6 ms·

> Components like exterior walls and roofs were designed to have as simple shapes as possible (no complex hips or wall jogs), and This is a traditional and emi

by danans 2y ago

> Components like exterior walls and roofs were designed to have as simple shapes as possible (no complex hips or wall jogs), and This is a traditional and eminently sensible approach that has been lost in the "McMansion" era. Simpler roof shapes are not only cheaper to build, but also are far easier to deal and insulate, and therefore more energy efficient. Instead, simple energy efficient design is today mostly used in some high end custom homes while production homes are often overly complex and inefficient, relying on oversized mechanical equipment to make up for poor design choices. > rooms were arranged so that plumbing lines could be placed near each other to simplify pipe routing. There's a simple method to quantify this known as the "hot water rectangle". On the house's overhead view, draw the smallest rectangle that includes all the hot water faucets and the water heater. The size of the rectangle affects build cost, efficiency, and hot water delivery performance. In many large houses there is no consideration for this at the design stage, so they end up using (wasteful) hot water recirculation pumps. 1. https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/the-hot-water-rectangle https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/the-hot-water-r...

bobthepanda 2y ago
There is a lot of overhead when it comes to building out a factory supply chain for scalable parts, because factories are large sunk capex costs, particularly for large items. And manufactured housing often does not make sense because if you manufacture whole rooms, unless you get special vehicles and delivery permits you are limited to the dimensions of a container, and there's a nonzero chance you show up to the site and you have to do some fiddling anyways to get it to actually fit. Plus people are not actually looking for identical room sizes. Probably the closest we'll ever get is to standardization of parts like the 2x4 or some of the insulation panels that exist nowadays, since you can flatpack those into a truck and make adjustments on the fly.
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > And manufactured housing often does not make sense because if you manufacture whole rooms, unless you get special vehicles and delivery permits you are limited to the dimensions of a container […] See perhaps this student housing project in Norway: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4N4mVITd5U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4N4mVITd5U Entire bathroom shipped as one unit. The rest is panelized. > Probably the closest we'll ever get is to standardization of parts like the 2x4 or some of the insulation panels that exist nowadays, since you can flatpack those into a truck and make adjustments on the fly. NS Builders have a couple of videos on panelized buildings: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeHkVeJO6PE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeHkVeJO6PE * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX3QZVG-18E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX3QZVG-18E Matt Ferrell of Undecided made his home that way: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-RTlbv84T8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-RTlbv84T8 One can also do (US) traditional stick building with pre-cut lumber: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2FdAdxjSpw&list=PLDYh81z-RhxjSuCfjHdlIMWpqhyt5jNPX&index=5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2FdAdxjSpw&list=PLDYh81z-Rh...
  - ahazred8ta 2y ago
    There are prefab firms that make a 2 or 3 story structural column with the fusebox, water heater, vertical plumbing and wiring conduits, drains, sink toilet and shower hookups, and spools of wiring to be pulled through walls. Almost no electrical and plumbing work needs to be done onsite.
- danans 2y ago
  Did you reply to the wrong comment? I wasn't discussing manufactured homes at all, but rather the benefits of simple building geometries.
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    Ah, perhaps I filled in a context that wasn't there since the parent article was about Levittown's particular home manufacturing methods. Simpler is better. Though where I am now every place is a flat-ish roof deck which is simple but comes with its own problems.
- galdosdi 2y ago
