So you want to build a house more efficiently
austinvernon.eth.link
austinvernon.eth.link
There are small model cities you can visit where several dozen prefabbers exhibit their current model homes, and if you stick to their plan, you will usually pay less than building on your own. Those are often built on wood frames, but are still quite sturdy and supposed to last at least 100 years. Others are built with bricks or aerated concrete just like individually built homes. Savings are probably achieved by bulk orders, prefab, and a well coordinated team who has built the exact same house ten times already.
In the US there are things that do not make sense because people density is so low there, even in places like New York, most people live in individual homes, spread over a big area.
When I was living in China I saw lost of things made sense that do not make sense in Europe just by the economic of scale of so much people living in such small areas.
That's patently false. In NYC only 9% of homes are single unit detached and in NY state it's only 41%.
I don't know the exact number, but there are very few cities in Europe with a density higher then NY (10,716.36 people/km2), and i'm pretty sure they're all in France, Greece and Italy
I think it is partly due to tradition, and partly due to climate differences.
IIRC, bricks became popular because wooden house were forbidden in dense cities, and clay beat stone in availability/price/suitability (wouldn’t know which)
Certainly, after London burnt, “much of the old street plan was recreated in the new City, with improvements in hygiene and fire safety: wider streets, open and accessible wharves along the length of the Thames, with no houses obstructing access to the river, and, most importantly, buildings constructed of brick and stone, not wood.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_London#Aftermath)
Food scarcity was a constant reality of premodern times. I’m not talking about occasional famines, where people literally died en masse, but rather about normal times. The food had to be scarce, otherwise the population wouldn’t have been a small fraction of the current one.
> Also, not all forest land can be used well for agriculture,
Sure, but back then people used even marginal lands if at all possible, precisely because of land scarcity. Ever seen those terraced farms on mountain slopes in China? We don’t do that anymore, but it made sense back then. Moreover, land that wasn’t good enough for farming was mostly used for animal grazing, not forest.
> and if there wasn’t much forest, there weren’t many twigs, either.
No, as I said, you can get twigs from coppiced or pollarded trees, which yield more fuel per acre than normal forest, but don’t yield any structural lumber.
There was a tornado just a few days ago in the Czech Republic (not far from where I live), and as far as I can see, houses did lose their roofs, or the shingles at least, but the structures remained mostly intact. Many houses have basements in which people could hide in relative safety. Five people died unfortunately, not sure how many of those were in their homes at the time. But I think those rather sturdy houses made of bricks did infact save a lot of lives, and prevented many more from totally losing their home.
To me it feels deeply illogical to build a house basically made of light wood frames when I know a hurricane can blow it away while I‘m inside of it. I‘m not sure about earthquakes, we have them of course, but they are less severe than in other areas in the world.
But, tornadoes here follow similar paths over a fifty year period. When I bought my house I found a hole in the fifty year tornado map and I’ve never had one come near me. Every couple decades the patterns may shift to other patterns, but generally speaking both the new patterns and old patterns have all happened in the last fifty years.
For a few decades the Swiss required building concrete nuclear fallout bunkers for every resident. This was relaxed only recently, but presumably it was doable for five decades. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-bunker/swiss-relax-...
It seems a concrete dome would also work if digging a bunker is too expensive. Yes it’s not pretty, but not being afraid of dying during the next hurricane season must be worth something. A small dome can’t cost much.
https://www.icfmag.com/2012/09/tornado-resistant-concrete-ho...
What was your source for this information?
There's a saying: It's not THAT the wind is blowing,it's WHAT the wind is blowing.
A log cabin would not have survived the worst areas of it I don't believe.
Hurricanes are far more destructive and many spawn tornadoes. About 44% of Americans live in a Hurricane zone.
Add earthquakes and fires maybe 60~70% of Americans live in a place with reoccurring natural disasters.
EF4 or EF5 tornadoes are around 2% of those in the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornadoes_in_the_United_States), which means any state with more than 34 or so a year can expect to see at least one. That accounts for 14 states with a combined population of about 106 million people. That's approximately 32% of the total US population.
8%-ish of tornadoes rate EF3. At which point any state with seven or more a year should expect at least one in the EF3-5 range (yay, birthday paradox!). That's 32 states totaling 270 million people - 82% of the US.
Looking at this image (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Improved_Average_Annual_T...) from the wikipedia article you linked shows this, with New Orleans, Atlanta and Miami being outside their state's main tornado zone and Houston and Chicago right at the border of high-tornados and medium-tornados.
I think the overall point is sound, though. A huge chunk of the US population is in territory regularly subject to strong tornadoes.
Also, I would beg to differ that this map puts Chicago at the edge of a high-tornado zone. It's solidly in one, as is Kansas City.
But your larger point stands.
They have earthquakes in e.g. Italy and Turkey too, you know.
There are certainly earthquake (and hurricane) areas but the majority of the US population does not live in those. I'd need some risk/benefit analysis and actual data before believing they are even a factor in the equation for most people and areas. I can think of 100 other possible reasons (eg historically people moved frequently, or it was simply cheaper to rebuild than maintain as building standards/expectations change frequently, or in the cities you anyway expect someone to come in and buy up old building stock and rip it all down to put something bigger in, or ... ).
See ASCE 7-16 Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures, For wind: Chapters 26-31 for 144 pages of wind load design criteria. (California Building Code and International Building Codes recognize and point to that standard)
Of particular note, is a concept called "Basic Wind Speed" which is derived from mapped values. What you'll find is that its intimately correlated with hurricane landing. Most people live on the coast in the US where the wind speed is highest. Depending on the risk category of the building, a typical value on the West coast is ~105 mph. On the east coast, it vaires by latitude from ~115-200 mph, increasing in all the areas that get hit by hurricanes. To address your skepticism, I assure you things like hurricanes are undeed a significant design concern.
The seismic load is similar.
Both loads are fundamentally designed to give a defined risk of failure from storms and earthquakes with particular recurrence intervals ranging from 50-100 years. (Offhand, I believe this value is ~1% for total collapse with a much higher risk of damage.). It is indeed carefully weighted and considered balance between risk reduction and feasibility, and indeed, having less than 1% risk for intervals over 100 years starts to get rather difficult. We still require it for schools, police stations, and emergency gathering locations and the like, but not normal houses.
1,000 sq mi is about 640,000 acres, so that's .0000015 tornadoes per year per acre. If I've got my math right, that's about a 99.9% chance that your 1 acre plot will not be hit by a tornado in 1000 years, if you live in the Atlanta area, which is only a middling high-probability area. (https://weather.com/storms/tornado/news/tornado-odds-of-bein...)
Hurricanes are generally only a coastal problem, although flooding is a fairly large issue everywhere. (Don't get a house in a low lying area. Please.)
Earthquakes are mostly a West Coast thing, modulo New Madrid (pronounced "mad-rid") and various oil drilling operations. But then there's fires and termites and everything else.
There are plenty of hundred-year-old houses all over the US, as well as plenty of newer ones that could last more than a century with proper maintenance.
Few houses today are built to last that long, though, because it's more expensive but doesn't add anything to the purchase price like granite countertops. Stick frame on slab construction is pretty close to mini-maxing housing construction as the article describes (even in areas where slab foundations are geologically idiotic).
Anyway, when you get down to the second-to-last section of the article, remember that, past a certain point, efficiency is the enemy of resiliency.
I appreciate your attempt to come up with realistic numbers, but you are making the assumption that each tornado only affects a single acre. As discussed in the article you linked, if a tornado touches down, it frequently causes destruction for a path of several miles, making this a faulty assumption.
> Plus many areas are subject to tornados and hurricanes when it is rather pointless to build anything that lasts 100 years. On that time scale the house will be destroyed or badly damaged in any case.
Tornadoes yes, hurricanes, no. Build strong and heavy, with durable steel shutters for all windows and very secure doors, and there's no reason your home can't survive hurricanes with minimal damage. Flooding is another matter, entirely.
Because wood is a renewable resource, not a source of carbon emissions (like concrete), and is absolutely strong enough for single family homes.
I'll take a typical drywall panels on a wooden frame over wooden walls.
I always thought that the reason that winter air is dry is because warm air can hold more moisture than cold air, so as you heat it, relative humidity decreases. So, for example, if it's 5C outside with 50% relative humidity, if you heat that air to 22C, then it will have only 17% relative humidity.
But modern houses (even wood ones) are so well sealed that even in winter you could end up with too much humidity inside just from normal activities (cooking, bathing, breathing).
All in all, correctly built wooden houses are pretty much as safe and sturdy as anything else.
The things that do burn are furniture, paint, drapes etc and are present in any house.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/idahonews.com/amp/news/local/ho...
I've lived in wood houses all my life, all of them built between 1920 and 1950.
Balloon construction has, generally speaking, been great. The frames are strong and light, easy to run cabling/utilities, easy to modify/remove/renovate (You know what else I've done in every house I've owned? Moved at least one wall - in my current house we just completely modified the layout of the upstairs. Moving the walls cost on the order of a few hundred dollars each, since they weren't structural supports, and it's just wood and drywall)
Basically - They're cheaper, better for the environment, and when cared for last a LONG time. Do they have some specific downsides? Sure. But overall they work fantastically well.
Also - if you think concrete is sturdier than wood frames... in most cases I suspect you're wrong for residential homes. I live in a temperate rain forest (Atlanta, GA) the pine trees are HUGE, and they fall constantly - they hit houses a lot. Most take damage, but it's usually easy to repair, and honestly, the wood frame alone usually keeps people inside safe. Hundreds of houses a year take tree hits, and having someone die is rare enough it usually makes the news. Wood is tough. I've seen a 100ft pine literally bounce off a house.
