Althouse: "But there are good reasons modular housing has remained the next big thing for a long time."

December 20, 2023

"But there are good reasons modular housing has remained the next big thing for a long time."

"One basic problem is that houses are large objects, and unlike cars or airplanes, they are not designed to move. The result is that the savings from factory production are partly offset by the cost of transportation. (Some companies reduce transportation costs by shipping homes in smaller pieces, an approach pioneered by Sears and other retailers of 'build your own home' kits in the early 20th century, but that just shifts the cost from transportation to assembly.)"

I'm reading "Why Do We Build Houses in the Same Way That We Did 125 Years Ago?" (NYT).

69 comments:

gilbar said...: "Why Do We Build Houses in the Same Way That We Did 125 Years Ago?" (NYT).

MORE stupidity from the NYT's
my house (that i'm sitting in, right now) was built in 1894..
You can tell; by walking outside, going to the cellar door and going down into the basement..
The foundation in my home is rocks stacked up on each other.. I'll Bet YOURS is poured cement?

My siding is vinyl (from 2010), the roof is STEEL (from 2010). That's NOT how they did it 125 years ago

So, YEAH.. When they build houses now, they STILL build them onsite; but with completely different materials.
Here's your chance to say; "but gilbar! they STILL make them out of wood 2X4's.
Which would be MY chance to say: Come LOOK at my house. Pro-tip: they DIDN'T HAVE 2X4's 125 years ago

Should i start on the premade Pella windows? how about the sewer ?
Pro-tip: they added the Indoor plumbing in my house about 1940; 12/20/23, 8:13 AM
gilbar said...: electric wiring..
fiberglass insulation (in rolls.. Or shot in)..
Does the paved driveway count as part of the house? How about the garage?; 12/20/23, 8:15 AM
gilbar said...: MOST things in your new home were built in a factory (INCLUDING the 2X4's)
The ONLY things in a home 125 years ago from a factory would have be the nails and glass.
(I guess the paint too); 12/20/23, 8:17 AM
tim maguire said...: My nephew works for a company that does log cabins from kit. The cabins are designed and all pieces cut and marked in a factory, and then assembled onsite. The transportation costs aren't a major factor as you would have to transport materials anyway. That most of the work is done in a factory means you don't have to move as much equipment and weather is less of a factor (making them especially attractive in the north).

Maybe this approach is less advantageous if you don't like the rustic look, but I'd be willing to bet the biggest roadblock is the mental barrier of feeling like a house from a kit means cheap and shoddy.; 12/20/23, 8:23 AM
RideSpaceMountain said...: I'm a big believer in Insulated Concrete Forms (ICFs) and their penetration into the residential building market. I'm actually an investor in the technology. There's a historical hierarchy to construction: Stone > Brick > Concrete > Lumber > Wood (logs) > Mud/adobe > Thatch > Sticks/leaves > Living in a cave. It might not sound like it, but concrete is an upgrade, most especially if you hide it so you don't even know it's there.

There's a big facility just outside Vegas that started specifically to supply ICFs for casino and commercial construction in CA that does amazing things with ICFs. I see big things as its market share continues to grow in residential construction.; 12/20/23, 8:24 AM
Roger Sweeny said...: There are a number of interesting comments on this story at Marginal Revolution, 3. at:

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/12/tuesday-assorted-links-446.html; 12/20/23, 8:30 AM
Will Cate said...: I would love build a D.I.Y. wild-n-weird retirement house in the woods, but my wife is not quite on board with that idea (yet); 12/20/23, 8:35 AM
WK said...: Most likely answer is government regulations.; 12/20/23, 8:37 AM
Bob Boyd said...: As a carpenter and hands-on custom home builder, I can speak to this. There are indeed very good reasons why we build homes the way we do, not the least of which is, who wants to miss out on the opportunity to associate with a pack of witty, charming, handsome, weatherproof studs wearing tool belts? Well, Nobody...and his wife.; 12/20/23, 8:38 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: What a dumb headline or perhaps too NYC-centric. Because home building has had great advances in materials and technology since 1899. It is this highly advanced modern houses that are not well suited to modular construction or transport to site. And all the hookups to modern infrastructure are highly specialized and site-specific, again making mass production impractical. People are constantly innovating like the 3D printing technology being tried now but it seems to have unforeseen flaws as well.

