45 ms·

Government should incentivize high performance home builders

81 points by pilingual 4y ago

Spivak 4y ago
Couldn't agree more on this. The market forces governing new home construction are completely broken and nothing short of government is going to change that. It is genuinely a travesty how bad in virtually every aspect new construction it and the lack of investment in minimizing long-term tcoo is going to bite us down the line. I almost cant even blame the builders, you literally can't source quality materials at prices affordable by a family. The bit about humans evolving polyamory in response to housing prices is feeling less and less like a joke every day. Inflation plus a generation of wage stagnation has made it so that house prices are still outpacing the savings from cheaper construction which is an everyone looses situation.
- onphonenow 4y ago
  Except govt intervention is why we have crazy 6,000 square feet per unit minimums
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Is that a land area requirement (about 7 units to an acre), or gross living area requirement? Requiring 6K ft^2 of the latter is quite high for a government-imposed requirement (and therefore likely not common enough to be a major source of overall housing pressure).
    - zip1234 4y ago
      It depends on the area. For example a city near me requires 60 feet of road frontage in 90% of the city in order to build a house. Maximum height 30 ft, side setbacks required a total of 15 feet. Front setback required 20 ft. Only 35% of the lot is allowed to be covered by buildings. No ADUs allowed. If the government addressed this problem, there could be a lot more construction.
  - onphonenow 4y ago
    Land area requirements are commonly 5,000 sq feet in cities
- zip1234 4y ago
  The government has been subsidizing home construction in the form of mortgage interest deduction, federally insured mortgages, and interest rates. None have helped solve the problem, which is simply that homes are not allowed to be built in areas they are desired. A developer can make a nice efficient design for an attractive building and then go through 3 years of reviews because of zoning and nimbyism and ultimately get nothing built. Solve zoning and housing affordability will massively improve.
- refurb 4y ago
  Problem: building new homes is impossible due to restrictions and costs imposed by government regulation. Solution: We need more government regulation!
  - Spivak 4y ago
    Not everyone lives in SF but the problem is everywhere. Even in areas where the city doesn’t give a shit houses aren’t magically higher quality. The problem is bigger than your local city planners. Go get all housing regulations repealed for all I care, it won’t fix the problem.
    - germandiago 4y ago
      this does not mean more regulations would fix it.
  - germandiago 4y ago
    I see this attitude in lots of problems. Idk or can figure out why ppl think that throwing more gast at the problem might lead to the solution. Not only in this case.
    - Spivak 4y ago
      Because market failures exist and one of the main goals of gov't is to change the incentives to correct them. Right now the failure is in long term planning and a total lack of investment in the longevity and energy efficiency in new home construction that, to me, is the direct result of real purchasing power of the average family dropping and builders having to do their equivalent of shrinkflation. The correction proposed in this article of gov't requiring that new homes be energy efficient and directly paying for it I think strikes the right balance. I would even go further and put money up for every home to be updated and retrofitted. Government regulation bad market good is too naive and is a meaningless statement in abstract. You have to look at each case and the real effects market distortions will have.
      - 4y ago
debacle 4y ago
The government will incentivize the kind of homebuilding that profits developers most (which currently seems to be townhomes in the 300k range and mcmansions in the 650k+ range in the suburban US). Developers are prolific political donors. Developers and unionized public sector workers split the pie, and your average citizen has little to no say in local politics.
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  > unionized public sector workers As one of them: Ha ha! I wish!
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    Public Sector Unions are very powerful, Public Sector Workers have zero power, either in their union or in the government Never confuse being a Union Worker, and thinking the union gives a crap about you the worker
    - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
      It depends on the public sector union. Not all of them are gargantuan enough to throw clout about. And some of them are member run, not organizationally run. I'm on a local board of mine.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  Developers aren’t the problem. Landlords and existing homeowners who are protecting the value of their actual land (not homes) are the issue. And a very, very powerful political body.
  - Plasmoid 4y ago
    Landlords are not politically strong. At every protest against new housing it is 100% homeowners.
    - 4y ago
berjin 4y ago
When you buy a car or a fridge you can look up all the details about the efficiency and houses need to be similar. If every house rented or sold were to require an efficiency rating the market would work a bit better. There are passive house tests with air pressure measurements that can already do this. It would be obvious if it makes _economic_ sense to pay extra for passive. If it doesn't make _environmental_ sense then the energy is not being priced high enough to reflect the environmental costs. The construction industry is very learn-resistant so standards would bring the price down with higher volumes as with seatbelts and airbags. Where I live in New Zealand the regulations are actually protecting the construction industry building poorly performing houses with junk materials. People want to build passive but it's difficult because there are barriers to entry for companies wanting to sell components like European style windows.