Termites are a constant battle for my parents there in their concrete home. I can't imagine the carnage with a wood frame home.
I lost a piece of furniture there living in a condo, downtown in the city. The termites are industrious.
FWIW, if you are concerned about fire, you should be aware that it's really the contents of the house that pose the greatest risk. You can get to flashover temperatures in a matter of minutes before any of the wood structure is burning.
My point is that building of brick/concrete doesn't guarantee you're rid of flammable infrastructure.
Time to bring the Latvian video back up again: https://youtu.be/G-J86Ka9MkQ
Here's the thing, though: most Europeans seem to be suffering some pretty serious misconceptions.
First, Americans build out of wood because we have wood, lots of it. Europeans don't skip wood because brick or stone is superior -- it's because Europe is largely deforested. Europe doesn't have wood for people to use at the same scale.
Second, wooden houses last a plenty long time. "80-150+ years", as you put it, is entirely expected for a well-constructed wooden house. Neighborhoods that date from, say, 1850, e.g. in New England, have plenty of old wooden homes that people adore because of their character.
Third, wood construction has a ton of advantages. Not only is it less expensive to build, but it's tremendously more energy-efficient when filled with insulation. Brick and stone homes are absolute energy guzzlers both in hot summers and cold winters. And remember, e.g. in New York State you're dealing with 100°F (38°C) summers and -10°F (-23°C) winters. Insulation matters.
The idea that American homes are somehow lower quality or shorter-lasting because they're built out of wood is a myth through and through. To the contrary, they're built out of wood because that's the best construction for local climate and availability.
Aerated concrete doesn't have that issue, because the concrete cells are closed and don't draft. If you end up with a poorly fitted window or 50+ mph winds, it doesn't let air through.
OTOH, totally agree about wood. Cheap(er), plentiful, and most importantly, everyone already knows how to work it and has the tools to do so.
Masonry work is physically harder, requires a sounder foundation that won't settle at all due to the increased weight, and there are fewer people willing to do the work. Getting anyone to do foam or aircrete is impossible- you have to watch a bunch of YouTube videos and DIY it yourself.
You're not wrong, but IMHO the two should be handled separately. The fact that airtightness has been less stringent in the US is mostly an accident of history, which is being improved with recent building codes. It's just that in the past it was easy for people to simply buy some fluffy stuff and stuff it into the walls: doing blower door tests is a lot more complicated.
Building science has also progressed quite rapidly in the last 2-3 decades, and we now 'know better' in many areas than in the past.
> Aerated concrete doesn't have that issue, because the concrete cells are closed and don't draft. If you end up with a poorly fitted window or 50+ mph winds, it doesn't let air through.
First: what's the carbon footprint of concrete? What is footprint of wood framing?
Not letting air through (in or out) is actually what you want. The structures of buildings should not pass any air at all ideally, and all air exchanges should be done primarily via mechanical means:
Such is, my point was that foam boards and concrete are compared to blown / rolled fiberglass, even though the fiberglass has more failure modes for insulating. A poorly fitted window will seriously compromise the R value of the surrounding fiberglass.
As for the carbon footprint of cement, solid is pretty high, foam not so much. I don't know about commercial stuff, but most DIY'ers seem to use a little under 100 lbs portland cement to make a 55 gallon barrel's worth once the foam is mixed in. Rough math puts a 55 gallon barrel of concrete at about 1000 pounds.
Edit: I just realized that 10% seems low, so what I saw may have used a 55 gallon barrel but not completely filled it. In any case, depending on the structural integrity that you need, the weight reduction (and therefore carbon footprint from curing) is significantly reduced.
Having said that, your point about footprint holds and building with wood is coming 'back' here especially because of that, using cross laminated timber from sustainable forests.
Carbon footprint of wood framing is terrible, because its mostly made of engineered wood with a lot of oil in it.
[citation needed]
Certainly LVL and LSL products are more processed, as is OSB, but those have the advantage of using 'off cuts' so they can use up some of raw materials that might otherwise be thrown out.
Even with all that processing I find it hard to believe that it would be worse than concrete, given the amount of (fossil fuel?) energy needed for cement kilns and other things.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concre...
You misunderstand building construction. American insulation is, indeed, rated by R value, its resistance to the conductive flow of heat. *Any* draft will bypass insulation of any material. A leaky window will leak air, regardless of the construction material of the wall. American wooden buildings are sealed with sheet plastic, Tyvek, etc. to prevent drafts; all part of the insulation.
I've never had a draft through a fibercement/wood/fiberglass/drywall wall, in any case.
Cracking is why single family homes generally avoid concrete walls in the permafrost.
As for the wall material stopping drafts in a window frame, that makes no sense at all.
Standard Assessment Producedure (which is used for household energy ratings) incorporates both this and some fudge factors for draftiness and local wind speed.
I agree about European deforestation. Wood from the Russian Taiga and the Amazon are illegally imported as a result, that’s so embarrassing and wrong.
I did list specially treated wood in the list of building materials btw, you might have overlooked that. I agree that wood can be a great material for building modern houses, when combined with other materials. Homes purely made of wood would be too unsafe for me personally (fire hazard, termites in the US, high susceptibility to outside forces).
1: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ninety-percent-of-u...
2: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/homes.php
It also matters how one determines under-insulated. Energy here is cheap; we use big trucks as commuter cars. Using half our electricity for heating and cooling didn't matter until CO² usage became important; now it's huge.
"Ninety Percent of U.S. Homes Are Under Insulated"
Yes, because Ninety Percent of U.S. Homes Were Built With Old(er) Building Codes.
> Yes, European homes are also underinsulated, but bricks provide better insulation per default.
A lot of Europe is a lot more temperate than the US and Canada, so it didn't make much of a difference. I'm in Toronto, Canada, and we regularly get -15C winter weather as well as >30C (>80% RH) summer days too. To stay comfortable you really need heating and cooling. Many buildings in the EU don't have cooling (which has caused all sorts of problems during heat waves).
The US has eight climate zones (AK not shown):
* https://www.ecohome.net/guides/3521/climate-zones-map-usa-ca...
And while a lot of the construction techniques would be the same regardless of location (e.g., air tightness), other things would not (insulation, HVAC equipment).
Most public housing projects in Vienna, Austria, were retrofitted with modern insulation in the timespan of 10-20 years ago. Public funding exists in various EU countries for home owners to do the same.
> A lot of Europe is a lot more temperate than the US and Canada, so it didn't make much of a difference.
The number of households in Sweden, Finland, and Norway combined is comparable to Canada. Temps seem to be similar there. In Austria we get -10 and sometimes -15 degrees Celcius in winter, and up to 35 degrees in summer. Same in Germany, where 18% of EU inhabitants live. Bricks are a staple in energy conservation in big parts of Europe.
They, like Canada, have a convenient source of wood in the boreal forests.
Multi-story buildings in cities are typically prefabricated concrete modules, sometimes clad in brick, sometimes just painted.
Sure, 50 years ago. Modern code calls for a lot of insulation.
I'm an American and I look at the things we do and they seem to be a combination of stupidity and greed.
You can look at strongtowns.org and many other places for a summary of the illogical, unsustainable and short-term-greed fueled quality of American urbanism.
Wood frame houses don't have that.
We don't have that in most of America. Having a high thermal mass in New England just means your heater has to work harder in the winter to heat your thermally massive house. Ditto for Arizona during most of the year.
Owning a concrete block house feels like all my money is going through the walls. Even if you have the AC on in the summer, you can touch the walls from the inside and they feel warm. I’m definitely going to need to look at insulation going forward.
Wood framed houses can have thermal mass to keep a stable temperature. This is more common with homes with exposed wood framing, and SIP on the outside.
1) New houses in the UK are very well insulated indeed. Walls are commonly of cavity construction with 'lightweight' thermal blocks or timber on the inside skin, and insulation in the cavity. We also indsulate the floors and roofs. Our building code is pretty strict about insulation and I believe that is also true in Germany for instance.
2) We use brick on the outside because the UK climate makes external wood rot very quickly in normal circumstances. Cedar cladding can work if left to 'silver', but you have little chance of keeping paint on anything. Exterior woodwork also has to be treated with fire retardant if used as cladding. Roof coverings are normally clay tiles or slate.
There are buildings in my town that are 600+ years old, built out of oak framing with wattle and daub infills...but this is a very expensive way to build.
I also live here in the PNW and I know what you mean by the ugly boxes, but that is what people want.
Cedar shake looks very nice, but perhaps it is a bad idea when there is a non-zero chance of a neighbourhood fire blowing embers onto your roof. Here in western Canada, the Fire Smart guides are great. e.g., https://firesmartbc.ca/
114 days vs 170 days. UK has more frequent rain.
Was just curious so looked it up and shared. Not drawing any conclusions. I actually find it hilarious that so many of the comments here are trying to distil such a complex and nuanced cultural difference down to stats and logic :)
Source: my family in Norway owns several wooden houses that are a couple of hundred years old, and as a kid/teenager I spent a lot of time having to treat these houses :)
There's also the fact that when the ground is frozen, the microbes in the soil that cause rot and decay are less active. The constant dampness of UK soil means any wood that touches the ground is rotted through in a couple of years unless you take significant precautions, while in Iceland, the ground being frozen or dry a large part of the year makes this less of a problem.
There are some brick buildings, and there are some things you can do to reinforce them in preparation for an earthquake. But in general, wood is better.