But hey if you live in a converted apartment in a skyscraper built in the early twentieth century you might think nothing has changed.; 12/20/23, 8:40 AM
Jim said...: Apparently no one remembers the suburban building boom post WWII. We took the factory to the farms and built the hoses in assembly line fashion. Liberals hated it. See Carole King’s Pleasant Valley Sunday.; 12/20/23, 8:42 AM
Yancey Ward said...: The house on the left in this streetview was a modular home built sometime around 2005 or so.; 12/20/23, 8:42 AM
Enigma said...: Modular is a 20th century dream. 3D printed houses are the current fashion trend. Go to one of these websites and watch their intro videos (or search for "3d printed house video"):

https://www.sq4d.com/
https://www.alquist3d.com/

Mmmmm. A huge soft-serve ice cream house. Concrete flavor. Homer Simpson says mmmmm.

Good luck cutting in a new door or window.; 12/20/23, 8:44 AM
Tina Trent said...: I renovated a 1910 catalogue house. Every surface was tongue-and-groove. There was an outhouse. I went through two sawzalls. It was like cutting through stone.

It was in the internment camp for German citizens during WWI, in southeast Atlanta. People nearly starved there. The men were put in the federal prison, without trials, and the women and children lived in these tiny houses, surrounded by barbed wire. They were allowed to sell strudel and little iron children's toys so they wouldn't starve.

Flatbed trailers welded together are the way to go. They're still just about 2K here, a bit more for transportation. You can stack them to make tall ceilings and angle weld to make cool sitting rooms and views, big windows, small windows. Sturdy as hell.; 12/20/23, 8:44 AM
rwnutjob said...: They’re not.
Stick built 16” centers is a thing of the past; 12/20/23, 8:48 AM
Jaq said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/20/23, 8:51 AM
Jaq said...: Seven million people pour over the border unvetted and homelessness skyrocketing, it looks like we are going to have to build “projects” everywhere. Single family homes are Naziism in crypto form.; 12/20/23, 8:51 AM
traditionalguy said...: In the 1960s and early 70s there was a big manufacturer of pre-fab houses in Lafayette, Indiana. A local builder had to prepare the foundation and put the sections together. But the finished structures were much better than the stick built method.

They were factory built that fit together at a much higher standard. I recall the name was National Homes.; 12/20/23, 9:18 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/20/23, 9:27 AM
Unknown said...: "Some companies reduce transportation costs by shipping homes in smaller pieces, an approach pioneered by Sears and other retailers of 'build your own home' kits in the early 20th century, but that just shifts the cost from transportation to assembly.)"

This isn't really right. Assembling a house at a factory allows the manufacturer to capitalize on scale economies, specialization, etc., ultimately reducing costs substantially, not just shifting them.

Ask yourself: what if instead of assembling autos at big plants, they instead just shipped the car parts to your house, where you then hired a bunch of contractors to assemble it in your driveway. Do you really think that this would be efficient? Do you really think the total cost of your car (manufacture, assembly, and transportation) would be the same as it currently is? I think you know the answer to this.; 12/20/23, 9:43 AM
Old and slow said...: The other reason is that they are poorly built crap. I used work for a man-home dealer and we'd tell customers "this house was built to go down the highway at 75mph, you can't do that with a site built home!" Oh how we would laugh. The worst of them are trash, and the best aren't much better.; 12/20/23, 9:45 AM
Rafe said...: Wow. Gell-Mann Amnesia effect big time for me on this article.

It’s mostly wrong, and partially right, but even where it’s partially right it’s for the wrong reasons.

- Rafe N; 12/20/23, 10:01 AM
TJ said...: Simple rule: Never read any journalist's (or lawyer's) opinion on creating things.; 12/20/23, 10:07 AM
Howard said...: It's because of the low density and high wind resistance of a completed house as compared with the rawr materials.; 12/20/23, 10:21 AM
Oligonicella said...: NYT:
Why Do We Build Houses in the Same Way That We Did 125 Years Ago?

First, we don't unless all you're referring to is the framework. Everything else is different. But then, it's NYT.

Second, because houses are STILL basically simple and easily constructed.

I had my foundation poured for the sole reason that it takes several truck loads of cement which must be done all at once for integrity. Everything else I did myself, hiring help by the job, and got the house ready to move into in three months to finish inside during habitation. This, by the way, included a custom Swedish furnace.

Yes, it was hard-ass work but it was technically easy, even with R40 insulation, passive heat storage, in-line water heating, 19' vaulted main room with coordinated sound system and variable function fan setup and, since it's me, an IT harness.

Third is exchanging your labor for cost. I spent 80K building my house, including foundation (52x30', single level). More now, of course.

Oh, they're talking about factory houses?

Have they ever moved a house from one location to another? I have. You have to get power lines pulled down and reset as even a one story house is too tall (VERY expensive), shut down two lane streets because guess what? Houses are wider than one lane. You then have to pray to your gods that the house actually matches the footprint of the foundation (which you obviously STILL have to do on-site) and finally there are places like where I live that are not "conducive" to moving houses around in because of terrain. Try pulling a house up a 45o incline. Or taking it down the other side, for that matter.