- jnsaff2 4y ago
  Here in a European country the reality is like this: - property which gets developed for sales gets developed as cheaply as possible, mostly because people are looking to buy the most square meters for their loan capability. We see a lot of barely legal housing and even last year most new builds were with gas heating as it's cheaper to build. - there is no long term planning, nor is there long term offering .. I guess people are not aware that over the lifetime of their property they pay the price of one-two-three house price as extra heating costs. Just insane. - some business property developers who will own the property and make money on rentals are definitely optimizing for ongoing costs and things look better.
- Chris2048 4y ago
  Like BER rating?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_energy_rating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_energy_rating
- yrgulation 4y ago
- pooper 4y ago
  > If every house rented or sold were to require an efficiency rating the market would work a bit better. There are passive house tests with air pressure measurements that can already do this. I love the idea but I don't know how practical the efficiency ratings will be in real life. For example, the "patio" door on my apartment has a wheel that has never worked ever since I started living here early last year. This means there is a small gap which lets heat in (?) in the summer and heat out (?) during the winter. I have reached out to the management several times. They make promises every time but have yet to fix the issue. Why would they when I keep paying rent on time every month with auto pay? In my defense, what other option do I have? I don't have a lot of free time as most of my time is taken up by my own work and I can't afford to spend my free time fighting apartment management. edited for clarity
biomcgary 4y ago
I've often thought that the price of the house should include the first thirty years of projected energy use. You then get a monthly rebate to pay for energy use (or to cover taxes in escrow). This would strongly incentivize energy efficient homes because it would show up in the sticker price (and included in a mortgage). I see two large sticking points with the idea: 1. it would obviously drive up the price of new housing. 2. I don't know how easy it would be to game an energy audit (which would have to locale specific).
- ipython 4y ago
  I like the concept but agree with your point (2). Building codes are already strict and yet often the tract houses are still shoddily built.
  - biomcgary 4y ago
    I think the problem with most building codes (that I've encountered) is that they focus on process (use this material, this way) vs outcome (require this much energy, this resistance to fire). This makes building predictable, but stifles innovation. Personally, I live in a passive solar strawbale insulated house that reclaims greywater for an indoor garden, which is very awesome but was quite expensive to build. I bought it for below the build cost after it went into foreclosure after the 2008 crash (so the 2 acres it's on was essentially free).
    - lazide 4y ago
      Innovation in building has a long history of product failures, angry owners, and lawsuits/followup laws banning or restricting it. Generally, it’s a bad idea to be using any construction product unless it’s been around at least a few generations without major issues.
      - nordsieck 4y ago
        > Generally, it’s a bad idea to be using any construction product unless it’s been around at least a few generations without major issues. In your opinion, does that apply to stuff like 3d printed concrete houses where the material is very old but the application technology is extremely new?
JoshTko 4y ago
Just need to disincentivise using housing for investment. For example a tax penalty for 2nd home, with higher penalties for subsequent home. Have federal level zoning control to disallow nimbyism. Penalize airbnb in areas that have housing shortages with higher taxes.
- Grimburger 4y ago
  Why not just build more houses to meet demand rather than try to artificially lower it?
  - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    Larger than otherwise boom bust cycles and entrenched interests (as noted above by another commenter). Edit to add: This would not really lower demand, it would just shift it. A major consequence would be a decrease in single-family homes for rent. If there wasn't a consequent increase in single-family buyers, then this would lead to mass unit housing owned by fewer landlords (less competition). I personally favor regulatory innovations encouraging rent-to-own or other mechanisms that encourage home ownership, while making it relatively easy to move if a job demands it. Something like automatic mortgages that a buyer can 'default' on if they need to move, but said 'default' not hitting their credit rating much as it's effectively just turning over the house in good condition to the mortgage holder to resell to the next tenant. With the mortgage payments already paid being split in some way between the moving out tenant and the mortgage company. Alternatively, if you stay until your mortgage is paid off, you own it outright. I am definitely not a real estate or credit expert, and I'm sure such a system would be difficult to implement, but it probably wouldn't be impossible to implement.