I worked in a wood barn in my youth that was built in 1680 in upstate NY, and will remain standing as long as the roof is maintained. My current home is a circa 1910 wood frame house that is in great shape and should be for years to come. There’s nothing wrong with wood.
With modern buiding techniques - building an air tight home and then ventilating with mechanical ventilation, and taking into account thermal bridging - that's no longer true. If anything the extra thermal mass, compared to a wooden framed house, helps to keep it more comfortable and reduce energy consumption during day-night temperature swings. Some bricks, e.g. clay blocks with air pockets inside [0], are both structural and somewhat insulating - you could use them for something like a garage without any other insulation. If you are cheap you don't even need a facade :D
A lot of Central Europe has similar climates to NY - my area had -25C in the winter and 36C just this week. We usually don't even turn on the heating until it gets below 0C outside, as our home is more than comfortable enough (above 21C / 70F) inside until then.
Not gonna argue with the expensive part (there's a reason why people don't build 5000sqft homes here), however it is worth mentioning in most desirable places to build, it is often the land that is the most expensive part.
[0] https://www.wienerberger.com/en/brands-and-products/wall.htm...
All the other differences (ie isolation) can be achieved (or messed up) with either form of construction.
I hope empress trees become usable in construction, they grow insanely fast.
Chopping down Brazilian rainforest for rare woods or cow grazing is environmentally unfriendly. Using commercial softwoods is supporting carbon sequestration and is probably more sustainable than most agriculture.
I realize I use different sources, and that maybe all forests are not equally good for lumber production. But Europe has as much forests as the US. Yes, a lot of it is concentrated in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, so traditionally, that would have been less accessible to most central and western European countries. Also, traditionally, there was far more farm land. But nowadays, Europeans could access lumber as easily as Americans.
1:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forests_of_the_United_States#:.... 2:https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-resources/statis...
EU: 161,000,000 ha
ha = ac / 2.4711
818,814,000 / 2.4711 = 331,356,076
Ok, the US has roughly double the forested surface area.
EU pop is 448m compared to US' 328m. So with 30% more population and half the forested surface area wood does seem scarser in the EU.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=E...
Then again, including Canada would probably as well.
In any region, there are going to be specific factors of soil, climate, infrastructure, etc. that all affect how you would build homes. Transporting materials is expensive, so the availability of local materials is also a factor, though less of a factor than it used to be.
Builders and skilled tradesman in any region are going to have knowledge and practical experience with these local factors, and with the techniques and materials that address those factors. And to some degree, you're better off with the type of house that they're really good at building than the type of house that they're less experienced with.
If you're comparing the US and EU though, I think you also need to account for culture and language barriers. Construction techniques and materials across the US are more similar because builders and tradesmen from Oregon, Arizona, Texas, and Florida can all communicate more easily than builders and tradesman from across Europe.
I'm pretty sure Scandinavian houses do tend to use wood. Likewise, less forested parts of the US, like Arizona, tend to have fewer wooden houses.
The US is in the stone age when it comes to wall construction (for longevity and energy savings), vapor control, doors and windows.
I have a small project and I am having to order my windows, house wrap/wrb and tape from European suppliers.
Most of NZ gets cold enough to need (at least) double paned windows, and all of NZ needs low-emissivity glass to reduce heat gain in summer. I believe the same is true of Australia.
NZ's current building standards are state of the art for the 1970s.
As gp said, specifying ordinary modern designs, materials and and fittings (by European standards) gets you looked at as though you're from outer space.
NZ's housing stock is cold, damp, and mouldy inside for the most part. Not coincidentally NZ has one of the highest rates of asthma in the world.
According to my calculations, the return on investment on reduced electricity costs will come in about 100-200 years, if not more.
In the meantime, if my house will end up in the market, it would hardly sell for any premium over any other house of similar footage in that area, so it's unlikely I would ever recover these costs.
Secondly, NZ, OK, maybe it won't need even double glazing. But aren't AU summers super hot?
I agree that it "should". The added costs don't justify it, that's why it usually doesn't. In my region, ROI on triple glazing is in hundreds of years.
This does not encourage a culture of energy savings. Relevant experience just is not as deeply ingrained. Yet, if I may hope so.
Some examples, just concerning windows, unfortunately without references:
- One can still buy and legally install single pane windows in most of the US.
- A significant share of new windows in the US apparently still are double pane.
- New windows in the US are still often filled with air instead of specialised gases.
- Multi-chambered pvc windows are still being marketed as a tech innovation in some places in the US, while these are bog standard bottom line products even in the Baltic states.
- Try and ask your average window installer about air tightness seals and blower door tests.
[0] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_a_EPG0_PRS_DMcf_m.htm
[1] https://www.milieucentraal.nl/energie-besparen/inzicht-in-je...
Site note: can't stand the amount of noise(!) going throw the house as opposed to concrete.
2) I spent a year working in D.C. and watched 4-5 houses come up in the neighborhood during that time. The amount of insulation used was _laughable_. Watching builders on YouTube I get the same impression. In Sweden 99% of houses are wood, but all have at the very least the double amount of insulation, often more.
That's a lot of industrial processing with a lot of oil-based glues and so on. By weight, the houses are almost more oil than wood.
Here's an enlightening chapter of "Well there's your problem" podcast about this with actual civil engineers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVodkE47aLw
Not that I would expect Americans to just copy what we do, but the outright refusal to acknowledge that someone else is doing things that seem impossible is at times hilarious.
All that with the obvious exception, everything military.
Edit: American houses are lower build quality because of lower build quality. Not because they are build out of wood. They are also considerably cheaper.
We’re not asking you to believe in some “American Dream,” just notice that we also have hundreds of millions of people who make highly varied decisions that conform to natural environments and resources, historical contexts, cultural preferences and financial limits.
Also, while there is more wood in North America, it’s not like there are no forests in Europe. Take a look at Romania or Bosnia if you want to see big wild ones.
> Brick and stone homes are absolute energy guzzlers both in hot summers and cold winters.
That is not my experience, but a difference is maybe in how we heat things. This article about local heating explains my philosophy pretty well: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/local-heating.html When it's cold, I tend to stay in the room where my computer is and wear a jacket. I do think that it's possible due to how Europe and especially France has a more temperate climate than the US though.
> wood construction has a ton of advantages. Not only is it less expensive to build
The comparaison doesn't really hold as in Europe it's easier to leverage old houses, due to the history of Europe. I don't think any new houses are made of stone.
It's really nice to have people like you point out misconceptions that Europeans can have, but please remember than you can have misconceptions too, and that Europe as a whole (like the US) is very large and has different climates. Not everything you said will hold in France, Spain, Ukraine, Greece, Norway.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_masonry_unit
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foam_concrete
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanded_polystyrene_concrete
In fact, if you google "uk new builds" almost every image that comes up is a red brick house.
Hi there, I'm a civil engineer from the EU who specialized in building structures and was trained in masonry and timber structures.
None of the concerns you mentioned feature as a design constraint. There is no shortage of building materials in Europe, and is indeed cheaper than the classical building materials. We do use a lot of concrete, masonry, and steel, none of which grows on trees.
The main factor is population density, and the ultimate and serviceability state that buildings need to comply with in order to be assuredly safe to be habitable by people.
It's fine if you wish to build a single-family home with a timber structure from top to bottom, provided that you do all the work to ensure that expected win loads are not able to blow out your home. There are homes being built like that around here. But those are indeed rare, because of cultural differences. The everyday joe around here looks at modern timber homes and, when compared with masonry, concrete, and even steel structures, immediately perceives it as low-quality work. Think McMansion. Prefabricated homes in general suffer from that prejudice, including light steel frame homes. That in turn leads to a market where most offerings target the low-end.
On higher density residential buildings things are quite different. most residential buildings have 4 or 5 stories and thus structural soundness starts to be harder to ensure. You no longer are able to meet safety requirements by having a low-skilled carpenter randomly nailing together two boards. Moreover, the loads are more demanding, both dead loads and live loads such as wind Here the problem lies in the need to put together building structures that is verifiably safe involving cases where the minimum prescribed values in building standards don't cut it anymore. More importantly, you start to need to design specialized structural elements that can easily need to span over 6 meters. This is engineered timber territory, and one which can involve designing specialized structural elements. To add to the complexity, this technology introduces problems in complying with serviceability limit states that don't pose as big of a challenge with other technologies such as vibration limits and sagging.
Consequently, we do see engineered lumber structures in long span structures and even foot bridges, but in general it's more cost effective, simpler, durable, lower-mainrenance and higher-quality to just build with other building technologies.
For black metal, it's the most obvious method — welding.
For sheet metal, it's clinching, snaps, or, more rarely, threaded fasteners.
Pretend you have two options, you can build a home that lasts forever or a house that will fall apart in a half century but is 10% cheaper. By year 40, you'll have enough wealth accumulated to buy two new replacement homes.
The problem is that much of the US makes it needlessly expensive to do the "tear down and replace with new construction" bit.
The tl;dr: US housing is highly optimized for local conditions, as is the case everywhere. If you built European housing in much of the US it would be destroyed by the ambient environment or not compliant with safety regulations.
As some have pointed out, wooden buildings are also way, way more ecological than concrete ones. They capture carbon long-term, while concrete production causes major carbon emissions.
Having grown up in the United States and lived over a decade in various parts of Europe, I find U.S. construction quality and expectations (esp. modern) absolutely dismal. It’s truly in the space of relative deprivation. In no way are most of the property structures worth their market prices (pre-bubble).
