Factory-made homes cut carbon emissions by 45% | Hacker News Reader

Factory-made homes cut carbon emissions by 45%

constructionenquirer.com

37 pointsddtaylor7 comments

Key takeaway:

>Embodied carbon, the CO2 produced during the design, construction and decommissioning phases of a development, is slashed because buildings require lower volumes of carbon-intensive products such as concrete and steel.

So we are likely trading CO2 production for reduction of some physical properties, likely affecting the building lifespan, thermal insulation/soundproofing, etc. It would be interesting to see the details, but like all things sensationalist, the article is extremely sparse on them.

Most the the factory constructed builds I have seen achieve better insulation and air sealing than traditional platform constructed homes.

There are lots of levels of factory build. SIPs (structurally insulated panels) built in a factory and assembled onsite with all finishes done traditionally. Factory cut lumbar exactly to measure and built like lego onsite. All the way up to entire buildings built offsite in chunks that can be transported by truck with gaskets to connect the sections. Connect the plumbing and electrical and move in the next day.

I dunno. The regular wood frame houses are pretty much like lego already. Cut standard-sized beams, assemble a frame out of them, put in pipes/wires, drywall on top, insulation inside, trim & paint to your liking.

Making modular wood+drywall+trim sections in a factory could make it cheaper, but that's just another way to transfer wealth from the local workers to another factory in China, conveniently excluding transportation from your CO2 calculations.

Home factories are generally quite local to the place the house is being assembled as the transportation cost skyrockets the more assembly done. Usually if you have to transport more than a few hundred km the cost savings are wiped out.

My company makes software for factory-made buildings and it's a very high risk high reward space. Katerra was a very public collapse, whereas House by Urban Splash recently went into administration in the UK.

With enough time and effort, we'll likely get there eventually, partly because the construction workforce is very old and isn't being replenished with nearly enough workers.

For an in depth read on what makes this space so hard to succeed in, I recommend the constructionphysics substack.

To save everyone a search: https://constructionphysics.substack.com/

This is the more promising direction than printing or robot building from atoms on site...

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