Never listen to people who write about something they have not themselves done.

Now I'll be harsh. If all homes are factory built, they can restrict anyone from acquiring one easier.; 12/20/23, 10:34 AM
Rocco said...: gilbar,

Thanks for all your points; I was going to come in and post a lot of the same comments you did.

A couple of other things I haven't seen anyone mention yet:
- The switch from balloon framing to platform framing only started in the 1930s. The two types are very different structurally. Also, not having to have long runs of 2x4s reduced costs, as well as the improved fire safety potential.
- Drywall is mass produced in factories. 125 years ago, the interior walls were probably plaster & lath with all of the work done on site. And very time consuming.
- Since this was before air conditioning, that house was probably designed and built with cross-ventilation in mind. The house I grew up in (c1894/5) had 11-12' ceilings and transoms over most of the doors, both interior and exterior.
- Since this was pre-HVAC, there were no long runs of air ducts in the walls. There were probably iron piping runs for steam/water heating, though.
- 125 years ago, additional pipes were starting to be run for gas lighting.
- Closets were rare before the post WWII building boom. People used chests or wardrobes.; 12/20/23, 10:39 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: No, we do not build houses in the same way.

- The foundation concrete is poured via a pump truck today instead of individual wheel barrow loads. The pour is finished in just hours instead of days with wheel barrows.

- The floor joists are not just 2x12s, they are engineered I-beams.

- Roof trusses are prebuilt and trucked in, then set with a crane. They are not built onsite.

- Walls are bolted to the foundation, instead just set on top, providing earthquake protection.

- The underflooring is sheets of OSB (Oriented Strand Board) plywood.

- Nail guns are used through out, a skilled crew can get the walls up in a just couple of days. The walls are assembled on the underflooring then stood up and fastened to the foundation boards. Outside walls are 2x6s instead of 2x4 for greater insulation. Wall studs are factory cut to 92-5/8 for quick assembly.

- Plumbing lines are PEX tubing, not galvanized steel or cooper. No soldering with lead-based solder. No 90-degree elbows to change direction. Far fewer individual pieces to be assembled together.

- Electrical lines are color coded depending up voltage/amperage capability. The electrical panels use ground-fault and arc-protected breakers. Sometimes these breakers have nuisance trips. (Our refrigerator caused a nuisance trip and we lost all the food when we were in the process of moving in.)

Framed houses are bigger than manufactured houses. Financing a Framed house is much easier than trying to get a loan for a manufactured house.

The earlier method of constructing houses was post and beam. 12x12 beams, tailor notched on site. They are truly custom built. Framed houses are constructed from standardized lumber parts, resulting in quick assembly.

The NYT doesn't know jack about how houses are built today.; 12/20/23, 10:41 AM
Joe Smith said...: 'The transportation costs aren't a major factor as you would have to transport materials anyway.'

A good and obvious point. How does NYT miss it?; 12/20/23, 10:41 AM
Leland said...: My home is built on a concrete foundation with indoor plumbing hooked up to a public water source and sewage drainage. I'm fairly confident that wasn't the norm for homes 125 years ago yet perhaps not uncommon for modular homes even today.

NYT writers should get out to the rest of the country a bit more to see how far we progressed in over a century.; 12/20/23, 10:51 AM
Humperdink said...: My Amish friend builds log cabins in 2 halves, each 12' wide, any length you want. Bolt together on site. The interiors are wide open. You add the rooms you need. No electric or plumbing. Perfect for the DYY inclined. Steel roof. Logs are red pine. I sold him 2 truckloads of the timber from my property. They are beautiful.; 12/20/23, 10:54 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: Other differences:

- Wallboard instead of lap-and-plaster. The taping and mudding of the wallboard is a high-value skill.

- Latex paint instead of oil paint. Compressor/spray painting instead of paint brush or roller.

- Hardyplank siding, a composite of concrete and wood fiber. Doesn't rot, has a wood-pattern finish and is paintable.

- MDF trim pieces instead of wood.

- Hardwood floor snap-together flooring. The flooring we used has a pet-proof finish - dog pee doesn't ruin the finish.

The NYT isn't fit for birdcage liner.; 12/20/23, 11:05 AM
Humperdink said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/20/23, 11:07 AM
Hey Skipper said...: @Gilbar: Here's your chance to say; "but gilbar! they STILL make them out of wood 2X4's.

To which I say ... everything Mike of Snoqualmie said.

The NYT doesn't know jack about how houses are built today.

I'd amend that to say that no one at the NYT knows how to do anything that needs doing.