I spoke to a Swiss colleague who lives part time in the States recently about this. He attempted to have a house built to modern Swiss design spec. where he was living (climatically similar to the Schweizer Mittelland) and gave up due to infeasibility. Money was not the problem; knowledge, at-grade quality inputs, etc. are all lacking in the United States. And I’d believe it being in CH now and today. I’ve kept an eye open for quality execution on all of my return trips (various parts of the country), and I just don’t see anything that can hold a candle to modern construction in DACH.
Simple quality of life improvement for many buildings Stateside would be retrofitting these onto more doors: https://planet.ag/produkte/produkteuebersicht/. Folks deserve noise, smell, and climatic isolation. You don’t know what you are missing. I’d easily spend $50 a night more for hotels that’d use these. I don’t want to be able to hear a mouse fart from a room down the hall unattenuated at perfect fidelity.
You say "Money was not the problem". I take that to mean your friend was reasonably not willing to pay as much as an order of magnitude more in the US than average (say a range of $300-1K psf for just the improvement and not including the dirt). Generally, if he went to high-end commercial builders, opened a checkbook, and said, "use these materials and parts, build to these specs and tolerances", he'll get whatever he wants in the US.
Compare average US tract residential SFH construction build quality to what you find in private venture companies that builds and operate their own MFH's. While the interiors are similar, the private venture companies are staffed by people who know what will and will not work in the bones of the structure over the investment payoff timeline. They won't care about insulation for the tenants' benefit, but they will make very certain for example that the walls, roof and foundation stand for as long as they project to hold the investment.
The US aggressively min-maxes for the wealthy capital-holding class. It is no accident that if you want something done right and will last, you will avail yourself of the same kinds of resources that class will use themselves.
In the 70's, it was easy money and full employment for a lot of people and single house income could buy you such house. Some people built houses for themselves that wouldn't last more than a generation and wouldn't care at all about their descendants.
One minor comment: balloon framing is not a synonym for light wood framing, it's a (mostly archaic) version of it. Balloon framing features long exterior wall studs that extend up multiple stories, as opposed to modern "platform framing", in which the studs stop at each floor.
Balloon framing and platform framing are different, exclusive terms. Author uses it as a catch-all for stick framing throughout the article.
The rest of the article seems fine and insightful, but it's totally reasonable to see that incorrect terminology usage as an indicator of knowledge gaps. And the author appears to be more involved with cryptography and related concepts, so it tracks.
Short construction seasons are somewhat favorable to it. Dry in can be quicker. A trade base familiar with the necessary fire blocking makes it practical. Same with designers and inspectors.
The sun belt tends toward platform framing. Being the sunbelt, construction tends to be more year round.
I find that concept pretty fascinating. Here in the PNW we don't typically see balloon framing, but even so the dry-in time is still really quick. A two-story house can be framed up and have roof sheathing on in a week or so, and in another week have the roof and tyvek on. Even if the entire process was done in a downpour it still doesn't take long after that before it's dry enough to start interior work.
Yeah, that's a problem.
Usually, next up is some handwaving about building homes from shipping containers because they're rectangular.
I've been writing for fun and to learn and have always been curious about construction productivity.
I don't think contractors are dumb. But I do think that they don't accumulate productivity efficiencies the way other industries do. There's a rule in economics that every X units of a product that gets made, manufacturers tend to improve by Y% percent efficiency. Because they learn by doing, and the more experience the industry accumulates the more chances it has to make continuous improvements off gradual innovation.
Moore's Law is probably the most extreme example. But it's well known in virtually every industry. For example Toyota kept getting repeatedly better at building cars more efficiently and reliably because they carefully observed the process and kept making improvements.
The problem with the contractor model is this doesn't happen, because you don't have large firms that can exploit economies of scale. At anything above lower management, every one is in their own isolated fiefdom where they can keep making the same mistakes and not learning from each other. If one contractor is 20% more efficient, it's difficult to grow fast into a national brand and export those productivity improvements.
Simple example. Copper plumbing is still widely used in most parts of the country. Pex plumbing is strictly superior. It’s much cheaper, easier to install, more reliable, and less likely to damage the framing. Despite being around for decades, most contractors still use copper.
If you really want to see gains in construction, I think you'll need a large Amazon-like org where every one on site works directly for the company and they're all centrally managed. As soon as you're outsourcing something, you should no longer expect to have it done efficiently. This is fine when it's something ancillary to your business. But when you're a homebuilder, especially a homebuilder aiming to achieve sustained productivity improvements, everything being done on site is core and should be directly under your management team.
There are also diseconomies of scale in residential construction, partly for reasons described in the original post. Having many layers of management is inefficient when you're dealing with work that involves a lot of customization and homeowner input.
>Despite being around for decades, most contractors still use copper.
No, they don't. Pex is ubiquitous in single-family and smaller multifamily construction now. Copper is used in larger and nonresidential projects where the plumbing codes require it. The idea that professional plumbers and homebuilders haven't heard the news yet that Pex is cheaper is silly.
Which parts of the country? Not in my area.
https://smartchoice.plumbing/pex-plumbing-disadvantages-what...
(I think your overall point is a good one though.)
Carpenter acquaintances in California make vicious fun of carpenters in The East (which probably includes most of what easterners call "The West") continuing to use Skil saws long after geared designs, with a high-speed motor running perpendicular to the sawblade axis, have proven overwhelmingly superior by every measure.
Unfortunately I didn’t see any mention of energy or carbon in this post.
Seems like the biggest breakthrough would be a pre-construction estimate of energy costs over, say, 30 years. Similar to the Energy Star sticker on appliances sold in the US which tell you the cost to run a given appliance with typical usage compared to the range for other models.
This would allow you justify spending more upfront for better insulation, HVAC, air sealing, etc. and recoup that over time. At scale this would allow our civilization to be more energy efficient and reduce the need to build more power plants.
This suggestion stood out: ”...move to resistance heating and thermoelectric cooling“
Unless I’m missing something, this would be a step backward. Modern heat pumps are 3-4x more efficient than resistance heating, since they aren’t creating heat but moving it from one place to another. For cooling, if the author is referring to Peltier type thermoelectric cooling, the same applies: heat pumps are many times more efficient.
The building revolution we need is one that cheaply produces extremely energy-efficient homes, IMO.
Agreed that they are the way to go, but it's not going to bring down construction costs.
The author's strawman proposal was a nuclear battery for effectively unlimited onsite power with no marginal cost in order to minimize construction costs.
So do radiant floor heating or straight-out radiators. And force air needs ducting, which takes up a lot of volume: and unless you use floor trusses instead joists, you have to be a creative with the design of your runs.
What HVAC system would you suggest?
Ultimately it depends on what tradeoffs you want to make and your local climate.
I think district-based aka neighborhood scale geothermal is promising from a sustainability perspective, but introduces a significant coordination problem.
I hope you didn’t intend to extract any valuable information from that.
> the overriding factor in building costs is the energy required (and CO2 produced) for construction, heating, and cooling. Unfortunately I didn’t see any mention of energy or carbon in this post.
That’s because when an eco-activist like Gates, who has no clue about environmental economics, talks about “costs”, he is completely bullshitting. Clearly he gave you the wrong impression, at least.
The overriding factor in the cost of essentially everything is energy, if you decompose the cost network far enough.
Obviously engineers and home builders are not stupid and if there was some massive efficiency increase they could exploit, the would do so.
Most of the "badness" people associate with these, IMO, are due more to the fact that 1. in recent times they are inhabited by less well-off people 2. they usually need to be washed or painted, probably because they are inhabited by less well-off people who don't make it a priority 3. to the extent they are seen as crime/drug dens, that's because they have a stigma/are in disrepair so only poor people want to live there. It is possible for them to be nice, even moreso if they are new (and not poorly maintained, 60 years old). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelenograd as an example of a city with this style (go to Google images for more pictures). The whole city is like a park.
From an urban planning perspective, they have a lot of benefits. People can actually end up with a lot of green space in between buildings. They make it easy to set up bus or train-based public transportation, with walking a viable way to navigate toward a hub. The density creates obvious economies of scale in other areas. From a cost perspective, they are inexpensive to construct because of the economies of scale. The article mentions them as one of the few building styles amenable to mass-production/assembly off-site.
Probably my main gripe is that they are not often 'mixed use' and could perhaps do with shops on the first floor, though this is partially an artifact of the economic regime under which they were mostly built.
The reasons must be different.
McMansions + perfect lawn in a suburb full of curves and crescents; and various kinds of "luxury" cars, big TVs, etc. All things just out of reach of many of our middle class parents or grandparents. So now you've made it when you have it... until you look close and see there's no actual class differentiator in it, no taste to it, no art to it, or any particular advantage to it...
Just my, like, opinion, man...
The problem is really the combination of all 3 factors. McMansions definitely make people think the inhabitants have no taste, but they don't make people think the inhabitants are poor. Buildings that look like public housing make people think the inhabitants are poor, which is worse for a lot of people.
In the polish version of these, the stores are in one building of the cluster of 4+ buildings, generally on the main street of the area. The US has a retail store for every 500 people or so which is about how many fit into a few of these buildings..
>Such places are not usually convenient to drive to.
You don't drive to them, you take whatever local public transportation there is or walk. It's dense enough that you can visit all the important stores without driving or leaving your local area.
>Many shops are vacant.
That has more to do with the increasing rents and commercial rates being locked in for 5+ years. More economical to keep the place vacant for the landlord.
But that's a minor point.
A quick google gave me https://www.statista.com/statistics/1058852/retail-space-per...
I wouldn't be surprised, based on my own anecdotal understanding, if the average distance to nearest grocery store is less in Germany.