  - zip1234 4y ago
    What do you mean artificially lower it? Removing zoning restrictions would allow actually building more homes where they are desired. The government does not need to throw money at a problem where the solution is completely free and rather simple.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
rdsnsca 4y ago
Canada does have a program R-2000 https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy-efficiency/homes/buying-energy-efficient-new-home/r-2000-environmentally-friendly-homes/20575 https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy-efficiency/homes/buying-energ... but, at ;least where I am . it has not reallu caught on.
patmcc 4y ago
This would be a subsidy for builders and purchasers of new homes - overwhelmingly people with money. Why would we do this? Set higher building code standards instead. Same outcome but now the people who benefit pay for it. At the same time you could offer grants or loans to upgrade existing structures. Which many jurisdictions do for energy efficient appliances, heat pumps, etc. edit: also, very minor correction of a pet peeve of mine. Lumber is not a "low R-value item". It has a much higher R-value than other construction materials like concrete, masonry, and steel. Of course it should still be insulated.
- imgabe 4y ago
  You subsidize things you want people to do. If you simply set the standards higher they will cost more to build, fewer new homes will be built and they will be more expensive, which means only "people with money" will be able to afford homes at all. Things have costs. Mandating additional costs and plugging your ears and pretending like market economics for those costs don't exist does not help anyone.
  - germandiago 4y ago
    I am against both subsidizing and setting hugher standards. However, what you say is true. But why not let the market show what there is demand for? Is it so bad that we always have to call for coercitive intervention?
- kwere 4y ago
  >Set higher building code standards instead. the opposite should happen to incentivize to build, too much single family zoning in USA, there should be only residential zoning /mixed use with the freedom to build whatever on owned lots. like having duplex and condos in SF and LA from existent inventory
  - patmcc 4y ago
    You can have very high building standards and freedom to build duplexes/condos/whatever, those aren't at odds. We should probably disincentivize (or at least not incentivize) single family homes in many places, higher density is much better for most things.
Proven 4y ago
samcat116 4y ago
I don't have a real opinion on the incentive side of this, but as someone who's mostly lived in older, poorly insulated places, its crazy how different a true high performance building can be. From the energy savings, to the air quality, to just the plain old comfort. If you're building new it's crazy not to do it.
- Retric 4y ago
  I agree but IMO we need the equivalent of a simple MPG sticker on new homes not incentives. Keeping this house at 70f 24/7 for a full year costs X$. Picking a specific solution like passive solar or PV on the roof is likely to get outdated relatively quickly but cost is a useful metric.
  - maxerickson 4y ago
    I'd want heating and cooling costs split. I'm a lot more willing to put up with some hot days. Also helps account for one system being inefficient (in a house with separate heating and cooling). At some level it would make sense for municipalities to actively identify inefficient buildings and offer the owners incentives to improve them. Fraught, but likely to improve things faster than waiting decades for stock to cycle.
    - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
      Offer a "summertime energy required" and a "wintertime energy required" number. That should be obvious enough to most people while not so technical that folks become confused.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Mandate all rentals be rated for energy efficiency and that the rating be shown on all advertisements of the property. The market will sort it out once individuals can see "This one costs slightly more in rent but much less in energy."
    - 4y ago
iambateman 4y ago
It’s a little tangential, but I find it wild that many “low performance” suburban homes are still largely built using similar ideas as 100+ years ago. Surely there is tremendous room for new building materials, right? I’m not saying hempcrete (real thing) is the future, but can we find ways to use alternative building materials that don’t require a tree to grow in the ground for 20+ years? Also, it seems to me that an interlocking LEGO style brick would make things go up so much faster and cheaper…or at least make DIY more possible. But there are dozens of companies who come and go with a few flashy demos and then disappear. It feels like we can do better.
- ahelwer 4y ago
  I don't know why you think we can possibly come up with a competitor to something that, left alone for 20 years, builds itself into an incredibly strong & versatile building material, while sequestering carbon, using what amounts to crazy self-replicating nanotechnology from several hundred years in the future.
- SECProto 4y ago