I have this theory, that goes something like this: to the degree something is Reality Refereed, those doing that thing are more likely to not be progressives. By Reality Refereed, I mean the extent to which reality exerts itself on the results, and therefore excludes approaches that do not work. Academia, outside STEM, has a RR score of zeeeeeroh. In contrast, construction is RR 100.

Guess where the progressives are.; 12/20/23, 11:15 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Oops. I posted to the wrong post again. Sorry.; 12/20/23, 11:17 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Certainly the NYT understands the intricacies of financing, acquiring and constructing a place like, say, a Doral National scale development.; 12/20/23, 11:36 AM
MadisonMan said...: Why Do We Build Houses in the Same Way
As if ANYONE at the NYTimes has ever built a house!; 12/20/23, 11:39 AM
TaeJohnDo said...: A good and obvious point. How does NYT miss it?

Here's why:

1. They are incompetent.
1a. They are idiots.
2. It doesn't fit their agenda so they ignore it.
3. It doesn't fit their agenda so they distort or lie about it.
4. All of the above.; 12/20/23, 11:46 AM
BG said...: Gilbar said, "The foundation in my home is rocks stacked up on each other.. I'll Bet YOURS is poured cement?"

My great-grandparents bought the farm I'm living on in 1888. The kitchen and the story above the kitchen were already here. The foundation and all the walls, including second story, are a foot thick of rocks/concrete, or whatever it is that looks like concrete. As my brother says, if a tornado takes that part of the house, we wouldn't have had a chance anyway. It makes for handy places to put plants by the windows. The beams in the basement under the kitchen are hand-hewn 12x12s. My dad dug out the basement underneath the "new" part (added sometime in the 1890s) and used steel beams.; 12/20/23, 11:51 AM
selfanalyst said...: Mike of Snoqualmie said "The NYT isn't fit for birdcage liner."

I prefer "To line a birdcage with the NYT would be redundant"

Can't remember where I read that, not my clever line unfortunately.; 12/20/23, 12:00 PM
traditionalguy said...: I hope this post is about stick built homes made in sections in a factory rather than flimsy mobile homes on wheels. Pre - fab is like Henry Kaiser’s Liberty Ships built for the British before the USA joined the war. Nothing missing from regular ships.; 12/20/23, 12:11 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: “MOST things in your new home were built in a factory (INCLUDING the 2X4's)
The ONLY things in a home 125 years ago from a factory would have be the nails and glass.
(I guess the paint too)”

Our house in PHX was built by DR Horton, one of the biggest home builders in the country. The materials arrive with the lumber and steel already cut to size, and marked as to where it goes. Decent sized (~3500 sq ft), it took under a week to frame, and the roof trusses were then put in place with a crane. For going up so fast, it’s amazing how well it is built. We go with them, time after time (maybe a half dozen so far, over 25 years) because my partner, a trained and formerly certified interior designer, loves their space layout.

On the other hand, maybe 35 years ago, in Fort Collins, we lived by a subdivision of manufactured homes. They were built in a small factory, right next to the subdivision, then, late at night, they would be moved to the prebuilt slab by a mechanism that put wheels under the houses. You would drive by one day, and there would be an empty slab, and the next day there would be a house on it. When they had filled up the subdivision, they would tear down their factory, and move it to another site. Very efficient, and they were able to build smaller homes (up to maybe 2k sq ft) very affordably. They cost maybe half the price we paid for a comparably sized custom stick built house maybe a half mile away. From my view, very good starter homes>

Finally, small houses, garages, and sheds, trucked in, in one or two pieces, are very common in MT. Several competing companies. I was going to buy a garage to put on the property next door to our house in MT. Found one that was roughly 30’x40’, for under $20k. Yes, it would have come in two pieces, that would be bolted together on-site. But then, the guy I engaged to pour the slab said that he could build one for not that much more. But then, I had more design freedom, and added a second floor, except for the 14’ bay in the middle. It went up over the winter two years ago, and I like the construction. But getting it finished has been traumatic. Finally got electricity last month, and won’t get the plumbing hooked up until next summer. And that means even later for the insulation. And, yes, my man cave turned out to be much more expensive than that one story 2 door, 4 car, prebuilt garage would have been.; 12/20/23, 12:15 PM
The Vault Dweller said...: I have a friend who recently went on a trip to Europe for a month. He loved it overall, but regarding his visit to Madrid, he said half the city was amazing and gorgeous and the other half was unpleasant to look at. He said that the unpleasant part had a lot of 'Modern' construction from the 1950's forward. Beauty is a value worth pursuing on its own, and architecture is a way humans can achieve beauty. Even if there are economic efficiencies for modular housing this shouldn't negate the pursuit of beauty in architecture. One of the often unrecognized things that Trump did well was issuing an executive order banning Brutalist architecture in new federal buildings.; 12/20/23, 12:49 PM
Narayanan said...: shifts the cost from transportation to assembly.
========
come on NYT >> as if with lumber and other materials no transportation to assembly is incurred; 12/20/23, 12:55 PM
Oligonicella said...: For those left that think they can't do the work themselves because of plumbing and wiring, you can. In some places you may be required to hire a certified expert but usually all you have to do is pass inspection. Do things correctly and don't cut corners or jury-rig (down here it's called Ozarking) and you'll be fine because you'll be doing exactly what the 'expert' does. If you built to UL standards you'll usually surpass inspection. The UL site and plenty of YouTube vids to show you how to do it all.