See Queen Street West (amongst many others) in Toronto for an example of having street-level retail and an apartment above:
* https://www.google.com/maps/place/720+Queen+St+W,+Toronto,+O...
All the major thoroughfares in Toronto (Queen, King, Dundas, College, Bloor, St. Clair, Yonge) were built like this. The residential, single-family unit side streets then have convenient, walking-distance retail.
Most of these were built pre-WW2, so they're only 2-3 stories, but recent condo redevelopments of lots have generally followed the template of street-retail:
* https://www.google.com/maps/place/506+College+St,+Toronto,+O...
This strip-shop complex in a neighbouring town was built using tilt-panel: https://thatsne.at/file/memmgd.jpeg
Just like with movies, what you need to achieve a good-looking, functional building is a competent vision holder with taste. Too many buildings have winding passages because no one with any influence thought sufficiently deeply about the day-to-day usage of the building, how it will connect with neighboring areas, how the interior will be divided later by fitouts, etc etc.
Transportation is by nature highly distributed among a wide range of actors, unlike industries like semiconductors where the costs are centralized in a factory where a single agent can optimize everything.
In other words, the majority of improving construction costs is actually a political problem, and engineers are unsuited to optimizing it. Transportation costs can be reduced, but only at a collective, national or state-wide level. Moving vast quantities of lumber, insulation, wiring, drywall, roofing and other housing materials across state lines is much more a political coordination problem than an engineering one. Sure, a team of engineers could design a more efficient, cost effective transportation method - but how would consensus ever be achieved to actually build the thing and align all the disparate interest groups to rally around it rather than opposing it?
My hot take is that in the current era (at least in the United States) "Smart" people have neglected political concerns in favor of technical concerns. But the risks aren't technical, they are political, so this is inefficient. The problem will not be solved simply by engineering, no matter how clever the engineers are, if they are limited to purely technical approaches.
You have to go beyond the first section.
His main points are that (a) it's hard to standardize on the larger parts and (b) there is no low hanging fruit.
Please don't imply people didn't read the article. It's boring, unnecessarily rude, against the guidelines [1], and at least in this case I did read the entire article and agree with that comment.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> (b) there is no low hanging fruit.
There is no low hanging fruit when you divide up the pricing the way he did, but transportation is part of nearly every category that he divided it up into. From the data he shows we don't have any reason to think that transportation is not a single substantial fraction of the house cost, when you some up all the different transportation costs between the different sections he uses.
To make an analogy to programming, transportation is like an allocator, and his data shows that execution time is spent evenly between 20 different functions. But all of those functions allocate, it's perfectly plausible the program is spending 50% of it's time in it's allocator and that speeding up that allocator by 50% would reduce the overall execution time by 25%.
Is your claim that any improvement to the system will inevitably conflict with a centralized authority — like a regional government that has to approve commerce or land use? Is your argument that it’s a political problem because it’s not, actually, distributed?
As I understand it the main cost in S&H is personnel, as with most businesses. So either you need more automation or higher wages for the people who need to buy S&H services.
You just highlighted one opportunity for a technological improvement ("automation"). Warehouse automation: a decades-long trend which -- while it can be slowed -- so far seems to be unstoppable by political force. Driverless vehicles and drones: which, which technical solutions, and contingent upon political outcomes. OTOH 90% of the politics is around how these will be deployed on public land and air space, and those politics could be avoided if the players decided to build their own infrastructure like the big railroads did back in the day. Etc.
People like to dodge problems by saying “high housing cost is a political problem, therefore engineers cannot improve the situation because they’re ill-equipped to solve problems that are political in nature”. That’s a rephrasing of what OP said and IMO it’s throwing the towel in too soon. This problem has political components and technological components. There are enough technological components that’s I think engineers can have a positive impact. No, I’m not saying that implementing those improvements is simple. Just that those technological improvements are possible.
I think the point wasn't that we need to make this trip cheaper, but that we need to figure out a way to build houses with materials that travel less.
However ... extremely labor intensive and compared to stick framing, relatively slow. So, despite its local-ness, huge thermal mass and excellent karma, adobe loses out and stick-framed OSB sheathed things that look like adobe win.
Unfortunately this isn't the kind of thing the market is good at sorting out, but there could well be some breakthrough tech that makes adobe building cheap. We just don't look for it.
In the United States, most centralized authorities do not make decisions in the way you imply. There isn't a single decision maker, from President Biden down to any particular state Governor that is able to exercise authority to materialize an infrastructure project. Thus regional governments are themselves highly political in their decision making; you cannot simply get the local magistrate to buy into the project and suddenly the coast is clear.
Let's take a concrete example that is strictly easier. Let's consider broadband internet connectivity. Google attempted to disrupt local internet providers via Google Fiber. They failed at that attempt. [1]
Not only did Google face issue getting approval from municipal governments, they were opposed by entrenched existing interests and faced continuous lawsuits attempting to delay their efforts and increase their costs.
Now consider that any new transportation network would face the same political opposition and be even more controversial. After all, fiber optic cable is a proven technology and there were no technical challenges to deploying it - all of the issues were purely political. Those issues would be an order of magnitude greater with any significant new transportation network.
[1] https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-google-fiber-failed...
Google's entire plan wasn't to make an insanely popular internet offering that generated an overall profit within 10 years, it was to make internet itself better for _everyone_ so that they can make profit via their other products over the next 10 years - and that meant going into every single market possible and becoming a competitor. They were ready and willing to drop hundreds of millions of dollars in actually getting their network deployed, but at a certain point the lawsuits against incumbents indeed squeezed way too much out of them that it would be truly reckless to continue fighting them in more suburban markets. In this vein, they did succeed in making a lot of people's internet better across the board as ISPs know that municipalities could greenlight access to new ISPs easily or make their own. Now all they need is Starlink to take the bill for rural internet.
The fifth point about outages is also terrible as the example of the world series outage was a problem on the network's end with blown generators[0]. It doesn't seem like outages are any more rare on GFiber.
0: https://www.wired.com/2015/10/world-series-outage/#:~:text=B...
Concrete seems far more common in residential construction outside of the U.S. I wonder if technologies such as aircrete (concrete with uniform foam produced air bubbles).
Also well There's Your Problem had an interesting article about the 5-1 construction that is used for a lot of new apartment buildings in the U.S. https://wtyppod.podbean.com/e/episode-46-five-over-ones/
There are drawbacks, of course, but overall it's a very popular technology.
This might be true, but it would be surprising, since even "aerated" concrete would still be made of highly thermally conductive... concrete.
The thermal mass is also nice, though it doesn't really help much in winter-time. I think AAC is a bit more suited to warm desert climates where you have a daily hot/cold cycle.
For example, my father built a temporary house from it in Belarus in 1980s while waiting for the main house construction that was using ordinary bricks. I remember as a child that building from aerated concrete was indeed very quick affair.
"Installation during rainy weather: AAC is known to crack after installation, which can be avoided by reducing the strength of the mortar and ensuring the blocks are dry during and after installation.
Brittle nature: they need to be handled more carefully than clay bricks to avoid breakage.
Attachments: the brittle nature of the blocks requires longer, thinner screws when fitting cabinets and wall hangings and wood-suitable drill bits or hammering in. Special, large diameter wall plugs (anchors) are available at a higher cost than common wall plugs.
Insulation requirements in newer building codes of northern European countries would require very thick walls when using AAC alone. Thus many builders choose to use traditional building methods installing an extra layer of insulation around the entire building."
In California (FWIW), I expect that you hit seismic issues.
Old saw about Generals fighting the last war. Energy efficiency standards assume the need to conserve limited supplies for fossil fuels. And the need to not interfere with building large houses for upper middle class people.
Bad thing is R value is a metric designed to upsell insulation. R30 insulation is twice as good as R15, if you're the guy selling it. If you're the guy buying it, not as much.
A heat pump and solar installation needed heat my house in the winter would cost about $12000. But actually the heat pump would only run as I mentioned above for 5 months out of the year. So really just to offset the energy, $6000.
Economically high performance insulation systems lose to solar panels.
That wasn't true 10 years ago. But it's true now. And it'll get worse going forward.
Since insulation is low maintenance, you'll get those savings over the whole lifespan of the house.
Now, if you're in an existing house, it likely doesn't make sense to tear down all your siding and drywall just to add insulation, since you're having to both demo and build.
New construction with boofo insulation isn't going to solve global warming.
And tensile strength is largely required for larger, earthquake safe concrete fixtures.
Battery powered.
> hair dryer, curling iron.
Bath room.
> space heater
Just no.
There’s a lot of things that use more than 150w. I can’t imagine how you’re going to sell people on “here let’s make your house fundamentally worse and less capable. Oh, and you also need to buy all new appliances with different plugs“
Why not battery power those low power items as well?
tl;dr very feasible sans NIMBYs
The DoE investigated this exact thing. I happened across the papers while browsing microfiche. It makes the most sense to serve a neighborhood off small house/shed sized generating facility. As you scale up you can switch to normal turbine operation, as you scale down you move back to thermoelectric operation. Single houses could be powered from thermoelectric piles but this would probably have been reserved for expensive, remote vacation homes.
Closer to battery sized, you can layer radioactive material against quantum dots that turn alpha particles into photons and emit those photons directly onto a PV cell.
If you remake this system with quantum dots and layered materials it is actually useful and can power small electronics, like a bug. But it needs light shielding.
So much of the hassle and cost is that we are building almost a unique house each time and everyone has their own idea of what they want in a house, or uses that unique aspect to express themselves.
First, you can’t switch them off, so they are either always warm or the are trickle-charging another storage system (batteries, capacitors, whatever) within the device.
