4 ms·

Figuring prices as "per square foot" is a big part of the problem: a 100sq ft "tiny home" and a 2,000 sq ft "livable barn" both need about the same minimum fix

Figuring prices as "per square foot" is a big part of the problem: a 100sq ft "tiny home" and a 2,000 sq ft "livable barn" both need about the same minimum fixtures and systems to be considered acceptable housing. Thing like the toilet and shower will be similarly priced and required for both buildings. The installation effort of many things outweighs the amount of materiel being installed. Painting the interior walls of either of these buildings will require a lot of the same setup but the smaller house won't be much cheaper because its using less paint. The economies of scale in construction, now, happen at the subcontractor level. For example roofing contractors range from folks able to finish a roof in hours and set up to do 100 jobs a month, to Uncle Joe and his beer buddies who work cheap and take "two weeks" (and innumerable cases of beer) to do the same job. They can both charge about the same to their customer tho. There are things that scale and get cheaper, but its very hard to realize that savings in a single project.

jaclaz 4y ago
As I see it (I have been in or around construction sites many years, in EU, which have different construction methods/uses - generally speaking - when compared to the US) the single issue that many people fail to take into account when discussing this topic is that construction (of houses) is not an industry[1], it is artisan work. When (if) you can use pre-fabrication you can speed up things a lot but costs (at the same level of quality) will not be less. Even the single most suited to pre-fabrication sub-unit (the bathroom) won't cost you less than building it on site. Same is true for (specialized) sub-contractors, they are faster (in actually doing their job) but they are usually overbooked, rarely they are on site at the right time and with enough people, so what you gain in time for the (faster) construction you lose in changes to the project scheduling (not much different from your roofing example). [1] there are exceptions for very large developments, but they are rare

jaclaz 4y ago

As I see it (I have been in or around construction sites many years, in EU, which have different construction methods/uses - generally speaking - when compared to the US) the single issue that many people fail to take into account when discussing this topic is that construction (of houses) is not an industry[1], it is artisan work. When (if) you can use pre-fabrication you can speed up things a lot but costs (at the same level of quality) will not be less. Even the single most suited to pre-fabrication sub-unit (the bathroom) won't cost you less than building it on site. Same is true for (specialized) sub-contractors, they are faster (in actually doing their job) but they are usually overbooked, rarely they are on site at the right time and with enough people, so what you gain in time for the (faster) construction you lose in changes to the project scheduling (not much different from your roofing example). [1] there are exceptions for very large developments, but they are rare