4 ms·

Where has Construction Automation been successful?

38 points by ltononro 13d ago

DivingForGold 13d ago
3D printing of concrete homes ?
- xnx 13d ago
  Interesting, but currently more of a novelty.
- wongarsu 13d ago
  I wouldn't put that in the "success" category just yet
- crote 12d ago
  Even more labor-intensive, actually. Needs significant babysitting for things like electrical fixtures and window opening, and the final wall is a maintenance nightmare if it isn't plastered smooth.
  - fragmede 12d ago
    Only because we culturally expect recessed wiring and plumbing. if we went back to knob and stick wiring and external plumbing, 3d printed homes are much easier to make.
- xattt 12d ago
  Lego bricking with ICF is probably as best as it gets right now.
  - smalltorch 12d ago
    It's really not any easier at all, and really not a wide labor market for it... and an ICF house still needs framers. It's a really expensive and laboruius way to increase the R value of your home basically.
    - m463 11d ago
      I'll bet fire resistance and temperature stability are all good though. Don't know about noise - wonder if it is better or worse?
schnevets 13d ago
I remember reading this article about Swedish home manufacturing two years ago, and immediately thought of the Hudson Valley (where I lived at the time) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/08/headway/how-an-american-dream-of-housing-became-a-reality-in-sweden.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/08/headway/how-an-american-d... The Hudson River used to be a main manufacturing artery of the United States but has since become a relic. I still believe that region upstream of NYC could address the housing crisis plaguing the northeast of the United States. Imagine barges of housing components drifting down-river to be assembled in any coastal metro on the Atlantic coastline.
- ch4s3 12d ago
  You’d need to reform the Jones Act unless you plan to build the ships too.
nsonha 13d ago
It's kinda ridiculous that we still build walls brick by brick, on site, instead of just building most of the house elsewhere and only assemble at the site.
- xnx 13d ago
  If you're interested in the topic, the author writes extensively on manufactured homes.
- edgyquant 13d ago
  Why is this ridiculous?
  - nsonha 13d ago
    do you build a car from raw materials and casting every component in the same shop?
    - benj111 12d ago
      You could use the metaphor of sealed units in modern cars that can't be repaired. And houses are expected to last longer than cars. I'm not saying you're wrong person se, but I disagree with the analogy
    - rootusrootus 12d ago
      Are there really many parallels between a car and a house? The car is considerably more complex with dramatically less variation between builds. It is not like homes are constructed from raw materials, either, lots of the pieces are built in a factory and then brought on site to be connected.
      - fragmede 12d ago
        There are enough to make meaningful comparisons vs, say, manufacturing a laptop. They're both too big to carry, and expensive enough that most people aren't able to afford more than a handful in their lives, and may possibly even just only rent one. So cars and houses are more similar in size then cellphones or a meal at a restaurant.
knollimar 13d ago
You still have to solve all the MEPs so where does that go in your process?
- dgellow 13d ago
  What does MEPs mean in that context?
  - xnx 13d ago
    Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing
- cucumber3732842 12d ago
  They don't. They come in later and do their thing as normal. MEP workers have huge regulatory moats and trade groups with war chests which is why their bit of the process isn't being discussed here. If the tech isn't at a point where it can beat the relatively "exposed to the free market" framers and brick layers then there's no way it can fight the MEPs who have the laws and rules and codes they can leverage.
  - knollimar 12d ago
    I'm saying they can't take shortcuts like prefabbing walls without the stuff that goes in walls in them or at lesst coordinated sleeved etc
xnx 13d ago
I wonder how much of home construction efficiency improvements are held back by taste for traditional appearance vs. other cost/performance characteristics. The difference in styles between residential and commercial construction is probably an example of this. Not many commercial buildings with tar paper shingled roofs.
- lotsofpulp 13d ago
  The only reason I can think of that houses don’t usually have metal roofs is because they cost at least double, if not triple. I have seen homeowners use metal roofs, but it’s one of the first cost reductions because a good shingle roof is already good for 30+ years. For a business, it can make more sense as it might be a more long term structure, plus it would contain more valuable items (or at least cause more loss if business is interrupted).
  - rootusrootus 13d ago
    > The only reason I can think of that houses don’t usually have metal roofs is because they cost at least double, if not triple Also noise, if you live somewhere with a lot of rain. I wonder if the longevity argument really holds, too. Anecdotally, our local public housing project invested in metal roofs many years ago (less than 30, however) but a good fraction of them have been replaced since with contemporary asphalt shingles. I do not know why they failed, but the switch back to asphalt says something.
    - SoftTalker 12d ago
      To me it says that someone in the housing authority fell for a sales pitch on metal roofs. "Buy it once and never have to pay for a roof again." That person is now probably long gone, as is the salesman and likely the roofing contractor who installed it. The roof is now leaking, and the current administration looked at what they could afford and asphalt it is.
      - rootusrootus 12d ago
cortesoft 12d ago
> Construction is famously labor intensive: direct labor makes up close to 50% of the cost of constructing a new single-family home in the US, compared to around 6 to 8% of the cost of manufacturing a car. Is this only calculating last mile labor, or all the labor along the way? Like, for a car, does it count the cost of steel as purely non-labor costs, or do they factor in the labor cost for mining the ore, etc? Because I feel like at the end of the day, almost all costs are 'labor' costs, they are just paid by different people/companies earlier in the process. Housing just has a lot of the labor as the final step, assembling the house on site. Cars have more of their labor at earlier stages of the process, and the assembling is mostly automated.
- taneq 12d ago
  As I understand it, even just considering ‘last mile’ costs, labour is a majority of the cost, and fit-out is the majority of the labour. Then again, where I live skilled trades cost a lot, so this is probably different elsewhere.
chrisguilbeau 12d ago
I live near a 3d printed neighborhood in Georgetown, TX. We would have bought one if they'd had more than 3 bedroom floorplans. They are concrete and stay cool in the summer, they also all have solar panels... Everyone I've talked to says they are wierd looking like the movie set of Edward Scissorhands or something, but it's mainly because they didn't leave old growth trees so every tree is < 5 years old (maybe for the printer to have room to move around?) and they are very very similar. People also don't like the concrete factor. I don't know if it counts as successful but if we'd had fewer kids I'd be in one right now!
adiabatichottub 12d ago
The big changes I've seen over my lifetime have been tooling and materials. I remember when framers did everything with a hammer, a circular saw, and a speed-square. Now we have nail guns and cordless impact drivers and miter saws. Fiberglass batt insulation is still a thing, but now there's also urethane spray foam. We have engineered beams and OSB sheathing pre-coated with a moisture barrier. There's a lot of things that all add up to better performance and less manual labor.
fragmede 12d ago
My idea is you mass produce a housing core. A large unit with dividers but is a single big object consisting of a toilet, shower, kitchen sink, electric induction kitchen stove, dishwasher, heating/air-conditioning heat pump, and a living room wall with a TV. "Just" one giant unit to plop down as the central core of a living space, and then everything else can go up around it.
- schnevets 12d ago
  Sounds like a desktop machine with a few USB ports. You could probably sell this architecture to today's home buyers, especially those who have been lionizing the Sears mid-century "homekits". Many of those homes looked "cookie-cutter" when they were assembled, but small alterations to facade, adaptations to account for terrain, and a few customer preferences led to cozy neighborhoods. Too bad HOAs became drunk on power. People love the promise of renovation and "growing with the home". When my wife and I bought earlier this year, I was enthusiastic about one underutilized wall on the mudroom; I could already imagine a "bump-out" that becomes an in-law suite.

