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Comment by carterschonwald | Hacker News Reader

the current white house really fucked over all the smaller domestic manufacturers. and scientists. and um america basically

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Everything.

If you are a builder, there is no sane way to bid on contracts with such hugely variable COGS.

And how the HELL do you even attempt to fix the US housing supply if you are tariffing Canadian lumber? You can't.

Guess this is what happens when you elect a group that prioritizes enriching themselves over ensuring you don't starve in the street like a filthy animal.

As for the housing... stop using lumber maybe? Us Europeans build houses out of bricks and mortar or outright concrete.

Lumber framing only makes sense if you want something dirt cheap (and yet, US matchsticks and cardboard houses go for millions of dollars?!) or something that needs to be earthquake resilient and affordable.

I have a video for this.

It's because of our earthquakes and the severity of our storms. The lumber frame and design of construction flexes and sways when stone and brick would break (tornados are different story). Likewise when they do break, and they absolutely will given some of these forces, it doesn't bankrupt people and companies when trying to recover from those events. Bigger buildings of concrete, stone and brick here are now built very different, sometimes on giant metal plates with actual springs.

Here you go:

https://youtube.com/shorts/jFph1d2WR3s

Btw:

> or something that needs to be earthquake resilient and affordable

https://earthquake.alaska.edu/earthquakes

What is the deal with europeans who have zero knowledge of construction having a weird grudge against wood framing?

Ignorance, mostly. They don't understand how the layers and designs work together because they don't live here.

> europeans who have zero knowledge of construction

I actually worked in construction and now studying electrical engineering, focus residential.

> weird grudge against wood framing

Well, it's cheap to build but sold to your population at prices that have us ROFLing, it needs to be treated with all kinds of nastyness to survive stuff like termites, a lot of construction is incredibly shoddy (watch some Cy Porter), it's not durable like our houses that last many decades to centuries... choose your pick.

> it's not durable like our houses that last many decades to centuries...

And none of your homes would last more than 50y here before an earthquake, tornado, or hurricane destroyed them.

I've lived most of my adult life in wooden structures that are over 100 years old. They will stand for another 100 as long as waterproofing is maintained (and a masonry building will be severely damaged as well if it is not waterproof). They have been through multiple earthquakes and are easy to repair if damaged, by opening up one of the "cardboard" walls and nailing in some more wood pieces. When they are built in wildfire-prone localities, they are coated in stucco and given concrete roof shingles, making them as fire resistant as masonry buildings. Houses are expensive in the US because the land is expensive here (location location location), and because there is shortage of skilled labor due to the high employment rate. Areas of the US with levels of economic performance similar to Europe have similarly cheap houses.

Likewise, how do you attempt to fix US manufacturing if you are tariffing Canadian aluminum?

- US imports 20% of its lumber from Canada vs. 70% local lumber.

- Raw lumber costs are about 1% of the price of a house in California.

- Lumber prices were much much higher during the pandemic and are actually not that high right now: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lumber (it's at 9 months low and cheaper than in 2018).

It's not just lumber.

There is a 24-45% tariff on building supplies, steel, aluminum, and cement.

> Raw lumber costs are about 1% of the price of a house in California.

California is fucking weird then, because it's 16% or more other places.

https://www.txrac.com/blog/cost-to-build-a-house-from-scratc...

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