Where I live, outside of town there aren't inspections. You're on your own for torching your house.

Oh, concerning the well. THERE you have to have someone with expertise and equipment. Don't accept a plastic bladder. Pop for a steel one.; 12/20/23, 1:43 PM
Oligonicella said...: For those left that think they can't do the work themselves because of plumbing and wiring, you can. In some places you may be required to hire a certified expert but usually all you have to do is pass inspection. Do things correctly and don't cut corners or jury-rig (down here it's called Ozarking) and you'll be fine because you'll be doing exactly what the 'expert' does. If you built to UL standards you'll usually surpass inspection. The UL site and plenty of YouTube vids to show you how to do it all.

Where I live, outside of town there aren't inspections. You're on your own for torching your house.

Oh, concerning the well, THERE you have to have someone wit expertise. Don't accept a plastic bladder. Pop for a steel one.

(this may be a dup); 12/20/23, 1:44 PM
Tina Trent said...: PEC is a game changer. Especially for women. My hands just aren't strong enough to manipulate joints when I'm lying on my back. My grandfather became a plumber at 10. I Just received the manuals he had to learn, after learning English, with complicated equations to keep apartment boilers from exploding, and so on. He never went to school, but he was a highly educated man. I keep his smallest wrench in my tool bag, even though I don't need it anymore.

One thing I learned renovating houses in Georgia is this: the most important thing is how they sit on the land. Hollers are great protection from storms. Also, bomb the crawlspace the day before you're crawling under there. A few hours breathing insecticide is better than meeting a brown recluse. Or a quivering ball of giant, stupid Kangaroo Crickets that decide to escape at the last minute by jumping on your face and crawling into your clean suit.

Someday, I'll have a real concrete foundation. And ICF structure. They're already selling it here, but only commercially. I'll check out your link, RideSpaceMountain.; 12/20/23, 2:24 PM
Tina Trent said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/20/23, 2:32 PM
Skeptical Voter said...: Way back in my early legal career I did some litigation work for a company that built both large RVs and also "mobile homes/manufactured housing". I toured one of their factories and saw things being framed up and built.

This was the early 70s--the company was a giant in the industry with national distribution and probably a dozen different brands of both RVs and mobile homes. For manufactured housing at least (aka "mobile homes") transportation was a major cost. Most mobile homes wound up less than 200 miles from where they were built. So the company had manufacturing plants scattered across the country.

Customers usually wanted a bit of space--so "double wides" and "triple wides" were on offer. You could see these partial mobile homes being towed down a freeway--and in a Southern California windstorm that partial home might get blown over. I had one of those cases as well.

Motorhomes were a slightly different story. Because they could be driven from the manufacturing plant to the dealer's lot, the plants were more dispersed. A caravan of a dozen or so new motorhomes would leave the plant headed for a dealership. After delivery the dozen drivers would pile into a van and be driven back to the plant.

Motorhomes--old or new--have been known to catch fire. Over the years when driving down the Grapevine grade on I-5 I'd occasionally see one of those new motorhome caravans stopped alongside the road with one of the new motorhomes on fire.; 12/20/23, 3:02 PM
brad said...: Anyone who has seen UK with SIPS would see that great housing put up in days not months is possible The US housing industry would lose 50% of it's management if they did factory built SIPS housing. The factory built home in Poland is the most popular way to do self build in UK and there must be some TRANSPORTTION moving a home from Poland to Oxfordshire; 12/20/23, 3:20 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Tina,

Re: "Flatbed trailers" -- Do you perhaps mean "shipping containers"?; 12/20/23, 3:55 PM
R C Belaire said...: As opposed to modular construction -- which seems just too boring on the exterior -- I've seen a number of panelized homes that are quite nice in terms of customized floor plans and quality of construction. Without a dive into the numbers, I'd guess a panelized home cost lies somewhere between modular and stick-built. Years ago my in-laws panelized home was assembled in two days, including the roof.; 12/20/23, 4:57 PM
Jamie said...: Damn, I love this commentariat.