Second, the radiation. You can do various things to limit the risk, but the LD50 is something like 0.25 watts of absorbed ionising radiation sustained for 18 minutes, so damage to the batteries (malicious or accidental) would have significantly greater harms than, say, asbestos, CFCs, or domestic carbon monoxide sources.
You absolutely do not want a 10 watt lightbulb powered by built-in atomic batteries anywhere it can get messed with, let alone a 2 kW kettle or a 5 kW oven.
I agree there are plenty of points for improving efficiency. For example the builder I visited was not vertically integrated at all. They bought manufacturing time on a modular line for their box plans, worked with external designers and all kinds of subs they can't guarantee for onsite work. But having seen it up close I can tell you there is far more opportunity for process improvement on a assembly line (even if each build is custom) than there is in the field.
If you look to Japan, Toyota is getting into modular with steel framing that is way ahead of anything in the states. I look forward to that being available here.
The main problem is transportation. You can make every box the size of a standard shipping container, and thus greatly reduce your home design options and size of rooms while still spending plenty on shipping. Or you can make bigger boxes, which gives you more design flexibility but still a lot less than stick building does. And with the bigger boxes you need special highway permits, escort vehicles, etc.
And then, when you have everything on site, there's still a lot to be done. Tree clearing, grading, excavation, concrete work, paving, utility lines, on-site assembly of the boxes (using an expensive crane)...
When you've added it all up, modular isn't the obvious improvement that it seems to be at first glance.
As grandparent says, modular's biggest selling point is in quality control, which improves project risk profile. Factory assembly lends itself to systematic controls; one of the most common headlines in construction failures is "contractor used wrong parts or materials". That can quickly spiral into massive cost overruns when we're talking about something they assembled on site and realized they screwed up only after it's buried in the ground. If the whole subassembly arrives on site pre-checked, there's less that can go wrong. And "subassembly" is the way to think about it, not "box". It's certainly possible to devise a clever modular structure that ships packed but encapsulates more of the desired features with less sawing, nailing and bolting. Boxy shape language is not unique to modular, it appears all throughout industrial goods.
When I look at what techies are trying to do I just shake my head. Factory_OS built an apartment building on Union Street in Oakland “in ten days “ but planning, permitting, site prep, finishing, and inspections added up to seven years. Believing that off-site fabrication helps this problem is right up there with believing that hyperloops can solve traffic jams, in the universe of nonsensical American beliefs.
With remote work gaining acceptance, location will lose its premium for many. Socially we have pared down our living arrangements to small nuclear families if that, which can fit in a mobile home.
Mobile homes offer better protection against deterioration of a real estate or job market, and also better opportunities for moving to a growing market. Mobility is in the name.
Trailer parks have a bad rap because of classism. But the less well-off are often trailblazers because they need to make things work with less.
The mobile homes of tomorrow need not be run-down single-wides. They could be more luxurious and larger if broken apart into components.
I think this is mostly a marketing and image problem which is only starting to change, mostly because of cost-of-land pressures.
Mobility is in the name, but not in reality. Once you install a mobile home, it's expensive and unlikely to move it and install it somewhere else. It's better to call these buy their new name, manufactured homes, which eliminates the misconception from having mobile in the name.
Now, that doesn't mean they couldn't be the future of housing, but it doesn't seem to be what developers are building or what people are buying when they've got choices. I think the cost difference vs a wood framed house built on site doesn't make up for the lack of flexibility.
"Mobile" wasn't in the name, originally. "Mobile" (Alabama) was.
——— interesting. Certainly true that building materials are bulky and very costly to ship. Seems to be a reality that is hard to change. he has a poor understanding of framing and got terminology wrong: "balloon" was a bridge between post-and-beam and modern platform framing and is no longer used. Although commercial steel buildings are basically balloon. His constant reference to "balloon" framing is a joke to a professional. The fact is that all the processing of building can be and often are quite efficient. If a person wants to keep everything simple it can be much less expensive than it often is. I guess he alludes to that with mentioning "consumer tastes". for sure custom homes are expensive for a reason.
it's hard for someone with absolutely zero experience to judge home building, obviously. For example he thinks 4x8 sheathing panels don't have to be cut, when of course they do, just like boards do.
[1]https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Contracting-Step-Step-...
We see this with a lot of smaller-scale tools: 3D printers, CNCs, laser cutters, welders, pick-and-place machines for assembling circuit boards, etc.. are things that have become affordable to casual hobbyists.
I could see augmented reality being a big deal for construction. See exactly where everything is supposed to go as you install it.
Maybe eventually a mobile 3D-printing gantry that can be quickly deployed on site will be something that a small local business would own.
For reference in case you're unfamiliar, .eth domains are ENS domains (Ethereum Name Service), a decentralized domain system, and are resolved for casual browsing by Cloudflare with the .link TLD for people not running an Ethereum node.
If ENS is recognized, where does it stop? What happens when there is a collision and IANA makes a TLD that collides?
Why should Hacker News recognize domain names that are not recognized in browsers or operating systems by default? Why should Hacker News start redefining domain names as commonly understood and widely supported?
What about OpenNIC, FurNIC, Zilliqa, Namecoin and New Nations? Should they also be recognized?
They could nebulously reduce "waste" but with how much more you're paying for them, it seems economically unviable to use them. In the sense that money is a signal, the waste is still there, you're just not seeing it and being put at an economic disadvantage for paying more.
By my math, it makes sense to spend on a really good envelope like SIPs or a very efficient HVAC like ground source heat pumps - but buying the best of both is only for bragging rights and never pays off. Pick one or the other to go all out on and your bills won't be that much different if the other is just above average.
The downside of spending extra on anything that isn't seen by the buyer is that they done want to pay extra for it. To bring it back around to SIPs, if two similar houses are for sale, nobody picks the more expensive one because it has SIPs. (ok, not nobody, maybe I would)
Of course transportation is a big problem. Something like pre-assembled wall sections which can be more or less flat-packed with several other sections could get the transportation costs down. And if they could fit in shipping containers from China (or trucks from Mexico) the price could be even lower.
Consumer preference shouldn't be a show-stopper. Changing the color of the paint isn't any more difficult in a factory than it is on-site. Switching the model of window as well (though I can see how each change would eat a bit into the factory efficiency. There are only so many ways to lay-out a house, I seriously doubt each site-built home is such a custom design that it can't be a model number for a pre-fab factory. Regular home builders are already usually going off a small set of plans, not re-engineering home design on every outing.
If the more technical bits (electrical, plumbing, etc) could be done by accredited tradesman in the factory, leaving a general worker to screw on taps and plug in power cables, that might reduce the individuals required on site during the assembly process.
The factory professionals could knock out dozens of custom service walls (even if each was slightly different) in a day, versus driving around to individual building sites in the traditional model.
Bucky Fuller had the idea to build houses in factories and deliver them by helicopter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_house
Or build whole cities at once:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_River%27s_City_project
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology
Christopher Alexander thought that we should build our houses ourselves (using foamed concrete):
If I were in the market to build a home, and the difference between building something that looks like your average suburban detached versus something modern and striking were, say, an extra 1.5% (doubling the cost of architecture and engineering), I wouldn't even consider skimping on architecture.
And yet, most architecturally-interesting homes are most certainly not 1.5% or even 15% more than average-looking homes, being generally restricted to luxury markets. Why is that?
The actual design of the striking granite-block construction with large windows on the coast may not cost all that much. But the materials and skilled artisans sure do.
This sounds lovely, sign me up.
But seriously, I was excited about this article having misinterpreted the title, thinking it would be a critical analysis of the operating efficiency of a house, not the construction efficiency. Amortized over the lifetime of the house, I have to assume the up-front costs pale in comparison to the operating costs of a household. Especially as more work becomes remote-friendly, I would expect new construction to be required less often.
How about addressing the massive societal drain of doing dishes and laundry? Has anybody seriously tried to rethink those processes, not just in terms of roboticization, but in terms of house design and layout? How about heating/cooling? I guess what I’m curious about is more how an increase in capital expense could revolutionize operation, not the other way around. And certainly not involving a urine-processing body suit and relying on Uber eats indefinitely.
Always leaves me thinking about Airbnbs and how even if you have a great set up to rent, you still need to clean it every day or two, or pay someone to do it. Ends up being a significant portion of the cost. Assuming it's too difficult to automate stripping and making a bed, or auto-cleaning an existing toilet, it's crazy we don't reinvent toilets, bed linen and various other things so they are no effort at all.
They're designed so that there's just not much in the way of waste - because dimensions are standard, and consistency is pretty good, you simply make sure that if you have a cut of a standard piece, you need the other half of it over there. There's just very, very little waste.
On top of that, there's very little transporting of random stuff, because it's all built onsite. Cabinets are built as an entire unit in a quarter of the factory I toured, and are simply run across into the house before the roof goes on. There's no need to make sure the cabinets fit through doors and such - the entire assemblies are brought in and dropped in place (or nearly so) through the top.
The roof, meanwhile, is built at more or less waist height (depending on slopes). It's assembled, "drywall up," on some jigs that hold it properly, wiring is run, the joists are added, and you end up with a roof segment that is then lifted up, painted, and set down on top of the house. It almost entirely eliminates the "roof work" risk for doing roofs.
I know in most modern tech circles it's incredibly popular to hate "trailer homes" - which tells me that most people's vision of them is a 1970s single wide, 50 years of limited maintenance later. Modern manufactured homes have nearly nothing to do with that - ours is 2x6 exterior construction, drywall, Energy Star rated, metal roof, good insulated windows, etc. Out of curiosity I signed up for the power company's free "energy analysis" thing, where they come and check the ducts, do a blower door test, etc, and they left saying "There's literally nothing we can improve - this is a tight house, comfortably in the top range, and your ducts are very well sealed too." I'd wager my results against any similar size site built home in the area.
