Where has Construction Automation been successful?(construction-physics.com) |
Where has Construction Automation been successful?(construction-physics.com) |
The Hudson River used to be a main manufacturing artery of the United States but has since become a relic. I still believe that region upstream of NYC could address the housing crisis plaguing the northeast of the United States. Imagine barges of housing components drifting down-river to be assembled in any coastal metro on the Atlantic coastline.
Everyone I've talked to says they are wierd looking like the movie set of Edward Scissorhands or something, but it's mainly because they didn't leave old growth trees so every tree is < 5 years old (maybe for the printer to have room to move around?) and they are very very similar. People also don't like the concrete factor.
I don't know if it counts as successful but if we'd had fewer kids I'd be in one right now!
The difference in styles between residential and commercial construction is probably an example of this. Not many commercial buildings with tar paper shingled roofs.
I mean, this is kind of true and kind of untrue. There aren't a lot of commercial roofs with literal residential asphalt shingles, but many commercial roofs are things like mod bit which are practically the same concept, just a mod bit needs to handle an extremely low to flat pitch while residential shingles assume a decent pitch to the roof. Tons are also just single-ply membranes, which often don't even last as long as a good residential asphalt shingle install.
Its not like every commercial building has a metal roof. Just look at this random commercial/industrial office park:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/7X1NUTwrTUdH21o1A
Take a look around. You see a lot of metal roofs, yes. You also see membrane roofs. You see mod bit. And you'll even see some old built-up roofs.
For a business, it can make more sense as it might be a more long term structure, plus it would contain more valuable items (or at least cause more loss if business is interrupted).
Also noise, if you live somewhere with a lot of rain.
I wonder if the longevity argument really holds, too. Anecdotally, our local public housing project invested in metal roofs many years ago (less than 30, however) but a good fraction of them have been replaced since with contemporary asphalt shingles. I do not know why they failed, but the switch back to asphalt says something.
Is this only calculating last mile labor, or all the labor along the way? Like, for a car, does it count the cost of steel as purely non-labor costs, or do they factor in the labor cost for mining the ore, etc?
Because I feel like at the end of the day, almost all costs are 'labor' costs, they are just paid by different people/companies earlier in the process. Housing just has a lot of the labor as the final step, assembling the house on site. Cars have more of their labor at earlier stages of the process, and the assembling is mostly automated.
People love the promise of renovation and "growing with the home". When my wife and I bought earlier this year, I was enthusiastic about one underutilized wall on the mudroom; I could already imagine a "bump-out" that becomes an in-law suite.
It's a really expensive and laboruius way to increase the R value of your home basically.
MEP workers have huge regulatory moats and trade groups with war chests which is why their bit of the process isn't being discussed here. If the tech isn't at a point where it can beat the relatively "exposed to the free market" framers and brick layers then there's no way it can fight the MEPs who have the laws and rules and codes they can leverage.
Also, at least in my area, the trend seems to be towards smaller lots and two story homes. There might be modular homes that could fit that niche, but currently manufactured homes are just big single story rectangles.
Most homes in my area have two (3 with basement), traditional single story ranch doesn’t make good use of the limited land. So if multiple floors aren’t available they’re not an option for a great many homes.
It’s kind of amazing we’ve perfected the subdivision. Building and rebuilding the same 3 floor plans a hundred times over by hand. It’s automated in a way and yet not automated at all.
Don't know about noise - wonder if it is better or worse?
I would guess that happened a long time ago and the vast, vast majority of what looks like brick houses today are facades. Does anyone want a real brick house these days?
Once you get into this territory, at least in the US, it makes more economical sense to have a builder create a 2/3 story home.
It wasn't and isn't particularly popular. I don't know the precise reasons, but I suppose the fact it was tried, and didn't work says something.
And houses are expected to last longer than cars.
I'm not saying you're wrong person se, but I disagree with the analogy
There's probably a bit of selection bias in both directions: metal roofs that don't work get replaced with shingles and are no longer metal roofs, while metal roofs that do work have owners that don't think about them much and don't complain about them.
Metal roofs will also last a lot longer. Their color may not, but the roof itself, as long as it was installed properly (major component here), will outlast asphalt by decades.
AKA "I'll be gone. You'll be gone."