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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

#361

Post by gamblor956 »

notch656c wrote: post #356
gamblor956 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not even remotely the same. The old house was up-to-code, and considered safe for habitation, when it was built. Your new house was not. Very importantly, if you renovate an old house, regulations may require you to update the house to modern building code standards for plumbing, electricity, etc.

Yes that's the scam. Magically the houses are not held to the same code. Got mine, fuck everybody else.

No, houses are held up to the code that applied when they were built, because those codes were generally accepted as safe at the time.

Old houses are held up to the new code when they are renovated, because updating old houses to the new code frequently requires rebuilding substantial portions of the house to comply with new requirements. It's not about "fuck everyone else." It's about recognizing that the extensive work that would be required to comply with substantially safer modern codes is best done when substantial construction work is already planned to be performed.

Commercial buildings are held to up to new codes whenever ownership, or tenancy, changes hands.

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

#362

Post by notch656c »

gamblor956 wrote: post #361
notch656c wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that's the scam. Magically the houses are not held to the same code. Got mine, fuck everybody else.

No, houses are held up to the code that applied when they were built, because those codes were generally accepted as safe at the time. Old houses are held up to the new code when they are renovated, because updating old houses to the new code frequently requires rebuilding substantial portions of the house to comply with new requirements. It's not about "fuck everyone else." It's about recognizing that the extensive…

>because updating old houses to the new code frequently requires rebuilding substantial portions of the house to comply with new requirements

OK but if I build a new house to the old code then I also will need substantial work to rebuild it to bring it into compliance. So I could use the same logic I shouldn't have to. Safe enough for them, safe enough for me.

>No, houses are held up to the code that applied when they were built,

Again, that's the scam. I'll build my house to one code and then vote to make the code harsher for the next guy to up my property value. If it's impossible to build a new house as economically as mine, mine's now worth more than it would have been.

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

#363

Post by mike50 »

frankus wrote: post #264
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 great thing about PEX is that they made an expensive* tool that makes joining pipes like 90% less skill-intensive. I'd love to see something similar done for electric wiring. I'm picturing something like an electrical box that you can directly connect Romex that's been stripped with a special tool, and then a circuit-breaker-style snap-in for the actual receptacle. The parts/tools would cost more but might dramat…

Hubbel already makes this. https://www.hubbell.com/wiringdevice-kellems/en/Products/Ele...

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

#364

Post by mike50 »

RC_ITR wrote: post #267
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.

There's the theory that building codes are used similarly (and complimentarily) to zoning laws to limit the supply of new housing (and therefore raise property values). A great example being fire walls and mandatory self-latching doors between garages and living spaces - definitely a logical thing (cars and their gas are flammable, so let's isolate them from the house). When you look at the data [0], garage fires are…

That's not the root cause. The Root cause is needing a house for your car.

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

#365

Post by jessaustin »

rascul wrote: post #110
jessaustin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For sure; better design would move most supply lines to interior walls. However, most owners of standalone homes want to be able to look out a window situated above their kitchen sink. It's possible to have supply lines sticking out of the floor, but that complicates inspection and cabinet installation and also it sucks to have to search for one's undersink supplies behind those pipes.

Another factor, in concrete slab construction, is that we want drain lines to be as short as possible, because even though it's possible to get those correct before the pour it doesn't always happen. Concentrating fixtures in one corner of the house tends to force supply lines into exterior walls.

Maybe I should hire better plumbers, and maybe I should live where it doesn't get cold, but until then maybe I should just use PEX.

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

#366

Post by HomeDeLaPot »

notch656c wrote: post #273
frankus wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it shows that there's at least a basic cost-benefit analysis taking place, where things that we've learned provide a safety benefit that can be added at minimal cost during construction are required, but bulldozing a house because it will burn down 15 minutes faster doesn't pencil out.

And yet if I built a new house against code they would still make me go back and fix it, even though I could make the exact argument you made about the old house not penciling out to go back and make them fix it.

Well, yeah, isn't that just enforcing the codes? If you didn't have to go back and fix it, you could build as many sloppy houses as you want and the codes would be meaningless.