People we have over are consistently surprised to find out that our place is a manufactured, because it doesn't match the "trailer house" image. I think it's blindingly obvious it's manufactured, but I also saw it come in on trucks, and I know the signs to look for - simple rectangular floor plan, a strong marriage line down the center, and typically water only on one half of the house (it avoids having to do any water pipe joins onsite, which reduces the risk of leaks). We have a concrete foundation under the house, and it works great for us.
But, you know, we do legally live in a "trailer home." Doesn't bother us in the slightest.
How do you actually find these? How can you tell the difference?
Every 1970's-era trailer house manufacturer has rebranded themselves as "Modular, not Mobile". For non-experts, it's hard to tell the difference, which might be why everyone lumps them all together.
I would love to buy a well-designed actually-good factory-standardized home. Every thing I've seen that claims such, is just a rebranded trailer house.
But I'm not sure what exactly you're looking for. Our house is absolutely a "trailer" - it came in two pieces, has long I-beams under the floor, and still has axles down in the crawlspace. I believe one can get the "modular" version which is the same thing, same factory, and doesn't keep the axles (with perhaps a few other changes - it didn't matter to me and was more money for the same end result).
Despite that, it's a solid drywall based house, 2x6 exterior walls, etc.
But if you want more details, you'll have to find someone in your area who sells them and go find out more - my regional knowledge probably isn't applicable to your situation.
This isn't just branding. The Housing Act of 1980 required the term "manufactured" be used in place of "mobile" in all federal laws about homes built after 1976.
If you look at a "mobile" home, it's one built before modern standards, where if you look at a "manufactured" or "modular" home, it's one that conforms to the National Mobile Home Construction and Safety Act (1974) and HUD Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards (1976).
Now "manufactured" vs "modular" is whether it's built just to the federal HUD standards, or also built to the same local codes as a site-built home.
All three (mobile, manufactured, modular) are terms for factory-built pre-fab homes, i.e. "trailer homes".
They also operate at a scale such that if they need an oddball length of some material, the lumber mill is happy to supply it cut to that oddball length since they are buying it by the railcar.
The incentives are aligned here, contractors don't want to buy more wood than necessary.
It isn't like walls are 8'2" high. There's a great deal of standardization built into modern home design.
It’s a delicate problem though. I have recently implemented such an optimization for wall panel production lines and it’s not so easy for the operators cutting sheets of material to keep too many leftover bits for the following wall panel being built, and the order of the panels built can be dictated by a specific loading order on the delivery truck so can’t be reordered to reduce waste.
Working on various bin-packing and cutting stock problems is an interesting challenge!
Vynil is one of the worst thing you could have in your house. And the production of it is horrible for the environment too.
Vynil chemical group is not toxic, but the "Polyvinyl chloride" people are referring to when they talk about "Vynil" is. It is extremely toxic because of the chemical additives it has like plasticizers that are breathable and never go away in your body.
It is also extremely toxic when burn as it generates dioxins, and flame retardants are added to it, also very toxic.
It is also extremely cheap so people use it so much over big surfaces.
It is great for plumbing and I would only use it for that use.
But don't use it on big surfaces because you and your family are going to breath its additives when it is exposed to sunlight.
This is yet another conversation about housing that whistles right by the true cause: exclusionary, and racist zoning practices.
> Rezone to allow more multi-family construction and remove minimum parking requirements. America has some of the cheapest multi-family in the world. We need more of it!
https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/balloon-framing-i...
Stick built framing is the follow on, also called plate building, the plates constituting inter-floor fire stops.
The piece uses the term "balloon framing" to encompass all light-frame construction as opposed to heavy-frame construction like post-and-beam. It think that's fine, I've certainly heard the term used that way before.
No. No and no. The precast concrete panel apartment buildings in Eastern Europe are so badly insulated that such a house will ruin any building savings with the heating/cooling costs. That is, if you don't get water infiltrations through the spaces between said concrete panels which are obviously filled with ... something else.
I guess you could do it properly, but then it won't be cheap.
Source: I live there. They're that bad.
The savings for this don't just show up in the plumbing and electrical categories, but also in framing and finishing, as well as hidden inefficiencies - you have to pre-wire and plumb, and then late come back to finish wiring and plumbing.
Also, this article is about how to construct a house in an efficient manner, not how to construct a house that is efficient throughout it's life.
In some sense just having "channels" through walls or floors would make things simpler, if electric and plumbing could be installed after the structure of the house was completed. But I can't come up with a way that would make sense. If you integrate channels into the framing that seems very similar to the current process (where "channels" are drilled through the wood), only you've added bulk and access panels. If you add channels that aren't part of the framing then you've increased the wall size with a lot of cascading effects.
Though there are basically channels through the floors that align with the joists. Maybe you could save effort by using those channels? But at the cost of material unless there was some wholistic design change.
Kind of related: it does seem possible that all-electric HVAC could be distributed through the house instead of using a central unit, and that might simplify things. Like it's unclear to me that central A/C is really much better than smaller split units, and certainly electric heat doesn't benefit from centralization.
First: most people can build a house. It's really not difficult. Today's homes are quite complex in terms of their layers of parts, and constantly varying building codes don't help. But if you can swing a hammer and push a saw, you can build a house.
Ikea has shown it's not only possible, but profitable, to sell virtually everything that goes in a home to consumers and have them put it together themselves. So why not the rest of the house too? We've done it before: Sears shipped people houses on the railroad along with instructions and (eventually) pre-fab parts. They sold them for 30 years. https://www.amusingplanet.com/2021/06/sears-mail-order-homes...
A huge chunk of the cost of a home is the labor. So let the homeowner handle more of it! They can build in stages, offsetting costs and building at their own pace. And if somebody gets tired of doing it themselves, they can always hire a contractor.
Second: customers interest in having a unique home is a huge cost. So let's focus on building either the variable parts, or on making a "core home" that can be customized after the fact by customers. Most homes are just boxes. It should be possible for us to construct some basic designs that can then be modified or "spruced up" by the homeowner later. Most of the features that make a home look unique could be turned into add-ons, so that we could focus on efficiency of the bare home, and let customers take on additional cost when and if they choose.
Third: most people don't need huge houses! Due to the increasing cost of renting, most renters rent apartments that are absolutely tiny by comparison to the average new home. We can reduce housing costs further by simply making the building smaller, and gaining efficiencies by taking advantage of that smaller size. Want a bigger home? By having simpler designs by default with add-on exteriors, we can make it much easier to add extensions on to houses. Simply unbolt the exterior facade, build on your extension, and bolt the facades back on. This allows us to spend less money on materials and labor, while still allowing the consumer to add to the property over time.
1. Navigating the permitting process 2. Finding a lender willing to finance a self-built home. 3. Learning the complicated trades (plumbing/electrical/foundation) 4. Affording to take the time to build a house.
Just #4 alone makes this a non-starter for most people. The average home takes between 6-9 months to build, and that's with an experienced crew. Learning as you go would easily add 6 months to this. Affording to take a year off to build is just not something "most people" can do.
I have a neighbor who is a building contractor. He built his house on his weekends, doing the majority of the work himself. It took him over a year, and he has the skills, tools, and knowledge. Joe Six Pack isn't going to know enough to avoid the pitfalls that can make this a disaster.
You would appreciate some help with raising the walls, but that's certainly doable alone. Raising the rafters, though, requires at least two people with good upper body strength. Or a very ingenious tackle system.
It is very friendly with IPFS, which is how I host my blog. So I put the IPNS permalink in my ENS name contract (managed on ens.domains). The .link is there because browsers can't resolve ENS names. Cloudflare runs a system that checks Ethereum for the browser and redirects to the correct IPFS name if you add the .link.
I wrote a post on how to set up a blog like this. It is way simpler to use something like Fleek, though.
edit to add link: https://austinvernon.eth.link/blog/ipfsbasics.html
ENS appears to have fixed this; the registration and renewal fees are denominated in USD (but paid in ETH) and cost about the same ($5/yr) as ICANN names.
Unfortunately ENS has the same problem that a lot of "new crypto" does: the rules can be changed at any time by a tiny handful of (mostly) anonymous people who hold the magic multisig keys to update the special contract. There is no developer/user separation, where the users can simply choose not to upgrade. The ever-present threat of this "declined to upgrade" situation is a major check on the developers' power in bitcoin/namecoin-style cryptocurrencies, and it is the central topic of discussion in any hard fork proposal.
Your house takes you to your job, then takes you somewhere else on weekends or evenings. Ultracheap solar, which is still in it's main phase of cost improvement, same with batteries and drivetrain, will make EV RVs cheaper from TCO. And the guts of the RV will be efficiently centrally manufactured.
i.e. high efficiency houses.
I closed the tab here. Not today, satan.
* moulding could be built into drywall panels or eliminated in favor of reinforced panels.
* houses are unmonitored, I should be able to see how much electricity or water every fixture uses. How hot, how humid is my house or the attic.
1. the length of timber required for two story structures is not efficient; old growth stuff has been felled and straight, seasoned, 24 and 36 foot lengths of wood are tough to find
2. and fire; platform framing has far better fire control
I would certainly like to buy a quality tiny house or cheaper housing for residency if I could be taught how to maintain it.
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Since nobody has mentioned it yet, I recommend doing some dedicated research into the efficiency level and measurements of various types of air conditioners, mini split and otherwise. There is a great deal of variation.