38 points by ltononro 13d ago

DivingForGold 13d ago

3D printing of concrete homes ?

xnx 13d ago
Interesting, but currently more of a novelty.
wongarsu 13d ago
I wouldn't put that in the "success" category just yet
crote 12d ago
Even more labor-intensive, actually. Needs significant babysitting for things like electrical fixtures and window opening, and the final wall is a maintenance nightmare if it isn't plastered smooth.
- fragmede 12d ago
  Only because we culturally expect recessed wiring and plumbing. if we went back to knob and stick wiring and external plumbing, 3d printed homes are much easier to make.
xattt 12d ago
Lego bricking with ICF is probably as best as it gets right now.
- smalltorch 12d ago
  It's really not any easier at all, and really not a wide labor market for it... and an ICF house still needs framers. It's a really expensive and laboruius way to increase the R value of your home basically.
  - m463 11d ago
    I'll bet fire resistance and temperature stability are all good though. Don't know about noise - wonder if it is better or worse?

schnevets 13d ago

I remember reading this article about Swedish home manufacturing two years ago, and immediately thought of the Hudson Valley (where I lived at the time) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/08/headway/how-an-american-dream-of-housing-became-a-reality-in-sweden.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/08/headway/how-an-american-d... The Hudson River used to be a main manufacturing artery of the United States but has since become a relic. I still believe that region upstream of NYC could address the housing crisis plaguing the northeast of the United States. Imagine barges of housing components drifting down-river to be assembled in any coastal metro on the Atlantic coastline.

ch4s3 12d ago
You’d need to reform the Jones Act unless you plan to build the ships too.

nsonha 13d ago

It's kinda ridiculous that we still build walls brick by brick, on site, instead of just building most of the house elsewhere and only assemble at the site.

xnx 13d ago
If you're interested in the topic, the author writes extensively on manufactured homes.
edgyquant 13d ago
Why is this ridiculous?
- nsonha 13d ago
  do you build a car from raw materials and casting every component in the same shop?
  - benj111 12d ago
    You could use the metaphor of sealed units in modern cars that can't be repaired. And houses are expected to last longer than cars. I'm not saying you're wrong person se, but I disagree with the analogy
  - rootusrootus 12d ago
    Are there really many parallels between a car and a house? The car is considerably more complex with dramatically less variation between builds. It is not like homes are constructed from raw materials, either, lots of the pieces are built in a factory and then brought on site to be connected.
    - fragmede 12d ago
      There are enough to make meaningful comparisons vs, say, manufacturing a laptop. They're both too big to carry, and expensive enough that most people aren't able to afford more than a handful in their lives, and may possibly even just only rent one. So cars and houses are more similar in size then cellphones or a meal at a restaurant.