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

#367

Post by tomrod »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #357
tomrod wrote: post #163

Worker productivity is meaningless if the secular trends (read:code requirements) increase in complexity over time. This analysis approach and outcomes are garbage, in my professional opinion. While I generally appreciate Dr. Goolsbee's research, here the causality as presented here is seriously off. The assumption is that the productivity has decreased. However, the factors of this aren't a shift in the supply curve…

I think it's an accurate way of looking at it but not the only one. Different company goes from making 10 widgets and 10 hours to One widget in 10 hours plus paperwork, that is a productivity loss in terms of widgets. Sure, and entirely misses any difference in quality certification of the widget. However, the point that you are fewer widgets per hour still stands. It is a starting point for further questions. For ex…

The issue is the attribution. Here, workers are attributed (even at a high level, consider the title). But it's not the workers, it's bad policy and bad management.

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

#368

Post by latchkey »

mike50 wrote: post #363
frankus wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The great thing about PEX is that they made an expensive* tool that makes joining pipes like 90% less skill-intensive. I'd love to see something similar done for electric wiring. I'm picturing something like an electrical box that you can directly connect Romex that's been stripped with a special tool, and then a circuit-breaker-style snap-in for the actual receptacle. The parts/tools would cost more but might dramat…

Hubbel already makes this. https://www.hubbell.com/wiringdevice-kellems/en/Products/Ele...

Neat but the speed up here just doesn't seem that extreme, I guess maybe if you're installing 10k of these a day. I feel like the time it takes to put the wires into the harness is just as much time as putting them straight into the receptacle and tightening the nut.

I did start using wago's though... those are handy for sure.

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

#369

Post by s1artibartfast »

tomrod wrote: post #367
s1artibartfast wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's an accurate way of looking at it but not the only one. Different company goes from making 10 widgets and 10 hours to One widget in 10 hours plus paperwork, that is a productivity loss in terms of widgets. Sure, and entirely misses any difference in quality certification of the widget. However, the point that you are fewer widgets per hour still stands. It is a starting point for further questions. For ex…

The issue is the attribution. Here, workers are attributed (even at a high level, consider the title). But it's not the workers, it's bad policy and bad management.

Think a lot of people on this thread are making the mistake of confusing attribution and blame. If you tie a worker's hands behind their back, you will have low worker productivity. A spade is a spade. Asking why workers have low productivity is an entirely different question. People seem Primed to assume that anyone saying workers are unproductive means that they're lazy. This is obviously not the case. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together should know that low worker productivity is not a root cause itself. I don't think that the article claims this at all.

Furthermore, if it is the case of bad management or is some in this thread claim bad regulation, you can't determine that without first demonstrating a decrease in worker productivity. Bad management is bad because it causes lower worker productivity.

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

#370

Post by toast0 »

notch656c wrote: post #362
gamblor956 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, houses are held up to the code that applied when they were built, because those codes were generally accepted as safe at the time. Old houses are held up to the new code when they are renovated, because updating old houses to the new code frequently requires rebuilding substantial portions of the house to comply with new requirements. It's not about "fuck everyone else." It's about recognizing that the extensive…

>because updating old houses to the new code frequently requires rebuilding substantial portions of the house to comply with new requirements OK but if I build a new house to the old code then I also will need substantial work to rebuild it to bring it into compliance. So I could use the same logic I shouldn't have to. Safe enough for them, safe enough for me. >No, houses are held up to the code that applied when the…

Let's go and tear down houses when code is updated and see how quick we can make everyone homeless.

It's not reasonable to build with GFCI outlets in the bathrooms in 1956. It's not reasonable to build without them in 2023.

Most places have a very limited enforcement appetite for existing construction. If it was safe and current when built, it's fine enough. Exceptions include adding smoke and carbon monoxide detectors --- but they're not that expensive to buy or install; and sometimes you can't get a home insured if it had certain electrical panels with poor safety records, and knob and tube wiring is sometimes frowned upon (but really, it's not that bad if it hasn't been altered; just a lot of houses where they added too much load on the existing knob and tube and overloaded wiring is never good). That doesn't mean you should build that way today. Somethings that were standard aren't even available anymore; nobody makes orangeburg pipe since the 1970s, so you've got to use something better.

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