5 ms·

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 t

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.
zbobet2012 4y ago
> but can we find ways to use alternative building materials that don’t require a tree to grow in the ground for 20+ years? Trees are an incredible renewable resource. Most homes today are built with trees from managed, sustainable forest and LVL's (laminated veneer lumber) from the same sources. The LVL's replace "big beams" for old growth. The "frame" of an average house now looks like this: http://www.joneswholesale.com/products/images/ROS-RFPI-Solid-Sawn-Prod.jpg http://www.joneswholesale.com/products/images/ROS-RFPI-Solid... Anysort of concrete/hempcrete/whatever is actually going to be a terrible thing for the environment compared to... wood. Between LVLs, Glulam beams, and CLT what you should be asking is why arn't more midsize buildings built of wood instead of environmentally disastrous concrete. See this for example: https://www.popsci.com/article/technology/worlds-most-advanced-building-material-wood-0/ https://www.popsci.com/article/technology/worlds-most-advanc...
- iambateman 4y ago
  I’m new to the world of construction materials and learned a lot from this comment. Thanks! I’ve got a lot to google, evidently.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >Between LVLs, Glulam beams, and CLT what you should be asking is why arn't more midsize buildings built of wood instead of environmentally disastrous concrete. Here in Japan, it's because wooden structures over about 3 stories will collapse in an earthquake, so everything over that height is made of steel and concrete.
mwill 4y ago
I started as a programmer and now consult but also have a small engineering shop, and operate a small construction company, which has led me to get hands on experience on pretty much every part of construction A joke I keep making is, it doesn't surprise me so many people I meet in the trades are anti-science / conspiracy theorist adjacent, if you spend all day doing manual, physically intensive tasks using methods and materials that are functionally identical to how they did it 50+ years ago, it's easy to think scientists are full of shit. From what I see most progress and 'efficiency' happens on the manufacturing side. Materials get cheaper to produce, overall better (stronger, nicer finish, etc), but usually not easier to install or work with. A bit of a tangent but in the past you could just throw more people at the trades, so it didn't need to be any more efficient, but here in Aus the mining industry and commercial construction has eaten up most of the skills, and where I am it can take 12 months to break ground on a residential project right now. We're doing a commercial job for a builder that literally has "Homes" in their company name, and is just doing commercial work now. In October I was trying to organize an residential electrician in a smaller town (<50,000 people), and no one in town could come within 8 weeks. One company told me their entire staff was 5000km away from town for a commercial job, probably wouldn't be back available until next year, the money was just too good.
- iambateman 4y ago
  Any thoughts on why the market price of electricians doesn't rise, pull more people into the trade, and fix that problem through natural economics?
m463 4y ago
> it seems to me that an interlocking LEGO style brick would make things go up so much faster and cheaper Talking to a friend of mine who builds homes, he was looking at cinder blocks and called them quick blocks or something similar. Anyway, I think they are basically that. Make a wall with staggered blocks, poke rebar down the holes, fill them with concrete and vibrate. You then have a very strong durable wall. Don't know about r-value though.
- SECProto 4y ago
  > Don't know about r-value though. At that point you would have essentially 8" of solid concrete, so an R value around 1.5 Adding 3" of rigid foam on the outside (then waterproofing and siding on top of it) would bump that R value up to around 15, with all the thermal mass on the inside (which can help if there's large day-night temperature variation)

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.

zbobet2012 4y ago

> but can we find ways to use alternative building materials that don’t require a tree to grow in the ground for 20+ years? Trees are an incredible renewable resource. Most homes today are built with trees from managed, sustainable forest and LVL's (laminated veneer lumber) from the same sources. The LVL's replace "big beams" for old growth. The "frame" of an average house now looks like this: http://www.joneswholesale.com/products/images/ROS-RFPI-Solid-Sawn-Prod.jpg http://www.joneswholesale.com/products/images/ROS-RFPI-Solid... Anysort of concrete/hempcrete/whatever is actually going to be a terrible thing for the environment compared to... wood. Between LVLs, Glulam beams, and CLT what you should be asking is why arn't more midsize buildings built of wood instead of environmentally disastrous concrete. See this for example: https://www.popsci.com/article/technology/worlds-most-advanced-building-material-wood-0/ https://www.popsci.com/article/technology/worlds-most-advanc...

iambateman 4y ago
I’m new to the world of construction materials and learned a lot from this comment. Thanks! I’ve got a lot to google, evidently.
midoridensha 4y ago
>Between LVLs, Glulam beams, and CLT what you should be asking is why arn't more midsize buildings built of wood instead of environmentally disastrous concrete. Here in Japan, it's because wooden structures over about 3 stories will collapse in an earthquake, so everything over that height is made of steel and concrete.

mwill 4y ago

I started as a programmer and now consult but also have a small engineering shop, and operate a small construction company, which has led me to get hands on experience on pretty much every part of construction A joke I keep making is, it doesn't surprise me so many people I meet in the trades are anti-science / conspiracy theorist adjacent, if you spend all day doing manual, physically intensive tasks using methods and materials that are functionally identical to how they did it 50+ years ago, it's easy to think scientists are full of shit. From what I see most progress and 'efficiency' happens on the manufacturing side. Materials get cheaper to produce, overall better (stronger, nicer finish, etc), but usually not easier to install or work with. A bit of a tangent but in the past you could just throw more people at the trades, so it didn't need to be any more efficient, but here in Aus the mining industry and commercial construction has eaten up most of the skills, and where I am it can take 12 months to break ground on a residential project right now. We're doing a commercial job for a builder that literally has "Homes" in their company name, and is just doing commercial work now. In October I was trying to organize an residential electrician in a smaller town (<50,000 people), and no one in town could come within 8 weeks. One company told me their entire staff was 5000km away from town for a commercial job, probably wouldn't be back available until next year, the money was just too good.

iambateman 4y ago
Any thoughts on why the market price of electricians doesn't rise, pull more people into the trade, and fix that problem through natural economics?

m463 4y ago

> it seems to me that an interlocking LEGO style brick would make things go up so much faster and cheaper Talking to a friend of mine who builds homes, he was looking at cinder blocks and called them quick blocks or something similar. Anyway, I think they are basically that. Make a wall with staggered blocks, poke rebar down the holes, fill them with concrete and vibrate. You then have a very strong durable wall. Don't know about r-value though.

SECProto 4y ago
> Don't know about r-value though. At that point you would have essentially 8" of solid concrete, so an R value around 1.5 Adding 3" of rigid foam on the outside (then waterproofing and siding on top of it) would bump that R value up to around 15, with all the thermal mass on the inside (which can help if there's large day-night temperature variation)