What do you think of this approach to building houses?

@BariumBlue

2 жыл бұрын

I wonder how repairable these houses are. Are they designed and intended to last for a long time? Or are they meant to be relatively cheap quick and easy to put up (and then demolished at the end of it's life cycle). If someone or something damages a piece of the wall or floor, could a replacement be ordered? Or would they have to shimmy together a make shift solution from materials?

@Blurberrybrown

2 жыл бұрын

I think its great but the main obstacle is planning/building permission and land price 🤔

@cameronkeenan2043

2 жыл бұрын

They appear to be building in Southern California? I’m from New England so I’m a little skeptical about these buildings and the amount of insolation they provide and the lack of a pitched room both which I can tell you for sure is necessary in a New England winter, so that’s one case where some potentially bug adaptations may be necessary

@LuisRamirez-ed1gt

2 жыл бұрын

@@cameronkeenan2043 NICELY PUT. ADAPTATIONS TO DIFFERENT WEATHER AND CLIMATE.

@jzk2020

2 жыл бұрын

Very cool problem to try to solve.

This is an example of being too smart for your own good. Using software sounds smart but the dirty secret of these modular builders are their high cost. Cover is priced at $300-400 per sq.ft; traditional construction is around $120. Katerra is a perfect example of Silicon Valley failing to innovate construction. They got 3 billion in funding and they went bankrupt.

@KRYMauL

2 жыл бұрын

The trouble is factory built homes are too expensive, but people keep thinking it can work. The only thing that works is factory made apartments, but no one, in the US, likes those apparently.

@pebblepod30

2 жыл бұрын

Lots ot people would prefer the advantages (inc price) of medium density housing If it was LEGAL in their area & they had a choice. But many local Governments BAN medium density housing, because of greed & narricism of local NIMBYS. Higher Levels of Govt can be used to vote for policies that benefit everyone (esp younger & future generations) over greed & selfishness of NIMBYS. I am YIMBY, not a NIMBY.

@paulsansonetti7410

Жыл бұрын

@@pebblepod30 new world economics website has a great series called cheap city about this exact subject JIC you happen to be interested

The founder has the personality and speaking form of a good spokesperson. He really believes in his product and communicates the “why” very well.

@munchkin8019

2 жыл бұрын

For me he has a personality of a genius villain that's going to trick everyone with his intelligence 😂😂

@user-dr2pg8fk2i

2 жыл бұрын

Also show cases traits of grandeur of delusion built on the Silicon Valley bubble brain.

@PashPashAKAZoO

2 жыл бұрын

He just said a bunch of buzz words and really shown us NOTHING lol 3x price per square foot of traditional construction and slow build model

@johns.1898

Жыл бұрын

Too bad he's a failure

You're crazy until you're successful. Then you're a GENIUS!

@freethink

2 жыл бұрын

Well said!

@somerandomfella

2 жыл бұрын

Crazy is repeating the same thing everyday hoping for different results.

I just hope they take into account the different natural disasters each region faces: hurricanes and flooding in the south, earthquakes and wild fires in the west, snow storms in the north and east. I wouldn't mind having a wonderful and efficient house, but hurricanes wreck things here every few years. Additionally, we face triple degree heat every year, high humidity year round, and heavy rains sprinkled throughout. That has tremendous demands on your construction material and designs.

@steve_main

2 жыл бұрын

No way you could get a permit and have it approved if they did not match these things I would think

@freethink

2 жыл бұрын

That's a great point; things like the compression ratios they mention will definitely vary based on the humidity and temperature of the environment it is placed in, among other challenges. That being said, the high quality of Japanese joinery construction (and the variety of environments and disasters they face there) might be evidence that this isn't necessarily a fatal flaw, but something which can be effectively protected against or adjusted for. kzread.info/dash/bejne/aHqm2MaJj7K7oag.html

It's probably easiest to do this in a place like California where the climate is pretty steady and weather is consistent. I'm curious how this would apply to different regions where a lot of insulation or structural integrity would be required

Interesting but I think there is a fundamental issue with their question, which is homes are expensive because of the cost of development. That just isn't true, homes are expensive because of the land in which they sit on. Location really drives the value of homes, and of course properties maintain the rate of inflation at the very least.