  > I find it wild that many “low performance” suburban homes are still largely built using similar ideas as 100+ years ago. First reaction: the homes are solving the same issue (somewhere to keep people warm safe and dry), so the solutions will look similar. Second thought: Almost none of the actual technology in a modern home is the same as a hundred years ago, from insulation to ventilation, even down to fundamental structure - balloon framing became platform framing, tongue and groove sheathing became plywood, wood shingles that would need to be scraped and painted every half dozen years became one of a dozen products that'll last a quarter century without maintenance easily. A stick framed house a hundred years ago would be lucky to have crumpled paper in the cavity as insulation. Communications cable, high R-value insulation, air exchange with heat recovery, water and waste plumbing, electrical, multi-layer building envelopes, water-tight foundations, ... the list could go on and on, but a house built today is vastly more efficient and useful than one built a hundred years ago. (If you're looking on the market, most hundred year homes will have had all or most of these features added over the decades, at much higher expense) > it seems to me that an interlocking LEGO style brick would make things go up so much faster and cheaper…or at least make DIY more possible If you told me I should make a house out of some sort of brick-style product, all I would see is a hundred joints where water could get in and cause issues. I'm not going to do it unless the product has been on the market and heavily used for decades.
epa 4y ago
New tech already exists (prefab) that can increase speed of projects and decrease cost. Regulation and utility monopolies are the problem. Why is well water practically banned in CA?
simeonf 4y ago
For context I built a straw bale home with a lime exterior plaster (carbon neutral on the long term scale) and clay interior plaster. The claimed R-value of the exterior walls is R44 and there is no thermal bridging due to the 20 inch walls that are solid straw bale with plaster directly adhering to the inside and outside of the bale. I think it's a high performance home... That said: Part of the conservatism of building is due to building codes. Building inspection is fundamentally about risk management and my building inspectors wanted to see familiar products with already specified installation procedures in the building code - or else a detail stamped by a eg structural engineer so there is somebody to sue if things go wrong. In some cases they would also take a manufactured product with manufacture provided installation instructions. Any "high performance" building that is innovative will automatically require a lot of additional engineering overhead to pass building inspection and in general residential building departments wish you would just do things like everybody else...
WalterBright 4y ago
In order to incentivise emitting less CO2, tax the C in the fuels. No other actions are necessary.
oliwarner 4y ago
Incentivise is by way of a carbon tax. Ask the question: How much carbon is this house going to use to heat and run over the next 10 years? Base this on bedrooms, location, offset pre-installed solar and ASHP/GSHP and bingo, you have an incentive to design and build green.
- zemvpferreira 4y ago
  OK, but in that case let's also tax carbon emmitted during/embodied in construction. You might find that for many cases building 'green' might not make sense. I live in a very moderate climate and the amount of people speccing triple-pane windows, complex ventilation and tremendously expensive insulation is mind-boggling. You can literally live with a couple of windows open all year and be comfortable here. Fetishism abounds.
  - oliwarner 4y ago
    Is Lisbon moderate? I've spent a little time spread all around the year in Cascais and while the absolute temperatures aren't often extreme, the humidity for five months of the year is off the scale. In a traditional house in winter, you fight a battle against mold. I know people who've lost entire wardrobes to it. They tried heating the following year but found most of the heat goes straight through the solid walls. HVAC was the only meaningful option open to them but again, with such breezy construction, it barely touches the sides in winter. A modern, "fully-sealed" design sidesteps all of this. Insulated walls and a little solar —both bizarrely absent in most buildings, even new builds— would go a long way. I'm not saying that there's no an opportunity to overspec these things, but the status quo, the spec 90% of buildings are being made to, is barely any better than the buildings going up 30 years ago. But to answer your lead, yes. Materials' fabrication costs should be factored into their 10y efficiency.
fiat_fandango 4y ago
Fortunately systems for bringing in "fresh" air without dumping heat (by means of a heat exchanger) now exist which basically removes the issue of indoor air quality / Co2 and VOC buildup in highly insulated homes. However, circulation is essential. The biggest issue that still arises in highly insulated homes is moisture buildup. Even with ample air circulation, modern building techniques at large have accepted having a home that "breathes" is more important to prevent dangerous / destructive mold from growing in enclosed airspaces / under siding etc. Also, "high performance" homes in most of the country, especially the east coast are at least 1.8x to 2.5x as expensive as the average builder home. This is simply not accessible even to relatively financially equipped home buyers. That said, my current apt is incredibly well insulated and in comparison to my parent's home it's wild how much more efficient my dwelling is. At times in the winter I barely use my heat pump for days at a time to keep my home comfortable.
hackrnusr 4y ago
People should care more about reforming exclusionary zoning laws so that a massive amount of more affordable housing can be built. Environmentalism, in the form of so-called green laws, has done so much to keep prospective home buyers out of the market for much of their lives, could really care less about the efficiency of new homes that most of us can't afford to buy anyway. 'Burn baby burn' ... if 'build baby build' ain't your motto.