Now if only someone here could help me get my display settings back to where they were before last week's phone reset... and also tell me why it's only this blog that is displaying badly.; 12/20/23, 5:28 PM
loudogblog said...: We don't build houses that same way that we did 125 years ago. This author has no idea how houses are built.; 12/20/23, 6:00 PM
Big Mike said...: 125 years ago the walls were painted using a pigment called white lead. Thankfully we switched to titanium oxide a number of years ago.

When our retirement house was being built in a new development the wife and I observed roof trusses being brought in by the truckload, one truck per house. Most exterior walls came into the development in prebuilt sections. This is probably about the best that can be done. Suppose the were able to assemble the house out of prebuilt modules. Those modules would have to be no more that 8 1/2 feet wide or else you'd be looking at oversized loads moving down the roads. Does anyone at the Times think that would be desirable? How about getting those modules through the streets of New York City? Feasible? I don't think so.

Standardization can be overdone. When the wife and I return to the Washington, DC, suburbs to see our doctors we pass a development where all the footprints appear to be identical and the rooflines certainly are identical. Differences between individual houses must necessarily amount to a few changed window locations and some interior differences. Neither of us would want to live in a development that uniform.; 12/20/23, 7:32 PM
Oligonicella said...: OK, since it's a festive season, I'll attempt to amuse. I'll tell what kind of home NOT to have and why and I'll keep it much shorter than what I wrote when it happened.

My friend George the Unlucky went to help a friend, Oliver, set up his new trailer and install appliances. It was a single wide, Oliver wanted a view, they'd just rolled it in, the appliances weren't attached yet and it was inclement weather.

George was inside setting up the dryer, Oliver was outside downhill of the 'house' when a wind blew it off it's 'foundations' and it started rolling downhill sideways. After a bit, George figured holding onto the dryer was better than it slamming around.

Thud, thud, thud, thud, every fourth thud George could see Oliver in his orange worksuit and leather aviator cap hauling ass downhill just ahead of the 'house'. Oliver was not a thin man. Another viewing of Oliver's frantic retreat and a house seam burst, thud, thud, thud. It laid out like a cut box and George stopped a little bit later and the washer after that.

The man's life was absolutely rife with crap like that. I've used him for two morality fables; offhand.; 12/20/23, 7:43 PM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: Frame houses can be very earthquake resistant if their bolted to the foundation and reinforced with shear walls. This is standard now for construction, with OSB plywood used as the shear wall reinforcement. Western homes are frame homes because of all the earthquake activity, especially in CA, OR, and WA.

Home made of brick would fall apart in an earthquake. Brick homes are fine for the east coast, but are never built on the west coast because of the earthquake risk. There were brick buildings in downtown Seattle that had extensive damage after the 2001 Nisqually earthquake. The frame homes did fine.

But, once again, the NYT's worldview stops at the Hudson River. Anything west of that, is unknowable territory and is unimportant anyways.; 12/20/23, 7:43 PM
typingtalker said...: Binyamin Applebaum ends his article ...

If it seems far-fetched that the government could revolutionize the home-building business, take a look at what sits on top of a growing number of American homes. The government has driven the spread — and driven down the cost — of solar panels through decades of investment and subsidies.

It’s time to pay similar attention to the buildings underneath.

When was the last time you saw a set of revolutionary government approved solar panels on a newly built housing development?; 12/20/23, 8:04 PM
Old and slow said...: I don't think I have ever seen such a collection of half informed but mostly very smart people commenting. What a disappointment (with a few notable exceptions...).; 12/20/23, 9:29 PM
iowan2 said...: I KNOW, waving hand, I KNOW, Pick ME,

We build them the same way, because, every other method costs more, or takes longer, or is lower quality, or reasons.; 12/20/23, 9:48 PM
typingtalker said...: Asked and Answered ...

Up thread I asked about the number of solar panels installed ...

Home solar market in the U.S.

The market experienced a record year in 2022, with roughly six gigawatts of residential solar power installed across the United States. California remained a leader in the installation of home solar photovoltaics, adding more than 258,000 new systems. Since 2020, California has required the installation of a photovoltaic system sufficient to cover yearly electricity usage in all newly constructed homes, which is an important market driver. However, the recent introduction of new net metering rules that reduce the value of excess electricity fed into the grid is expected to hinder the growth of residential solar in the sunny state. Texas, Arizona, and Florida are other states with an important solar PV market. The three states had a cumulative solar residential capacity close to two gigawatts as of the end of 2022.

Home solar market in the U.S.

