6 ms·

Underfloor heating, LED lighting, solar heaters, PV on the roof, heat pumps etc.

• amelius 11y ago
  These are luxuries most people cannot afford.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
• Grishnakh 11y ago
  A lot of this is nothing new. Solar heaters were around in the 70s (though not that common), heat pumps have been around since the 70s, LED lighting has almost nothing to do with house construction (you just screw in an LED bulb now instead of a CF bulb or incandescent bulb, the Edison socket remains the same), and I don't think underfloor heating is all that common (nor is it new, they've had that since the 70s too). PV on the roof has nothing to do with house construction either; it's equally easy to add it to a new house as an old one. Heat pumps are really the only thing here which have a big effect on the design and construction of a house, because of the need for ducting, which really, really old houses usually don't have. But if your house is 40 years old or less, it was probably built with ducting for a central heating system of some kind, so putting in a heat pump isn't a big deal. Even on an old house, it's not that hard to retrofit one if you put the ducting in the attic. Face it, house construction really hasn't changed much in a century, and definitely not since the 1950s. We're (in the US) still using 2x4 lumber assembled on-site, making walls with gypsum board, etc. Even "manufactured houses" use most of the same techniques and materials.
  • logfromblammo 11y ago
    It certainly has changed since the 50s! You could still get good 2x4 stud lumber in the 50s.~ Thanks to mandatory building codes, innovation in building technique is basically outlawed. For instance, a 4"-thick monolithic concrete dome with basalt fiber reinforcement would likely survive a direct meteorite strike, but would not be code-compliant. The minimum thickness of a concrete wall assumes both a flat wall and steel rebar that may corrode, swell, and cause spalling in a wall less than 8" thick. Basalt fiber composite rebar does not count as reinforcement in some places. Never mind about inflatable forms, building-sized 3-d printers, self-consolidating concrete, self-repairing concrete, translucent concrete, cast fused stone, centralized fiber-optic building lighting, 48V DC power outlets, advanced composite plumbing, composting toilets, or any other idea you might have that would be 1000x better than the bog-standard stick-built box, on a concrete slab, full of gypsum wallboard, copper wires, and PVC pipes that represents 99.99% of new site-built homes. Sure, the codes stop you from buying a house that might kill you if the wind changes direction, but they specify only proven construction tech, without providing any economically viable way for new tech to become proven.
    • Grishnakh 11y ago
      You make some great points here, but I have a few nitpicks: - We do have more advanced plumbing now. A lot of new houses are being built with PEX tubing, where the tubing is flexible and snaps together, instead of needing to be soldered or glued. - What would be better than gypsum wallboard? It's dirt-cheap, not that expensive for labor, and people like the way it looks when painted. It also has reasonable insulation value. You could have concrete walls I guess, but I think that would be a lot more expensive, plus it's pretty hard to modify wiring if it's cast in concrete. Personally I think it'd be cool to have walls that are easy to take apart so you can modify the wiring behind them without having to do drywall work and painting, but there's no easy way to do that while having the smooth, painted wall look we enjoy now. The wooden paneling thing would work here, but went out of style decades ago along with shag carpets. 48VDC power outlets? What is the value here? Higher voltage is better for lower losses; it'd be better if we moved to 220VAC like the Europeans have, simply because of lower losses. And adapting appliances would be easy. 48VDC would require completely changing everything, for no real benefit except maybe lower shock hazard. GFCI outlets have mostly solved that problem. I'm pretty sure a lot of people actually do have composting toilets these days; I don't think they're prevented by code. I've heard of people having them in basement bathrooms, so they don't need to add in expensive pump systems (as they would need to pump the toilet drain pipe's output up to the sewer level). The reason they're not more popular is because they smell (even if just a little) and require maintenance. Not many people really want to deal with that, they just want to flush their toilet and never see their poop again. What would the benefit of centralized fiber-optic building lighting be? It sounds like a lot of labor cost, to deal with the fiber (which can't be bent in tight corners). Modern LED lighting has rendered this idea completely obsolete IMO. It's simple and cheap and completely compatible with existing Edison sockets. Heck, they're even making fluorescent replacement fixtures now (LED tubes which replace fluorescent tubes), so you're not limited to Edison socket stuff either. LEDs have completely revolutionized lighting; just look at cars now. You don't need to generate light centrally when you can cheaply generate it anywhere you want with LEDs. This sounds like a pie-in-the-sky idea from the 80s. The main problem I see with building codes is the structure: wood isn't the greatest structural material for many reasons. However, there is more and more steel-frame housing being built, thanks to the lessons learned from commercial building where steel is king. Steel has huge advantages over wood: you can have much longer unsupported spans, and assembly time is shorter because the steel girders just bolt together on-site. As lumber has gotten more expensive, steel has become cost-competitive. Also, steel frames generally make for significantly thicker walls, which gives you better insulation.
• eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  In what futuristic place does the average dwelling actually have such things?