Mar

3

LG wrote:

What is wrong with my logic here?

Over the course of time, accurate brick laying and other construction tasks will become automated using numerical control processes pioneered in the aviation industry.

This will bring down the labor costs of building as well as reducing construction time..

Therefore the price of property is likely to reduce

Based on my experiences in the machine shop my father had in the basement, on my building of machinery to automate factories, and my experience building buildings, I think little will be automated in the construction industry.

Many have tried, with prefab bathrooms, prepackaged piping sets for kitchens and baths, and other things that make sense but don't catch on. Today in the US some 5% to 15% of new houses are factory built (depending on where you draw the line between "house" and "trailer"), but even they are not very automated - they benefit from protection from weather, stockpiling of materials, easier quality control, etc., but not from automation.

The main difficulty in automating construction tasks is setting the machine up for the many different sites, methods, dimensions, etc. Everything is already set up to be done by unskilled or semi-skilled labor.

Interestingly, after each building boom ends, the materials, codes, technologies, and economics change enough for the whole industry to have to reinvent itself for the next boom. During the last boom (just ending) insurance became major, and the ability to get a bond became a major cost of entry, effectively barring new entrants to the industry for the last few years. Labor got relatively cheap as material prices boomed, but that ratio has shifted back and forth many times in the past, as it will presumably do again in the future as Bacon's principles describe.

As for automation having a significant effect, it hasn't started yet, and I see no signs of it yet, but who knows.


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2 Comments so far

  1. Russell Sears on March 4, 2008 4:54 pm

    The manual building industries response to what automation has occured to marginalize the style that allows this.
    A easy way to see this is to simply count the average corners on the outside of the average houses built through the decades. And now the new trend is to have a circular tower or two added with a typical McMansion. On the insides plenty more layers of complexity can be added. Curved walls and cabintry, massive ceiling custom stairways to name a few.
    So far people have chosen the ever more complex design to distinguish themselves from the masses.
    It all makes me wonder when the trully thinking unique lovers of home design will revolt and revert back to simpler is better.

  2. Lon Evans on March 9, 2008 5:12 am

    Dear Mr. Gifford,

    I won't attempt to challenge your over-all evaluation, but I will contest specifics. As an individual who supported and eventually set loose a child; and all upon the worth of his building acumen, I well remember the introduction of the screw gun, and the chop saw. Soon to follow were the sliding compound miter saw, and eventually the CNC table router.

    How these innovations altered the manner in which the building trades approached their respective tasks, you know as well as I.

    For once, I do not attempt to demand justification for the particular opinion. Obviously, you know your stuff. But I do counter, and without denying that to automatize housing construction is an impossibility, that your apparent assumptions precluding the advances demanded by the introduction of the mechanizations previously mentioned are suspect.

    lon

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