81 points by pilingual 4y ago

Couldn't agree more on this. The market forces governing new home construction are completely broken and nothing short of government is going to change that. It is genuinely a travesty how bad in virtually every aspect new construction it and the lack of investment in minimizing long-term tcoo is going to bite us down the line. I almost cant even blame the builders, you literally can't source quality materials at prices affordable by a family. The bit about humans evolving polyamory in response to housing prices is feeling less and less like a joke every day. Inflation plus a generation of wage stagnation has made it so that house prices are still outpacing the savings from cheaper construction which is an everyone looses situation.

onphonenow 4y ago
Except govt intervention is why we have crazy 6,000 square feet per unit minimums
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Is that a land area requirement (about 7 units to an acre), or gross living area requirement? Requiring 6K ft^2 of the latter is quite high for a government-imposed requirement (and therefore likely not common enough to be a major source of overall housing pressure).
  - zip1234 4y ago
    It depends on the area. For example a city near me requires 60 feet of road frontage in 90% of the city in order to build a house. Maximum height 30 ft, side setbacks required a total of 15 feet. Front setback required 20 ft. Only 35% of the lot is allowed to be covered by buildings. No ADUs allowed. If the government addressed this problem, there could be a lot more construction.
- onphonenow 4y ago
  Land area requirements are commonly 5,000 sq feet in cities
zip1234 4y ago
The government has been subsidizing home construction in the form of mortgage interest deduction, federally insured mortgages, and interest rates. None have helped solve the problem, which is simply that homes are not allowed to be built in areas they are desired. A developer can make a nice efficient design for an attractive building and then go through 3 years of reviews because of zoning and nimbyism and ultimately get nothing built. Solve zoning and housing affordability will massively improve.
refurb 4y ago
Problem: building new homes is impossible due to restrictions and costs imposed by government regulation. Solution: We need more government regulation!
- Spivak 4y ago
  Not everyone lives in SF but the problem is everywhere. Even in areas where the city doesn’t give a shit houses aren’t magically higher quality. The problem is bigger than your local city planners. Go get all housing regulations repealed for all I care, it won’t fix the problem.
  - germandiago 4y ago
    this does not mean more regulations would fix it.
- germandiago 4y ago
  I see this attitude in lots of problems. Idk or can figure out why ppl think that throwing more gast at the problem might lead to the solution. Not only in this case.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    Because market failures exist and one of the main goals of gov't is to change the incentives to correct them. Right now the failure is in long term planning and a total lack of investment in the longevity and energy efficiency in new home construction that, to me, is the direct result of real purchasing power of the average family dropping and builders having to do their equivalent of shrinkflation. The correction proposed in this article of gov't requiring that new homes be energy efficient and directly paying for it I think strikes the right balance. I would even go further and put money up for every home to be updated and retrofitted. Government regulation bad market good is too naive and is a meaningless statement in abstract. You have to look at each case and the real effects market distortions will have.
    - 4y ago

debacle 4y ago

The government will incentivize the kind of homebuilding that profits developers most (which currently seems to be townhomes in the 300k range and mcmansions in the 650k+ range in the suburban US). Developers are prolific political donors. Developers and unionized public sector workers split the pie, and your average citizen has little to no say in local politics.

anonymouskimmer 4y ago
> unionized public sector workers As one of them: Ha ha! I wish!
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  Public Sector Unions are very powerful, Public Sector Workers have zero power, either in their union or in the government Never confuse being a Union Worker, and thinking the union gives a crap about you the worker
  - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    It depends on the public sector union. Not all of them are gargantuan enough to throw clout about. And some of them are member run, not organizationally run. I'm on a local board of mine.
ethanbond 4y ago
Developers aren’t the problem. Landlords and existing homeowners who are protecting the value of their actual land (not homes) are the issue. And a very, very powerful political body.
- Plasmoid 4y ago
  Landlords are not politically strong. At every protest against new housing it is 100% homeowners.
  - 4y ago

berjin 4y ago

When you buy a car or a fridge you can look up all the details about the efficiency and houses need to be similar. If every house rented or sold were to require an efficiency rating the market would work a bit better. There are passive house tests with air pressure measurements that can already do this. It would be obvious if it makes _economic_ sense to pay extra for passive. If it doesn't make _environmental_ sense then the energy is not being priced high enough to reflect the environmental costs. The construction industry is very learn-resistant so standards would bring the price down with higher volumes as with seatbelts and airbags. Where I live in New Zealand the regulations are actually protecting the construction industry building poorly performing houses with junk materials. People want to build passive but it's difficult because there are barriers to entry for companies wanting to sell components like European style windows.