  > Plus people are not actually looking for identical room sizes. Times are changing. Gen Z will happily take it. What they're looking for is just any housing they can afford at all. If cheap effeciency can make a small detached bungalow with a real yard and a parking space affordable, they'll be happy to put up with minor taste quibbles like that. The alternative is roommate packed apartments, mom's basement, or homes far from any jobs to pay for the homes with.
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    Eh yes and no. The fad of container homes was a quick flash in the pan as it turned out they were actually a terrible size to actually live in; not quite large enough to put furniture in and still have walking space. Because factories for rooms are actually specialized for the actual room, it's not cheap once you consider the startup cost of a factory. All the components of a room are increasingly panelized and mass manufactured anyways, making building large portions of buildings similar to building out of Legos or IKEA flatpack, which is good enough for labor reduction.
    - fragmede 2y ago
      If you stay constrained to the container's dimensions for the room's walls, it's rather confining, but you don't have to. For $8k, this one looks pretty good. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256806996880923.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256806996880923.html
      - bobthepanda 2y ago
        that's flatpacked, not shipped as a room as-is, which is what i'm arguing for
  - JohnClark1337 2y ago
    [dead]
vikingerik 2y ago
Is there a reason for the rectangle, or is that the idea just for simplicity? Like, "smallest convex polygon" might be slightly better. I don't see any reason why the borders would need to be rectangular. Also for any shape there's no reason it would need to be axis-aligned with the exterior perimeter (which itself might be far from rectangular.)
- throw0101c 2y ago
  It's a very simple rule of thumb that someone can check out in drafting software (or even paper blueprints). It's applicable in one-story domiciles (apartments, bungalows) and multi-story homes. Gary Klein, the fellow who thought of it, has been consulting on (hot) water issues for a few decades now, and so has tried to whittle down his advice to the simplest thing that (a) people will understand, (b) be actually implementable. That's generally is: make all the hot faucets as close to the hot water source as possible. The rule is a metric for that.
  - ajot 2y ago
    Hah, this reminded me of a submission from a couple of years back [0] about efficient hot water piping, and lo and behold, the URL is for Gary Klein Associates [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16540802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16540802 [1] http://www.garykleinassociates.com/PDFs/15%20-%20Efficient%20Hot-Water%20Piping-JLC.pdf http://www.garykleinassociates.com/PDFs/15%20-%20Efficient%2...
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  All furniture, joinery, etc. is designed with right angles in mind. Creating non-right angles is a great way to have unusable nooks and crannies. And a rectangle only needs four sides; a triangle has non-right angles, and any more complex shape needs more joints.
  - snowfield 2y ago
    Purpose built furniture looks great regardless though. Although expensive
throw0101c 2y ago
> This is a traditional and eminently sensible approach that has been lost in the "McMansion" era. Kate Wagner (of McMansionHell blog fame) gives a pretty good definition of what a McMansion Is: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68c2M4r9oQg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68c2M4r9oQg > Simpler roof shapes are not only cheaper to build, but also are far easier to deal and insulate, and therefore more energy efficient. And most importantly probably deals with water the best: fewer valleys mean fewer places where water is concentrated. Also, generally speaking, the more that overhangs jut out the better.
- buck746 2y ago
  That makes sense unless you are in an area with hurricanes. In places with a high probability of a hurricane hit they have started doing framing with the zip sheathing so it looks like a monopoly house, then they add overhangs that can break off in severe wind rather than taking the roof with it. It's a shame more houses don't get built with ICF, including the roof. Living in an area that gets hurricanes at least every other year I would happily take a smaller house to get something that could stand up to category 4-5 hurricane.

