Posted on 05/21/2018 8:25:39 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Some of my earliest memories are of living in areas like that, but not since, thankfully.
Between the little street being jammed with contractor vehicles, the noise, litter and debris, and all the people, It can’t end soon enough.
Random observations.
Half the house on the site is porch. If they extended the outside walls the house would be twice as large.
Seems rather industrial looking. Lacks warmth. Maybe you can watch a you tube video of a fire.
Eventually there will be a price paid for eliminating craftsmen’s jobs.
I like the concept. Let’s do it.
I remember Expo 67 in Montreal had little stackable concrete “homes.” I wasn’t especially impressed but 3D printing might end up as a useful method. Just hope that the fellow programming your custom house knows what he’s doing.
“Construction as we know it may be gone in a generation, except for maintenance and expensive hand-made homes.”
Gosh, I have an idea for a long term plan!
Let’s import millions of no-skill workers who don’t speak English and hate the USA to build houses.
The tech always gets better.
Like what are most Americans living in now other than Sears catalog homes, tract housing, manufactured houses, and stuff that are little more than stuff made from generic planes in some developer’s office 50 years ago?
If Americans wanted fine craftmanship, they haven’t been demonstrating it for the past 100 years.
#3 This is known as ‘kickbacks’ by the gov’t & utilities extortionists!
The latest in grass huts.
My parents first home was a concrete casted walls home on a slab, with a spancrete flat roof. 1,200 sq.ft. 3 bedrooms. They used the same forms on every house in the neighborhood. Slab on day #1. Let cure. Walls on day #2. Let cure. Crane set roof day #3. That was 1954 for $6,200
With our aging population, this might be the way to provide our needed assisted living properties.
Nope, just run conduit.
Basic 2 x 4 construction is not difficult to learn, can be done by one person or two, is satisfying work, and lends itself to forming interiors the way you want them.
Example: I build a home for myself, using a framing crew. After the home was being lived in I decided to add an upstairs laundry. Framing in a 3 x 6 closet and plumbing it up was actually easy and satisfying. I'm getting a little too old to do it now, but I always wanted to have a 3D built shell with two major partitions, then do all the internal walls and such myself, have trusses set for roof and hire a crew to roof it all while I'm framing up the interior.
I also added a second hot water heater, under the house so bathing was on one heater and kitchen and laundry on the other. Ran conduit from garage power boxes to the basement area for the 220 amp electrical.
The Sears House my husband’s great grandfather ordered and built is still lived in, in Oregon.
That is not my experience on the industrial side, admittedly a different beast than residential construction. An industrial structure is about 2/3 for the building and 1/3 for the utilities.
This is with the industrial building having greater costs for electrical, concrete and actually will have 2 wastewater systems (process and sanitary) vs. one for residential. The electrical system will normally be much more complex. Concrete is more complex in that the concrete is a typically a stronger PSI with stronger wire/rebar level to give greater load bearing, there are often concrete piers or bases that are added subunits, trench or point source grates for floor drains, isolated floating slabs for tanks, etc.
I can typically get a prefabbed steel industrial building for about $150ish per square foot installed - This is highly location specific though depending on local labor rates. Building permits and inspections are a trivial cost unless the workmanship is half ass or the construction specifications were not followed. If the construction contract is specified properly then this kind of redo is on the construction company and not the owner.
$$$ are well spent on competent design and engineering/architectural before even thinking about the building permit process. This gives the permit folks a easy days work to understand the what and how of the construction so they can match this to what their local code requirements are. During construction, these specifications give an exact benchmark of scope, supply and component quality requirements - Uncertainty is removed. Field discoveries and material supply problems always are going to occur. Full specifications give a road map to resolving this starting with field level change order development and an established pipeline of expertise for approving and documenting changes from the approved design noted in building permits. All this saves time and $$$ by reducing do overs and streamlining inspection approval.
I don't mean for all this to sound overly complex. This kind of stuff if is daily life for a project manager and construction manager. For a new technology like 3D printing or unconventional technology like prefab residential, the upfront work related to building permits is smoothed at lot by local competent experts to make sure the applications contain all the details properly itemized and specified so the permit writer has an easy job to complete his work. With respect to zoning issues, if it is a hassle, build somewhere else where it isn't a problem unless you have the patience to deal with local politicians.
bkmrk
I completely agree with this. The problem is the cost.
Let's take an example, the common front exterior door for a house. For the typical house, it is originally built with a ahemmm “builders grade door”. The purchase cost to the builder is in the $250-500 range for a prehung steel door. In 5 to 8 years, the door starts looking pretty poor and at 10 years it is leaking and the wood jamb is rotting. Time for a new one.
To get an intermediate grade door, the homeowner freaks out when the purchase cost of a quality replacement is in the $1600-$2500 range. The homeowner passes out when the purchase cost for a premium door is $3500 and up.
With respect to traditional fine craftsmanship, the door is a good example of this. A decent wood door starts at the low $2000 range purchase cost. A wood door requires a craftsman. The individual pieces are cut using a jig or perhaps even CNC but it comes down to a craftsman to select the woods with matching grain, sand paper and a mallet to assemble the stiles and panels, apply glue, stain, etc. This takes a craftsman's touch, eye and judgments. This is expensive both in $$ per hour and the number of hours required.
I didn’t see any re-bar, wonder how these homes would do in an earthquake. I would think the smaller structures such as the ones shown would do OK, but as structures get longer walls or higher walls, some sort of seismic reinforcement would be needed.
Priced Concrete lately?
It takes a lot of BTU’s to make cement.
I also understand that there is a Sand shortage
(ya can’t use Desert Sand)
Just here to cheer everyone up ;^)
Bump!
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