jnsaff2 4y ago
Here in a European country the reality is like this: - property which gets developed for sales gets developed as cheaply as possible, mostly because people are looking to buy the most square meters for their loan capability. We see a lot of barely legal housing and even last year most new builds were with gas heating as it's cheaper to build. - there is no long term planning, nor is there long term offering .. I guess people are not aware that over the lifetime of their property they pay the price of one-two-three house price as extra heating costs. Just insane. - some business property developers who will own the property and make money on rentals are definitely optimizing for ongoing costs and things look better.
Chris2048 4y ago
Like BER rating?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_energy_rating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_energy_rating
yrgulation 4y ago
pooper 4y ago
> If every house rented or sold were to require an efficiency rating the market would work a bit better. There are passive house tests with air pressure measurements that can already do this. I love the idea but I don't know how practical the efficiency ratings will be in real life. For example, the "patio" door on my apartment has a wheel that has never worked ever since I started living here early last year. This means there is a small gap which lets heat in (?) in the summer and heat out (?) during the winter. I have reached out to the management several times. They make promises every time but have yet to fix the issue. Why would they when I keep paying rent on time every month with auto pay? In my defense, what other option do I have? I don't have a lot of free time as most of my time is taken up by my own work and I can't afford to spend my free time fighting apartment management. edited for clarity

biomcgary 4y ago

I've often thought that the price of the house should include the first thirty years of projected energy use. You then get a monthly rebate to pay for energy use (or to cover taxes in escrow). This would strongly incentivize energy efficient homes because it would show up in the sticker price (and included in a mortgage). I see two large sticking points with the idea: 1. it would obviously drive up the price of new housing. 2. I don't know how easy it would be to game an energy audit (which would have to locale specific).

ipython 4y ago
I like the concept but agree with your point (2). Building codes are already strict and yet often the tract houses are still shoddily built.
- biomcgary 4y ago
  I think the problem with most building codes (that I've encountered) is that they focus on process (use this material, this way) vs outcome (require this much energy, this resistance to fire). This makes building predictable, but stifles innovation. Personally, I live in a passive solar strawbale insulated house that reclaims greywater for an indoor garden, which is very awesome but was quite expensive to build. I bought it for below the build cost after it went into foreclosure after the 2008 crash (so the 2 acres it's on was essentially free).
  - lazide 4y ago
    Innovation in building has a long history of product failures, angry owners, and lawsuits/followup laws banning or restricting it. Generally, it’s a bad idea to be using any construction product unless it’s been around at least a few generations without major issues.
    - nordsieck 4y ago
      > Generally, it’s a bad idea to be using any construction product unless it’s been around at least a few generations without major issues. In your opinion, does that apply to stuff like 3d printed concrete houses where the material is very old but the application technology is extremely new?

JoshTko 4y ago

Just need to disincentivise using housing for investment. For example a tax penalty for 2nd home, with higher penalties for subsequent home. Have federal level zoning control to disallow nimbyism. Penalize airbnb in areas that have housing shortages with higher taxes.

Grimburger 4y ago
Why not just build more houses to meet demand rather than try to artificially lower it?
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  Larger than otherwise boom bust cycles and entrenched interests (as noted above by another commenter). Edit to add: This would not really lower demand, it would just shift it. A major consequence would be a decrease in single-family homes for rent. If there wasn't a consequent increase in single-family buyers, then this would lead to mass unit housing owned by fewer landlords (less competition). I personally favor regulatory innovations encouraging rent-to-own or other mechanisms that encourage home ownership, while making it relatively easy to move if a job demands it. Something like automatic mortgages that a buyer can 'default' on if they need to move, but said 'default' not hitting their credit rating much as it's effectively just turning over the house in good condition to the mortgage holder to resell to the next tenant. With the mortgage payments already paid being split in some way between the moving out tenant and the mortgage company. Alternatively, if you stay until your mortgage is paid off, you own it outright. I am definitely not a real estate or credit expert, and I'm sure such a system would be difficult to implement, but it probably wouldn't be impossible to implement.
- zip1234 4y ago
  What do you mean artificially lower it? Removing zoning restrictions would allow actually building more homes where they are desired. The government does not need to throw money at a problem where the solution is completely free and rather simple.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

rdsnsca 4y ago

Canada does have a program R-2000 https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy-efficiency/homes/buying-energy-efficient-new-home/r-2000-environmentally-friendly-homes/20575 https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy-efficiency/homes/buying-energ... but, at ;least where I am . it has not reallu caught on.