by danans 2y ago

bobthepanda 2y ago

There is a lot of overhead when it comes to building out a factory supply chain for scalable parts, because factories are large sunk capex costs, particularly for large items. And manufactured housing often does not make sense because if you manufacture whole rooms, unless you get special vehicles and delivery permits you are limited to the dimensions of a container, and there's a nonzero chance you show up to the site and you have to do some fiddling anyways to get it to actually fit. Plus people are not actually looking for identical room sizes. Probably the closest we'll ever get is to standardization of parts like the 2x4 or some of the insulation panels that exist nowadays, since you can flatpack those into a truck and make adjustments on the fly.

throw0101c 2y ago
> And manufactured housing often does not make sense because if you manufacture whole rooms, unless you get special vehicles and delivery permits you are limited to the dimensions of a container […] See perhaps this student housing project in Norway: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4N4mVITd5U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4N4mVITd5U Entire bathroom shipped as one unit. The rest is panelized. > Probably the closest we'll ever get is to standardization of parts like the 2x4 or some of the insulation panels that exist nowadays, since you can flatpack those into a truck and make adjustments on the fly. NS Builders have a couple of videos on panelized buildings: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeHkVeJO6PE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeHkVeJO6PE * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX3QZVG-18E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX3QZVG-18E Matt Ferrell of Undecided made his home that way: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-RTlbv84T8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-RTlbv84T8 One can also do (US) traditional stick building with pre-cut lumber: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2FdAdxjSpw&list=PLDYh81z-RhxjSuCfjHdlIMWpqhyt5jNPX&index=5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2FdAdxjSpw&list=PLDYh81z-Rh...
- ahazred8ta 2y ago
  There are prefab firms that make a 2 or 3 story structural column with the fusebox, water heater, vertical plumbing and wiring conduits, drains, sink toilet and shower hookups, and spools of wiring to be pulled through walls. Almost no electrical and plumbing work needs to be done onsite.
danans 2y ago
Did you reply to the wrong comment? I wasn't discussing manufactured homes at all, but rather the benefits of simple building geometries.
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  Ah, perhaps I filled in a context that wasn't there since the parent article was about Levittown's particular home manufacturing methods. Simpler is better. Though where I am now every place is a flat-ish roof deck which is simple but comes with its own problems.
galdosdi 2y ago
> Plus people are not actually looking for identical room sizes. Times are changing. Gen Z will happily take it. What they're looking for is just any housing they can afford at all. If cheap effeciency can make a small detached bungalow with a real yard and a parking space affordable, they'll be happy to put up with minor taste quibbles like that. The alternative is roommate packed apartments, mom's basement, or homes far from any jobs to pay for the homes with.
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  Eh yes and no. The fad of container homes was a quick flash in the pan as it turned out they were actually a terrible size to actually live in; not quite large enough to put furniture in and still have walking space. Because factories for rooms are actually specialized for the actual room, it's not cheap once you consider the startup cost of a factory. All the components of a room are increasingly panelized and mass manufactured anyways, making building large portions of buildings similar to building out of Legos or IKEA flatpack, which is good enough for labor reduction.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    If you stay constrained to the container's dimensions for the room's walls, it's rather confining, but you don't have to. For $8k, this one looks pretty good. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256806996880923.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256806996880923.html
    - bobthepanda 2y ago
      that's flatpacked, not shipped as a room as-is, which is what i'm arguing for
- JohnClark1337 2y ago
  [dead]

vikingerik 2y ago

Is there a reason for the rectangle, or is that the idea just for simplicity? Like, "smallest convex polygon" might be slightly better. I don't see any reason why the borders would need to be rectangular. Also for any shape there's no reason it would need to be axis-aligned with the exterior perimeter (which itself might be far from rectangular.)

throw0101c 2y ago
It's a very simple rule of thumb that someone can check out in drafting software (or even paper blueprints). It's applicable in one-story domiciles (apartments, bungalows) and multi-story homes. Gary Klein, the fellow who thought of it, has been consulting on (hot) water issues for a few decades now, and so has tried to whittle down his advice to the simplest thing that (a) people will understand, (b) be actually implementable. That's generally is: make all the hot faucets as close to the hot water source as possible. The rule is a metric for that.
- ajot 2y ago
  Hah, this reminded me of a submission from a couple of years back [0] about efficient hot water piping, and lo and behold, the URL is for Gary Klein Associates [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16540802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16540802 [1] http://www.garykleinassociates.com/PDFs/15%20-%20Efficient%20Hot-Water%20Piping-JLC.pdf http://www.garykleinassociates.com/PDFs/15%20-%20Efficient%2...
bobthepanda 2y ago
All furniture, joinery, etc. is designed with right angles in mind. Creating non-right angles is a great way to have unusable nooks and crannies. And a rectangle only needs four sides; a triangle has non-right angles, and any more complex shape needs more joints.
- snowfield 2y ago
  Purpose built furniture looks great regardless though. Although expensive

throw0101c 2y ago

> This is a traditional and eminently sensible approach that has been lost in the "McMansion" era. Kate Wagner (of McMansionHell blog fame) gives a pretty good definition of what a McMansion Is: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68c2M4r9oQg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68c2M4r9oQg > Simpler roof shapes are not only cheaper to build, but also are far easier to deal and insulate, and therefore more energy efficient. And most importantly probably deals with water the best: fewer valleys mean fewer places where water is concentrated. Also, generally speaking, the more that overhangs jut out the better.

buck746 2y ago
That makes sense unless you are in an area with hurricanes. In places with a high probability of a hurricane hit they have started doing framing with the zip sheathing so it looks like a monopoly house, then they add overhangs that can break off in severe wind rather than taking the roof with it. It's a shame more houses don't get built with ICF, including the roof. Living in an area that gets hurricanes at least every other year I would happily take a smaller house to get something that could stand up to category 4-5 hurricane.