"Required" tells me that this is a "stick" approach rather than a "carrot" approach.; 12/21/23, 5:10 AM
Marcus Bressler said...: I cannot comment in such a manner to do it justice, but the Burg & DiVosta building team that started here in Jupiter FL became famous (and rich, and spawned many imitators and competitors) by doing assembly-line (on the site) building of townhomes/quadplexes. Their crews were so efficient that they went from lot to lot and did their thing, sort of like an auto-assembly line excepting the skilled workers moved, not the product. It made "near the beach" living affordable for many people. You give up a lot of individuality living in such communities but again you own a place within walking distance to the beach (The Bluffs in Jupiter, FL). They later broke up their partnership and Otto DiVosta and family continues on, building all sorts of stuff. Otto made a local news splash when he built a small warehouse here in 24 hours! It took fast-curing concrete and cooperation from town officials to pull off the stunt. Personal note: I knew the daughters of both men and went to high school with them. Nice girls. I didn't pursue them romantically but I could be the faux head of a construction empire today, playing with Mr. Burg's or Mr. DiVosta's great-grandchildren, but I was more interested in cheerleaders who enjoy my parties at the beach with gallons of pre-made daiquiris. Opportunities missed.

MarcusB. THEOLDMAN; 12/21/23, 6:47 AM
mikee said...: We don't build houses the same way we did 125 years ago. Vast changes in materials, methods and housing code requirements mean that a house built today is quite different from a house built a century ago. Yes, houses are built on site from parts, still. But the parts change all the time to improve efficiency, lower cost, meet new standards of construction and give buyers what they want.; 12/21/23, 7:40 AM
Tina Trent said...: Kirk Parker: yes, I do. Sorry.; 12/21/23, 8:38 AM
mikee said...: I am certain that the planned future accommodation of the working class in pods will have very standardized housing up to 300sqft per person that can be transported in large numbers on an autonomously driven tractor trailer truck, be unloaded and stacked and connected to utilites onsite rapidly by only a few workers, and be ready for the daily bug deliveries to sustain the workers within only a minimal time. Only for the working class, of course.; 12/21/23, 11:15 AM
J suarez said...: The comparison to cars or airplanes highlights the inherent difference in design, where houses, being stationary structures, face inherent logistical challenges in transportation. Floor displays; 12/21/23, 3:50 PM
Mikey NTH said...: There are zoning laws, homeowner covenants, and economics.

Of course you could go with doublewides, but that has the wrong class connotation about it.; 12/21/23, 4:24 PM
takirks said...: Oddly, I just did a little bit of remodeling on a modular home over the summer.

Overall, it wasn't a bad build. Went in over thirty years ago, most of it is still rock-solid and about as well-built as you're going to get with that construction.

However, comma... There were a bunch of issues with it.

One, it was not designed for the climate we're in. Two, a lot of the little details were obviously "off", as in the modules were not sat properly on top of the site-built foundation. There were also spots in the substructure that had to be shored up, in order to take squeaks out of the over-spanned floor systems. The amount of little details that were "off" for a house in this area were pretty damn high. One of which was that the interior ceilings were not actually connected to the roof trusses. The modules were shipped with drywall ceilings in place, and then they put the roof on. At no point were the ceilings actually nailed into the roof trusses, and whenever you went to take out a wall or do any work, you wound up with the whole structure of the ceiling near that wall needing to be shored up.

There were a lot of good things with the structure, but... Man. It was very obvious that they'd had inexperienced carpenters working at the factory who'd all just gotten their first nailguns, or the employee retirement funds were invested with the nail supplier. I had to take out one piece of 2X4 about eight feet long that had something like 42 freakin' nails in it. Not a lot of fun, that. It was not, in my opinion, the sort of work you could expect from even journeyman carpenters that we'd tolerate doing framing on a site-built home. Which puts to question that entire idea of "factory-built precision".

Panelized construction? Yeah, much better idea. The modules built in a factory, trucked in, assembled with a crane...? Not so much. You take off some siding on those to see that the edge of the module is inside the foundation line by several inches here, and outside the foundation line over there by an inch, and you realize that someone screwed up reading the foundation plans or someone didn't build the modules to spec. And, while that seems a minor problem, when you factor in that they were at the time relying on Louisiana-Pacific OSB siding to attach the house to the foundation sill plates...? That's scary as hell. Particularly when said siding has now become sponge-like in strength and consistency due to the house not having enough overhang and not enough insulation in the attic, either...

You're better off with a good contractor building your house on-site. Homes are just too damn big to really factory-build and then put on a site-built foundation with any real precision. You could do it, but I think the cost would be a lot higher.