patmcc 4y ago

This would be a subsidy for builders and purchasers of new homes - overwhelmingly people with money. Why would we do this? Set higher building code standards instead. Same outcome but now the people who benefit pay for it. At the same time you could offer grants or loans to upgrade existing structures. Which many jurisdictions do for energy efficient appliances, heat pumps, etc. edit: also, very minor correction of a pet peeve of mine. Lumber is not a "low R-value item". It has a much higher R-value than other construction materials like concrete, masonry, and steel. Of course it should still be insulated.

imgabe 4y ago
You subsidize things you want people to do. If you simply set the standards higher they will cost more to build, fewer new homes will be built and they will be more expensive, which means only "people with money" will be able to afford homes at all. Things have costs. Mandating additional costs and plugging your ears and pretending like market economics for those costs don't exist does not help anyone.
- germandiago 4y ago
  I am against both subsidizing and setting hugher standards. However, what you say is true. But why not let the market show what there is demand for? Is it so bad that we always have to call for coercitive intervention?
kwere 4y ago
>Set higher building code standards instead. the opposite should happen to incentivize to build, too much single family zoning in USA, there should be only residential zoning /mixed use with the freedom to build whatever on owned lots. like having duplex and condos in SF and LA from existent inventory
- patmcc 4y ago
  You can have very high building standards and freedom to build duplexes/condos/whatever, those aren't at odds. We should probably disincentivize (or at least not incentivize) single family homes in many places, higher density is much better for most things.

Proven 4y ago

samcat116 4y ago

I don't have a real opinion on the incentive side of this, but as someone who's mostly lived in older, poorly insulated places, its crazy how different a true high performance building can be. From the energy savings, to the air quality, to just the plain old comfort. If you're building new it's crazy not to do it.

Retric 4y ago
I agree but IMO we need the equivalent of a simple MPG sticker on new homes not incentives. Keeping this house at 70f 24/7 for a full year costs X$. Picking a specific solution like passive solar or PV on the roof is likely to get outdated relatively quickly but cost is a useful metric.
- maxerickson 4y ago
  I'd want heating and cooling costs split. I'm a lot more willing to put up with some hot days. Also helps account for one system being inefficient (in a house with separate heating and cooling). At some level it would make sense for municipalities to actively identify inefficient buildings and offer the owners incentives to improve them. Fraught, but likely to improve things faster than waiting decades for stock to cycle.
  - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
    Offer a "summertime energy required" and a "wintertime energy required" number. That should be obvious enough to most people while not so technical that folks become confused.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Mandate all rentals be rated for energy efficiency and that the rating be shown on all advertisements of the property. The market will sort it out once individuals can see "This one costs slightly more in rent but much less in energy."
  - 4y ago

iambateman 4y ago

It’s a little tangential, but I find it wild that many “low performance” suburban homes are still largely built using similar ideas as 100+ years ago. Surely there is tremendous room for new building materials, right? I’m not saying hempcrete (real thing) is the future, but can we find ways to use alternative building materials that don’t require a tree to grow in the ground for 20+ years? Also, it seems to me that an interlocking LEGO style brick would make things go up so much faster and cheaper…or at least make DIY more possible. But there are dozens of companies who come and go with a few flashy demos and then disappear. It feels like we can do better.

ahelwer 4y ago
I don't know why you think we can possibly come up with a competitor to something that, left alone for 20 years, builds itself into an incredibly strong & versatile building material, while sequestering carbon, using what amounts to crazy self-replicating nanotechnology from several hundred years in the future.
SECProto 4y ago
> I find it wild that many “low performance” suburban homes are still largely built using similar ideas as 100+ years ago. First reaction: the homes are solving the same issue (somewhere to keep people warm safe and dry), so the solutions will look similar. Second thought: Almost none of the actual technology in a modern home is the same as a hundred years ago, from insulation to ventilation, even down to fundamental structure - balloon framing became platform framing, tongue and groove sheathing became plywood, wood shingles that would need to be scraped and painted every half dozen years became one of a dozen products that'll last a quarter century without maintenance easily. A stick framed house a hundred years ago would be lucky to have crumpled paper in the cavity as insulation. Communications cable, high R-value insulation, air exchange with heat recovery, water and waste plumbing, electrical, multi-layer building envelopes, water-tight foundations, ... the list could go on and on, but a house built today is vastly more efficient and useful than one built a hundred years ago. (If you're looking on the market, most hundred year homes will have had all or most of these features added over the decades, at much higher expense) > it seems to me that an interlocking LEGO style brick would make things go up so much faster and cheaper…or at least make DIY more possible If you told me I should make a house out of some sort of brick-style product, all I would see is a hundred joints where water could get in and cause issues. I'm not going to do it unless the product has been on the market and heavily used for decades.

