up the slack during downturns by specifically building small, affordable-type (if not explicitly subsidized) units, it may maintain employment volumes and (long-run) prevent lower-class pain during housing booms, while the units built will not directly compete with the sort of large & luxurious housing built by the private sector.

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

#36
> And second, the authors describe the curious fact that producers located in more-productive areas do not grow at expected rates. Indeed, rather than construction inputs flowing to areas where they are more productive, the activity share of these areas either stagnates or even falls. The authors suggest that this problem with allocative efficiency may accentuate the aggregate productivity problem for the industry.

This is a nice way to say "NIMBYs have made sure building anything in areas where there are jobs is a herculean task"

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

#37
post #33

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.

My pipes are all copper, and the hot water contains a non trivial amount of lead (from the solder used to join the pipes). I had it tested - around 20 ppb. We don't drink or cook with the hot water, but in theory if the plumbing was PEX we could.

What year was your house built? I really hope this is not a risk on things built after 2000 (or 1980?)

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

#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/...

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

#40
post #15

Houses were much simpler 50 years ago. The building codes have changed a lot since then and modern houses have added construction complexity with better waterproofing, air sealing, fire proofing, bracing, and more advanced mechanical systems.

However many modern homes use inferior material for the job comparing to the older homes in the same area. Probably to cut cost. I'm not sure if it was also the case for older homes built in the 50s/60s though.

Can you give an example of inferior material?
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