(cont.); 12/21/23, 5:01 PM
takirks said...: Then again, most of the housing stock in this country is built for shiite, anyway. If you know what you're looking at with most homes built in the last seventy years, you'd be terrified to be in one of them during a major earthquake. I venture to predict that if the Great Cascadia Subduction Earthquake ever reoccurs, most of the housing in Western Washington and Oregon will wind up pancaked after it all slides off the foundations and collapses. The stuff that doesn't wind up sliding down the hillsides or having said hillsides slide down onto them, that is.

If you want to know why, it's mostly down to the connections between the foundations and the framing. They specified treated lumber for direct contact to the concrete foundations, held down by J-bolts embedded in the concrete. Minor problem, there: The wood treatment had a bunch of corrosive metals in it, and those J-bolts were not specified by code as needing to be galvanized. So, they weren't. If you go over to that region and do any kind of remodeling, one of the interesting things you discover the minute you get to that part of the job is that nearly all of those J-bolts are corroded down to about pencil-lead thickness due to the corrosion. At least, every job I've done over there has had that happen. So, what's going to happen the first time they have an earthquake...? Yeah: Slip-slidey away, followed by structural collapse. The lawsuits will be epic, and anyone who's got stock in the companies insuring the geotech guys who signed off on most of those house sites and developments...? When it was done, 'cos it didn't use to be required? LOL... Baby, it's gonna be one expensive-ass debacle, biblical in scale.

I would not live west of the Cascades for love nor money. There are reasons the local indigenous peoples came up with the whole Potlach culture, and that's because about the time they got things together to do anything lasting, along came Mother Nature to wipe their asses out, either by way of volcano, earthquake, or tsunami.

If you're gonna live over there? My advice? Do it in a tent, don't pitch the tent near any trees that might fall on you, and have plans to walk the hell out after it all goes to hell. The road networks over there? The ones with all the cuts and fills that weren't ever designed with being earthquake-proof, before the Cascadia fault was general knowledge? You're probably going to see everything west of the Cascades looking about like Oso did, with all those embankments collapsed. The whole region is going to be cut up into little patches of intact infrastructure, needing to be re-connected. Which ain't nobody preparing to do. State really needs to have a bunch of portable bridging stocked everywhere over there, and massive amounts of construction equipment on standby in safe locations. They don't. When it happens, if it's anything like the 1700 event? Most of that region is gonna be gone, gone, gone.; 12/21/23, 5:01 PM
takirks said...: Then again, most of the housing stock in this country is built for shiite, anyway. If you know what you're looking at with most homes built in the last seventy years, you'd be terrified to be in one of them during a major earthquake. I venture to predict that if the Great Cascadia Subduction Earthquake ever reoccurs, most of the housing in Western Washington and Oregon will wind up pancaked after it all slides off the foundations and collapses. The stuff that doesn't wind up sliding down the hillsides or having said hillsides slide down onto them, that is.

If you want to know why, it's mostly down to the connections between the foundations and the framing. They specified treated lumber for direct contact to the concrete foundations, held down by J-bolts embedded in the concrete. Minor problem, there: The wood treatment had a bunch of corrosive metals in it, and those J-bolts were not specified by code as needing to be galvanized. So, they weren't. If you go over to that region and do any kind of remodeling, one of the interesting things you discover the minute you get to that part of the job is that nearly all of those J-bolts are corroded down to about pencil-lead thickness due to the corrosion. At least, every job I've done over there has had that happen. So, what's going to happen the first time they have an earthquake...? Yeah: Slip-slidey away, followed by structural collapse. The lawsuits will be epic, and anyone who's got stock in the companies insuring the geotech guys who signed off on most of those house sites and developments...? When it was done, 'cos it didn't use to be required? LOL... Baby, it's gonna be one expensive-ass debacle, biblical in scale.

I would not live west of the Cascades for love nor money. There are reasons the local indigenous peoples came up with the whole Potlach culture, and that's because about the time they got things together to do anything lasting, along came Mother Nature to wipe their asses out, either by way of volcano, earthquake, or tsunami.

If you're gonna live over there? My advice? Do it in a tent, don't pitch the tent near any trees that might fall on you, and have plans to walk the hell out after it all goes to hell. The road networks over there? The ones with all the cuts and fills that weren't ever designed with being earthquake-proof, before the Cascadia fault was general knowledge? You're probably going to see everything west of the Cascades looking about like Oso did, with all those embankments collapsed. The whole region is going to be cut up into little patches of intact infrastructure, needing to be re-connected. Which ain't nobody preparing to do. State really needs to have a bunch of portable bridging stocked everywhere over there, and massive amounts of construction equipment on standby in safe locations. They don't. When it happens, if it's anything like the 1700 event? Most of that region is gonna be gone, gone, gone.; 12/21/23, 5:02 PM