Maybe even build it into the wall box rather than the fixture, and just have the fixture plug into to wall box.
The trouble is that most house plans are not put together to a sufficient level of detail for this to work - contractors rely on all kinds of field decisions/adjustments.
I'm currently in the process of having a house built, and it's infuriating to me as an engineer how little detail I'm allowed to have either before or during the process. I have to rely on change orders to fix things that were totally preventable/plannable.
Hubris in particular because I'm sure architects think a lot about this and if they don't do it it's for some good reason... or they have done it and it just doesn't effect the market like I imagine it could.
I read about a government research program into building (70s?) that failed to reach its own goals but did advance building standards, and this does feel like something where government funded research could help. Something closer to how highway safety research is done, as opposed to scientific research.
There are prescriptive codes for everything "normal", so you don't have to consult an architect or engineer for structural things on most "common" houses. Figure anything up to 2x median purchase price probably can be built without either an architect or an engineer.
It's a crazy world and I don't disagree with you, but the housing market really doesn't work like one wants to think.
Perhaps incentivize by basing property taxes on home size?
I lived there for upwards of 10 years before I figured this out, one day when I was at a new friend's house, and realized that I already knew my way around.
Meanwhile New Yorkers are taking the subway to their apartment homes.
Different cultures.
Funny thing is, that “more expensive larger home” isn’t more expensive - it’s on par or cheaper, even with the land. Blows my mind that urban dwellers think paying equivalent of my mortgage (on a 2400sqft house) for a couple rooms is reasonable.
Building big may be more efficient, but that’s not what occupants see in their rent bill.
WFH changes that some, if you don't mind driving for groceries/hang-outs then going far out of developed areas for a larger home isn't so bad, although I will say as someone who grew up in a place like that it makes your kids significantly more dependent on you and severely limits their ability to socialize. Some people argue that's a plus and perhaps they're right, many of the most knowledgeable people I know came from similar situations but I'm not convinced it's all positive.
Provisions would require more planning, but that’s a good thing - more deliberation, more efficiency.
The “socializing” argument is overrated. Important yes, but they’re not completely isolated, and need to know how to function without others.
It would be interesting to compare the US to Japan and Japan's tendency to favor new construction (plus the differences in features and styles).
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusabl...
Looking at available lots in my neighborhood, they average about $70K for my house size. So that means my house itself is valued at $280K.
So yes, the land has appreciated by $30K (over 18 years), but the house itself has appreciated $120K in the same timeframe. The land appreciated at roughly 3% per annum, while the house appreciated at roughly the same rate.
Of course this doesn't include any improvements, or maintenance costs associated with the house.
Also, depreciation of the house includes things like maintenance costs -- did you spend money on your roof? Redo the wiring? Renovate the kitchen? Unless they're intended as a teardown, old houses are often sold post-renovation, and that investment can counter the depreciation but won't show up if you just compare the selling price against the price of the bare lot.
Lastly, it sounds like if your lot is $70k and houses are $350k, maybe construction costs have gone up a lot in your area since 2004. That could cause an old house to appreciate by increasing the cost of new houses.
Maintenance, at least in my area isn't a large cost over the life of a house. In the last year we've replaced a roof ($8K), furnace/AC ($9K), and the water heater ($800). The water heater we've had to replace twice before, so in total we've had roughly $20K in maintenance costs since we purchased the house. We're getting to a point where we need to repaint both inside and out, and replace some carpet. Probably around another $10K for that. So $30k in maintenance over 18 years is pretty small potatoes.
I don't know that construction costs have gone up much more than the inflation rate; I do know that material costs have gone up in the last 18 months, but that should drop back down to "normal" in another year or so.
Maybe some of it is prefab, but given the narrowness of roads, I wonder.
You make it sound like these are opposing views but doesn't the US also heavily favour new construction?
In the US and Japan I understand that a new build is seen as attractive and the best option for people with money to do it?
If you want a real contrast, in the UK new build is seen as the worst option, for people without any money. People with money in the UK buy old houses. The older the better. I would literally never buy a new-build in the UK unless I had no other option whatsoever. I'm saving up to upgrade to an older house here.
I don't know if my view reflects the majority, but around where I am from, older and even historic homes are the crown jewels because they were built before the race to the bottom occured in construction -- namely cheaper, thinner walls, smaller usable space, etc. Older homes are built with old growth lumber, and often come with thicker plaster walls and better layouts.
It doesn't. For example this article expressing surprise:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-26/previousl...
Even the term 'previously owned' for a house is baffling to UK ears. Of course a house is previously owned. Why would you be building your own?
Ok but Bloomberg have.
Energy use for heating and cooling is typically much higher in older buildings, over a lifetime of decades.
The century homes here in southern Ontario are double-wall brick with beefy 2x4 framing within the interior wall, then lath and plaster, and no insulation.
That's the way to build, in my opinion.
edit: They've discontinued the 'Current Conditions' part of their website but I followed it with some regularity in the early years
Insulation matters, especially when you have temperature swings from 100F in the summer to -25F in winter.
I consider older homes to be built in an era where HVAC either didn't exist or wasn't the norm, so they were designed as such -- thicker materials, proper airflow, and ample use of shade, even considering the house orientation relative to the sunrises and sunsets in the summer to ensure the primary living quarters would be out of direct sunlight the most amount of time.
My house was built in 1927, and it stays ~75-78 even on a hot summer day, and due to the much thicker materials used, doesn't bottom out past 60 in the winter.
Older mostly exists on the east coast with a few exceptions.
Literally not sure if you consider these old or new-builds for the purpose of this conversation?
I'd call anything post 1950 'new-build'.
Populations grow, so expecting everyone to live in homes from a century ago simply won't work.
Right but 'recently' is relative. To me 1960s is recently. That's when people started building 'modernly'. But I guess not for you?
Character example with contemporary reno but garish fitout (antlers!): https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-sa-highgate-136...
Conventional - you can see from the second photo being a top-down, they expect people to buy and demolish: https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-sa-clapham-1364...
New build on half a block - common here to buy, sub-divide the block, and build two semi-detached or two-storey homes: https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-sa-myrtle+bank-...
If modern is dual pane windows, proper insulation, mixed use, multiple stories... this is still quite rare in California and only allowed to become common in new buildings ten years ago due to nimbys blocking any new development.
In the US, why not distribute value, transportation, and land sufficiently so people can have a better basic standard of living? Right now, I'm looking at 1000 homeless people and tents huddling under a highway, while my drunken idiot neighbors shout and dance with glee feet from them in a gentrifying, mixed-use development pool. The people who have just enough have no shame or consideration because their motto is "F U, I got mine."
What do you expect them to do? You just said that they "have just enough".
> Each advancement fits within a simple construction system.
Powerful idea.
I want a house built to last, by a skilled professional, with wood, steel, stones, and slates. Less plastics and only locally sourced materials. If I'm going to live there for the next half century, it better be a place I love.
Please stop pushing your capitalism and your economy of scale in every corner of the world.
Saying so does not make it true. If you want to live in a house, your a consumer of house. If you like a nicer than most basic/economic house because "I'm going to live there for the next half century, it better be a place I love"; voila there come the expensive taste.
Author explained where and where not the scale-upping worked in construction. It seems author was on point, even in your case.
To author does not shove anything down our reader throats by saying how it is. You link to capitalism is pretty far of: the scale-upping worked really well in socialist places as well, in fact Marx himself obsessed over industrial scale-upping. You seem to be misguided over what capitalism actually means (spoiler alert: a system of law/govt that protects a person's hoarded wealth ad infinitum).
First, however, you're going to have to come to terms with the fact that "professional" is a capitalist word.
But also
> I want a house built to last, by a skilled professional,
> only locally sourced materials
Pick one or the other mate, those points don't mix well.
Did that article suggest vinyl siding, as in the exterior of a building using plastic?
Extravagance is perhaps, at times, a matter of perspective and opinion. Some might consider consciously choosing more costly materials, even if they happen to be natural materials, to be matters of aesthetic choice that increase cost. Or even expensive tastes.
Same as buying “good” meat at 2x (better cuts, organic, etc) isn’t a costly extravagance if you simply buy half as much by eating less of it each time or having meat less often.
If there is one thing you immediately notice when you visit the US for example is you often see homes that are of quite shoddy quality but might be 2500sq ft or even 3000. I’d trade 500sq ft for a decent countertop alone…
The cost differential between brick and vinyl siding can easily be a factor of five, and wood vs vinyl a factor of six (stone is more like 25). At this point you're trading 2400-2500 sqft of that 3000 sqft house to use "better" materials, assuming shapes that scale surface area directly with flooring size.
I expect this resulting cottage will be of wonderfully high-quality materials, but you may run into a few limits on how many people you can have comfortably living there compared to the original 3000 sqft building. I imagine you might want to be somewhere in between, at which point your choice of "better" materials may become an extravagance in the eyes of some.
I’m fairly sure I couldn’t find a cheaper exterior cladding. And obviously the cladding is a tiny percentage of the total cost of even just the wall, let alone the whole construction. Cladding will be sub $300 and the 150 sq ft extension is north of $50k all together. Insulation is probably 3-5x what the cladding is, and so is the flooring.
I think my key lesson here is that even building smaller, using "better" materials is an expensive matter of taste.
Perhaps this is partially because of the high buikding costs to begin with (It’s cold so walls are 3-400mm, a single window is $6-700 (triple glass) and so on. The BOM for my extension was $25k which is half the total. Cladding including labor is a lot less than $1k. I have never seen a vinyl clad house but I doubt I’d pick one to save that little.