knollimar 13d ago

You still have to solve all the MEPs so where does that go in your process?

dgellow 13d ago
What does MEPs mean in that context?
- xnx 13d ago
  Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing
cucumber3732842 12d ago
They don't. They come in later and do their thing as normal. MEP workers have huge regulatory moats and trade groups with war chests which is why their bit of the process isn't being discussed here. If the tech isn't at a point where it can beat the relatively "exposed to the free market" framers and brick layers then there's no way it can fight the MEPs who have the laws and rules and codes they can leverage.
- knollimar 12d ago
  I'm saying they can't take shortcuts like prefabbing walls without the stuff that goes in walls in them or at lesst coordinated sleeved etc

xnx 13d ago

I wonder how much of home construction efficiency improvements are held back by taste for traditional appearance vs. other cost/performance characteristics. The difference in styles between residential and commercial construction is probably an example of this. Not many commercial buildings with tar paper shingled roofs.

lotsofpulp 13d ago
The only reason I can think of that houses don’t usually have metal roofs is because they cost at least double, if not triple. I have seen homeowners use metal roofs, but it’s one of the first cost reductions because a good shingle roof is already good for 30+ years. For a business, it can make more sense as it might be a more long term structure, plus it would contain more valuable items (or at least cause more loss if business is interrupted).
- rootusrootus 13d ago
  > The only reason I can think of that houses don’t usually have metal roofs is because they cost at least double, if not triple Also noise, if you live somewhere with a lot of rain. I wonder if the longevity argument really holds, too. Anecdotally, our local public housing project invested in metal roofs many years ago (less than 30, however) but a good fraction of them have been replaced since with contemporary asphalt shingles. I do not know why they failed, but the switch back to asphalt says something.
  - SoftTalker 12d ago
    To me it says that someone in the housing authority fell for a sales pitch on metal roofs. "Buy it once and never have to pay for a roof again." That person is now probably long gone, as is the salesman and likely the roofing contractor who installed it. The roof is now leaking, and the current administration looked at what they could afford and asphalt it is.
    - rootusrootus 12d ago

cortesoft 12d ago

> Construction is famously labor intensive: direct labor makes up close to 50% of the cost of constructing a new single-family home in the US, compared to around 6 to 8% of the cost of manufacturing a car. Is this only calculating last mile labor, or all the labor along the way? Like, for a car, does it count the cost of steel as purely non-labor costs, or do they factor in the labor cost for mining the ore, etc? Because I feel like at the end of the day, almost all costs are 'labor' costs, they are just paid by different people/companies earlier in the process. Housing just has a lot of the labor as the final step, assembling the house on site. Cars have more of their labor at earlier stages of the process, and the assembling is mostly automated.

taneq 12d ago
As I understand it, even just considering ‘last mile’ costs, labour is a majority of the cost, and fit-out is the majority of the labour. Then again, where I live skilled trades cost a lot, so this is probably different elsewhere.

chrisguilbeau 12d ago

I live near a 3d printed neighborhood in Georgetown, TX. We would have bought one if they'd had more than 3 bedroom floorplans. They are concrete and stay cool in the summer, they also all have solar panels... Everyone I've talked to says they are wierd looking like the movie set of Edward Scissorhands or something, but it's mainly because they didn't leave old growth trees so every tree is < 5 years old (maybe for the printer to have room to move around?) and they are very very similar. People also don't like the concrete factor. I don't know if it counts as successful but if we'd had fewer kids I'd be in one right now!

adiabatichottub 12d ago

The big changes I've seen over my lifetime have been tooling and materials. I remember when framers did everything with a hammer, a circular saw, and a speed-square. Now we have nail guns and cordless impact drivers and miter saws. Fiberglass batt insulation is still a thing, but now there's also urethane spray foam. We have engineered beams and OSB sheathing pre-coated with a moisture barrier. There's a lot of things that all add up to better performance and less manual labor.

fragmede 12d ago

My idea is you mass produce a housing core. A large unit with dividers but is a single big object consisting of a toilet, shower, kitchen sink, electric induction kitchen stove, dishwasher, heating/air-conditioning heat pump, and a living room wall with a TV. "Just" one giant unit to plop down as the central core of a living space, and then everything else can go up around it.

schnevets 12d ago
Sounds like a desktop machine with a few USB ports. You could probably sell this architecture to today's home buyers, especially those who have been lionizing the Sears mid-century "homekits". Many of those homes looked "cookie-cutter" when they were assembled, but small alterations to facade, adaptations to account for terrain, and a few customer preferences led to cozy neighborhoods. Too bad HOAs became drunk on power. People love the promise of renovation and "growing with the home". When my wife and I bought earlier this year, I was enthusiastic about one underutilized wall on the mudroom; I could already imagine a "bump-out" that becomes an in-law suite.