81–90 of 426 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also the real wages have not increased much but all the expenses have, it's just demoralizing
But people still want and yell for “affordable housing”. Can’t have your cake and eat it too
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."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn’t the real headline then that building construction technology hasn’t improved at the same rate as other manufacturing tech? For example, cars today are orders of magnitude more complicated than 50 years ago, but due to more efficient manufacturing technology, the auto industry has far higher productivity per employee than it did 50 years ago.
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…
For American-style suburban homes, it's most efficient to build most of the home on site, and only manufacture off-site a handful items like roof trusses. People might not realize this, but a small crew can frame several houses in a single (very, very long) day.
That seems to be rather more related to the distribution of capital than work output. If the construction industry were getting more efficient, you'd actually expect its margins to be declining, right? I don't think this is measuring what people want it to measure.
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/...
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/...
Also the real wages have not increased much but all the expenses have, it's just demoralizing
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Book may have been on the front page last week but I assure you very very few people in the US have insulation above and below their foundations or incredibly air tight houses.
Gotta start somewhere. Older houses were built when energy was cheap and plentiful, and we're transitioning to a future where that isn't as clear.
It would also triple the construction cost of the house. Reasons. But hey, $0 energy bill.
Most builders don't do any of that stuff, like at all. Just the bare minimum required. They aren't incentivized. Most consumers would - and do - opt for single pane windows over dual, and dual over triple, 'etc. Even when the windows would "pay for themselves" over their lifetime.
Corruption was a massive problem in USA industry as well as slowdowns due to legal red tape. My guess is incompetent government is at the root of the problem. The more you scale red tape, the harder it is to do anything. Look at the California high speed rail. Corrupt governments make far more money by slowing down a project and using it as a washing machine to extract rents. Getting large public projects to misspend…
Having separately elected house, senate, and president is a primary source of gridlock. Each body can reject a legislative change, while none can effectively create change. The only way laws can be passed in this system is under a very rare set of conditions. When those conditions are present (government shutdown imminent, filibuster eliminated, plurality requirements reduced) you see large omnibus bills pushed through as fast as possible, without time to adequately vet the details.
From an engineering perspective, this would be like pushing a few massive commits every few years rather than making regular bug fixes as needed. As such, our laws are buggy and unmaintained. Unfortunately, this leads many to believe that regulations generally are ineffective rather than the poor implementations of such being ineffective.
Poorly written legislation puts more pressure on the judicial system to litigate between the lines. This is an externality that is extremely expensive for every individual and company to have to deal with.
I advocate for a more parliamentary style system where politicians continued careers are based on their effectiveness and continued approval rather than fixed terms. There are plenty of ways to ensure proper checks and balances without stopping government dead in it's tracks.
> 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),…
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/...
There is a lot of historical evidence, that deep knowledge and long tail expertise in specific industries is carried in groups of people with a close knit subculture. Such knowledge can also be transmitted from one subculture to another, with varying degrees of success. In order to bring in new people, one must either bring in a few beginners into a majority competent population, or have one subculture highly motivat…
> 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.
[1] https://fee.org/articles/new-homes-today-have-twice-the-squa...