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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

#301

Post by delackner »

curiousllama wrote: post #210
markus_zhang wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once a contractor told me my apartment building, which was built in 1939, has very good load bearing walls that "they don't do nowadays". I do think that it could be more of "nowadays we can use lighter material to do the same job" angle. I also vosited quite a few apartments where they used thinner material and sound proofing is not exactly great.

Couldn’t this just be survivorship bias? We already locked down all the cheap crap from the 60s. It’s only the rare, well-built buildings that are still around. We’re building more cheap crap, sure, but also a few rare, well-built buildings.

Here's a more real example that is not just one "feeling". In Portland Oregon there are TONS of hundred year old houses that all look fairly similar because they were all built "cheap" back then from mail order catalogs.

Here's a page showing some of those mail order catalogs: https://www.thoughtco.com/foursquare-house-plans-catalog-fav...

Looking from the basement up through to the framing, or from the second story down to the flooring, EVERYTHING was built from really thick timber. If you've walked around a modern unfinished project you can see nearly everything wood is made from fast growing wood or particles of wood just glued together. And that holds true even for "high-end" home projects (aka homes sold as high end because they have fancy kitchen appliances, not solid construction).

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

#302

Post by linuxftw »

wonderwonder wrote: post #72

Wonder how much of it is related to contractors underbidding to win a contract and then saying they need more money which slows everything down. Or just throwing a bid out without really doing the due diligence required to understand what needs to be done. For example the New York tunnel project that's billions over cost and years behind. I see this every time I hire a contractor to do work on my house, every experie…

Have you considered what you're asking for is not practical? Nobody is going to attempt to pour a slab under an existing structure through a hole behind a fireplace.

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

#303

Post by thereddaikon »

HEmanZ wrote: post #121
thereddaikon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affordable housing has little to do with the cost of building the house.

In Manhattan or San Francisco? Probably not. But in most of the gigantic, sprawling USA, I suspect affordable housing absolutely has everything to do with cost of building a house.

In my modestly sized city nowhere near California or New York the problem has nothing to do with building costs and predates the rising costs of building materials. It has everything to do with poor city planning and a lack of building permits for middle income housing. Plenty of over priced McMansions and plenty of half occupied apartments. Not enough normal houses. So the market became irrational. People buying houses site unseen even before COVID. And property values going way up.

Another contributor to the problem was outside speculators buying residential properties. Specifically Berkshire Hathaway and Zillow come to mind. But I'm sure others were doing it too. It should be illegal.

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

#304

Post by slt2021 »

rsj_hn wrote: post #229
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/...

I don't think this is due to illegal aliens, without which our construction industry would be in even worse shape, but rather that there have been massive declines in the competence of domestic workers across the board, and this has been hidden by outsourcing, importing skilled workers, and technological growth (e.g. have machines do things that domestic workers cannot), so that you see productivity declines in those…

Bingo! Your comment hit the nail in the head.

This also has to do with overall rise in cost of good education and decreasing quality of education in public schools across the board.

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

#305

Post by mannerheim »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #298
mannerheim wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, GP has a point: unexpected expenses and delays in construction represent sunk costs, and don't matter with respect to maximising profits, as the landlord should pick the price which maximises profits with respect to whatever the operating costs of the apartment are, without considering the cost of construction. However, as sibling comments to yours mentioned, there are flaws to this perspective: - You can…

My point is that the GP's point isnt applicable, and critiquing a statement that was not made . >If, all along, you could have rented it out for more money ... why were you planning to rent it out for less money? ... the original post never said they would rent it out for less money. Nor did it say they would rent it out for more money. They only said the rent required to break even went up. This is clear in the orig…

I think implicit here

> This was almost a year delay and added cost overruns, etc. It also made the required rent higher to recoup those costs and try to be profitable (that deal will lose money).

is the 'try to be profitable' that implies they did end up raising rent higher than otherwise planned, but you are right that this isn't necessarily true.

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

#306

Post by yamtaddle »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #299
yamtaddle wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some finish materials are much worse. Small (by modern standards) ordinary middle-class homes in, say, the 1950s, had the kind of interior and exterior doors, and baseboards/molding, that'd be considered luxury-tier today. Even big expensive McMansions usually don't have doors and molding that nice, now. The higher end might get the luxury-tier front door... maybe. But any back or side doors won't be that nice, and u…

But do any of those things yield utility for the end user, other than being able to say it is more expensive?

Much nicer-feeling, more durable & don't look as bad after light wear, more repairable, more modifiable without replacement. Far less need for various glues and solvents that are probably not great things to have out-gassing in your house.

[EDIT] Oh and the solid doors sure seemed to do a much better job of sound-proofing than modern ones do.

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

#307

Post by marcusverus »

rtkwe wrote: post #212
marcusverus wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think that the concept of unauthorized workers coming across the border has only existed since the year 2000? I think you're confusing the term "undocumented" or "undocumented worker" with the underlying concept that's referenced by the terms. The concept has long been in in the public spotlight using different terms ("illegal" or "illegal alien"). Here's some statements from Gerald Ford on the same concept, usin…

Ironically modern tighter boarder controls contribute to more people moving here permanently/semi-permanently. When border crossings were easier and cheaper migrant workers could come work for a harvest or several and return to Mexico or beyond during the off season only living in the US for a short period while working. Now the crossing is more expensive and dangerous so the incentive is to move here full time.

> Ironically modern tighter boarder controls contribute to more people moving here permanently/semi-permanently.

Border crossings are at a 20 year high, but the problem is that border controls are too tight? That seems odd.

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

#308

Post by shadowtree »

Pretty sure worker health has improved - so this is OSHA making sure you have proper safety procedures, staffing, gear ... which all makes slapping together the Empire State Building in a little over a year now impossible.

Which is a good thing!

Watching the videos touring China skyscraper build quality makes you appreciate building codes in the West as well.

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

#309

Post by unsupp0rted »

VLM wrote: post #138
winrid wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also need to break the tasks down to smaller units. *George, instead of just putting up this wall, can you have a ticket and close it for every board you put up?*

Even better, we could base hiring on solving word search puzzles containing workplace words to select the best of the best construction workers, and maybe some trivia tests.

I mean word puzzles and trivia tests won't select the best construction workers necessarily, but it'll help us select for the dedicated and smart ones, who really put the gumption into grinding LeetBrick.

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

#310

Post by mindslight »

yamtaddle wrote: post #270
latchkey wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, while it is up to code, pro's don't put sharkbites in walls. I've gone with ss crimps instead of copper rings too. Mostly cause I live near the ocean and the ss crimps just seem easier to use. 200' of blue/red sharkbite brand pex b tubing is only about $70 on amazon right now, amazing.

Shark bite is awesome for capping a broken pipe until you can get around to a proper fix. Love those shark-bite caps. IMO every home owner should have pipe cutters for the pipes in their house (whatever materials those may be), and a set of those caps ready to apply for every size of pipe they've got. Ought to be as common as having a screwdriver and hammer. They're absolute life-savers when a leak or pipe burst happ…

If you've got a significant leak in a supply pipe, there should be a valve on the branch that will allow you to shut off just that branch rather than the whole house. You might need to shut off the whole house first while you figure out where that valve is, but you probably won't have to do ad-hoc plumbing to get most of the house back on.

But yes, in general I'm always for people becoming familiar with tools and DIY.

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