epa 4y ago

New tech already exists (prefab) that can increase speed of projects and decrease cost. Regulation and utility monopolies are the problem. Why is well water practically banned in CA?

simeonf 4y ago

For context I built a straw bale home with a lime exterior plaster (carbon neutral on the long term scale) and clay interior plaster. The claimed R-value of the exterior walls is R44 and there is no thermal bridging due to the 20 inch walls that are solid straw bale with plaster directly adhering to the inside and outside of the bale. I think it's a high performance home... That said: Part of the conservatism of building is due to building codes. Building inspection is fundamentally about risk management and my building inspectors wanted to see familiar products with already specified installation procedures in the building code - or else a detail stamped by a eg structural engineer so there is somebody to sue if things go wrong. In some cases they would also take a manufactured product with manufacture provided installation instructions. Any "high performance" building that is innovative will automatically require a lot of additional engineering overhead to pass building inspection and in general residential building departments wish you would just do things like everybody else...

WalterBright 4y ago

In order to incentivise emitting less CO2, tax the C in the fuels. No other actions are necessary.

oliwarner 4y ago

Incentivise is by way of a carbon tax. Ask the question: How much carbon is this house going to use to heat and run over the next 10 years? Base this on bedrooms, location, offset pre-installed solar and ASHP/GSHP and bingo, you have an incentive to design and build green.

zemvpferreira 4y ago
OK, but in that case let's also tax carbon emmitted during/embodied in construction. You might find that for many cases building 'green' might not make sense. I live in a very moderate climate and the amount of people speccing triple-pane windows, complex ventilation and tremendously expensive insulation is mind-boggling. You can literally live with a couple of windows open all year and be comfortable here. Fetishism abounds.
- oliwarner 4y ago
  Is Lisbon moderate? I've spent a little time spread all around the year in Cascais and while the absolute temperatures aren't often extreme, the humidity for five months of the year is off the scale. In a traditional house in winter, you fight a battle against mold. I know people who've lost entire wardrobes to it. They tried heating the following year but found most of the heat goes straight through the solid walls. HVAC was the only meaningful option open to them but again, with such breezy construction, it barely touches the sides in winter. A modern, "fully-sealed" design sidesteps all of this. Insulated walls and a little solar —both bizarrely absent in most buildings, even new builds— would go a long way. I'm not saying that there's no an opportunity to overspec these things, but the status quo, the spec 90% of buildings are being made to, is barely any better than the buildings going up 30 years ago. But to answer your lead, yes. Materials' fabrication costs should be factored into their 10y efficiency.

fiat_fandango 4y ago

Fortunately systems for bringing in "fresh" air without dumping heat (by means of a heat exchanger) now exist which basically removes the issue of indoor air quality / Co2 and VOC buildup in highly insulated homes. However, circulation is essential. The biggest issue that still arises in highly insulated homes is moisture buildup. Even with ample air circulation, modern building techniques at large have accepted having a home that "breathes" is more important to prevent dangerous / destructive mold from growing in enclosed airspaces / under siding etc. Also, "high performance" homes in most of the country, especially the east coast are at least 1.8x to 2.5x as expensive as the average builder home. This is simply not accessible even to relatively financially equipped home buyers. That said, my current apt is incredibly well insulated and in comparison to my parent's home it's wild how much more efficient my dwelling is. At times in the winter I barely use my heat pump for days at a time to keep my home comfortable.

hackrnusr 4y ago

People should care more about reforming exclusionary zoning laws so that a massive amount of more affordable housing can be built. Environmentalism, in the form of so-called green laws, has done so much to keep prospective home buyers out of the market for much of their lives, could really care less about the efficiency of new homes that most of us can't afford to buy anyway. 'Burn baby burn' ... if 'build baby build' ain't your motto.