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Comment by HarryHirsch | Hacker News Reader

Endless one-offs? Have they ever walked through a recent development by any of the well-known residential construction companies? It's all three or four of the same!

Also, have they ever walked through any European residential development of 50 years ago? People used to contract an architect for single-family dwellings then, and they would get something that was acceptable and fit their needs.

What do they want to sell the people here?

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You'd be surprised by how many differences there are in new houses (or other dwellings) that were built off of the same blueprints. These are usually small things but if you live in one of the homes, it is noticeable. I lived in a midrise condo and was the first person to move into the building so I had pretty run of the entire building for a few weeks. All of the units in any given stack of units were meant to be identical but they weren't. Sometimes a cabinet over where the fridge was to go would be missing or maybe the protective lens over the light fixture in the shower ceiling. Walls that met at a non 90 degree angle sometimes had a sharp corner, other times a smooth one, and some other times a beveled corner. Most of these difference were too small to have been customizations. They were from different work crews interpreting things differently. They were from the materials on hand being slightly different between days when the interior of different units were worked on. In my last house the neighbor across the street had the same floor plan as us but once again, lots of minor difference of little consequence but noticeable. Most were obviously from the differences in materials on site and the quirks of individual workers.

I absolutely agree - I call this field-not-yet-factory. In a factory those sort of differences will be autoamted away In the "field" they are left to the skill, discretion, whatever of individual workforce.

Frankly this costs the construction industry a fortune - work done substandard has to then be corrected later at great expense, so the driving goal will be towards a "robot construction worker" - but getting there you can imagine is problematic.

Pre-fab buildings have existed for a century by now, and they do work. However, they have a negative market reaction in most locales, and the cost saving again is not huge. so here we are.

You're concentrating on the output (what the building looks like and what people living in them think), but the actual opportunity is on the input side: what components go into those buildings, and the construction company margin achievable if they can be more standardized and mass-produced.

The big boys are well aware of the potential though, and are already in on the act: https://www.lendleasepodium.com/construction-and-development...

Indeed, I've been watching an apartment building go up, while on my daily walk. The whole thing is coming in prefab modules on trucks and being assembled on site.

The components are already standardized. You can buy almost everything you need to build a regular house in a few aisles at Home Depot.

Well, those components are too small. I'd probably like to go full-sears and just have to attach the front and back half of my house together on a foundation.

You can already buy a double wide mobile home and attach the halves together if that's what you want.

>Well, those components are too small.

When you're done handwaving, since you've hit the nail on the head (so to speak), perhaps you can expand on you think they are too small and what the optimum size really is.

I do think there is something to be said here about variances in city, state and federal ordinances and code. Ideally there would be only 1 federal code to which to build to but due to regional differences I think 1 code for any given region would suffice.

I'll add that getting city permits and what not is also a nightmare and it really shouldn't be. If there was a well equipped federal agency to do this through we'd all be better off.

Contractors are licensed at the state level. Most states already adopt model building codes recommended by national organizations. There is generally little variation in building codes between local governments within each state.

The last thing we need is more federal government overreach. Nothing in the Constitutional gives the federal government the authority to control building permits.

I'm not saying I necessarily agree, but I think there's at least some argument that building codes/permits may fall under the general welfare clause of the Constitution

Regional codes make sense. Florida houses don't need to be ready for earthquakes, California houses don't need to be ready for Cat 5 Hurricanes (although more cat 5 or 6 in the walls would be nice).

Federal permitting sounds like a nightmare too. If you need a variance, it would take an act of congress.

I would expect that a lot of the variations in the code across different areas would be related to climate and geographical differences. Some areas require cyclone/huricane rating, others need to deal with earthquakes...

> What do they want to sell the people here?

Know all of those small tract homes built during the 50s, 60s, and 70s that few want to live in now? That's a good approximation of what I think they're selling.

The postwar housing was designed to handle the baby boom. It was cheap to build due to uniformity and it largely succeeded at its purpose. We had a huge middle class as a result.

You can have speed, volume, or quality, just pick two. In the postwar period we picked speed and volume. It wasn't a bad choice given the circumstances.

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