@gshell2520

2 жыл бұрын

Yep a house in Detroit u can buy for 200 dollars because it's a leftist cesspool

@ARepublicIfYouCanKeepIt

2 жыл бұрын

Firstly, Cover's premise is spot-on. The stick-built process is horrendously inefficient, not mention appallingly wasteful. The fact that companies such as Cover can build, transport and erect structures in a fraction of the time required by traditional construction methods is all the proof that's necessary. Some of the issues Cover addresses and resolves include, but isn't limited to (in no particular order): 1. Known costs of both materials *and* labor. 2. Labor utilization. 3. Weather delays. 4. Precision + Repeatable accuracy = Consistently high quality 5. Trades coordination. 6. Work environment. 7. Automation. 8. Vertical integration. 9. Sourcing. 10. Waste. Secondly, the cost of the land for typical suburban housing is a fraction of the costs of either materials or labor. As someone who's purchased six homes in my lifetime, I can personally attest to this truth. Thirdly, _The Great Recession_ should've taught us all the lasting lesson that neither land, nor built structures, are guaranteed to increase in value, let alone keep pace with inflation. Lastly, we can be blinded by our paradigms; the concept that a way to do something is the only/right way to do that thing...primarily because that's the way that thing's always been done. It takes visionaries to challenge the status quo; to declare that there's a better way to do something. With the advent of everything from 3D modeling, to CAD/CAM and automation, we must always be in search of how to fix broken systems. "Traditional" home building is just such an opportunity. In part, because much of what constitutes a "traditional" home has been turned on its head over the past 10 to 20 years. From the meteoric rise in home prices, to labor shortages, to remote learning/working, to multi-generational living, to short-term property rental, to minimalism, to down-sizing/right-sizing, even private vehicle ownership, the idea of 5, 4 and a door, with a 2-car garage and a 1/4 acre of property, fronted by a white picket fence, is unsustainable.

@freethink

2 жыл бұрын

Great conversation. There's definitely truth to what TTsec is saying and John makes great points. The value of land in relation to structure varies hugely depending on location. In densely populated parts of California, where Cover is based, the land tends to be far more valuable than the structure; it's not unusual to see dilapidated tear-downs going for millions of dollars if they're in a desirable location. On the other hand, outside of high demand metro areas, land can be as low as a few thousand dollars an acre. www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/01/23/why-its-problem-that-dirt-brooklyn-is-so-much-more-expensive-than-dirt-arkansas/ Overall, the cost of custom construction has increased over time - while the cost of many manufactured goods (electronics, etc) has declined - and has gotten particularly bad since the pandemic with rises in material costs, constraints on labor supply, etc. The current average cost to build a home in California is over $350,000. www.homeadvisor.com/cost/architects-and-engineers/build-house-california/ So if this approach does end up working at scale, it could be a significant cost saver both in urban and rural areas, even if proportionately more in suburban/rural areas where land is less expensive.

@ARepublicIfYouCanKeepIt

2 жыл бұрын

@@freethink Thanks for the reminder of cost differential for land by locale. I fell victim to my own paradigm in that I've only purchased homes in Delaware and Georgia; not California, where I remember being appalled at the cost of "teardowns" in Santa Barbara in the 1990's. I attributed some of the premium to a building moratorium, but you're absolutely correct about the relative cost of land to structure in high-demand areas.

@trainwreck420ish

Жыл бұрын

​@@ARepublicIfYouCanKeepIt yes I was gonna say that. In ca you have literal shacks on million dollar land. The land ridiculously overpriced in southern California especially on the coast or bel air.

As he mentioned, this isn't new. Modular customized construction has been done in Europe for decades. Being able to produce homes from plans isn't difficult or costly. The plans that need to be approved by whichever governmental body is responsible for that is good chunk of the budget already. Throw in material costs, the labour at the factory (which is now going to be more costly because they're becoming specialized), the transportation, and on-site assembly (anything more than a simple box will require a lot of work). Unless they can get raw materials at a lower cost than builders (economies of scale potentially here), then this can't be less expensive. Not to mention that this contributes to the terrible problem of urbran sprawl and car-dependant suburbs.

@ttopero

2 жыл бұрын

You’ve made a lot of assumptions they didn’t cover in this short video. There’s many ways to do modular or factory-based construction so they don’t all have the same issues or opportunities. Why do you believe this paradigm will result in sprawl?

@uzziya6392

2 жыл бұрын

@@ttopero Because that's what their building. Detached or semi-detached homes for car-dependent suburbia.

@pebblepod30

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah i do hope they move to medium & high density housing, as they indicated they might. Low density housing that isnt rural (esp when it isnt what most ppl want to live in given costs & distance from work) is one of the two things that most make a city or large town unlivable, unless you've never seen differently. The other is long travel times, caused by having no decent choices other than cars, which take up riduclous amounts of space per person. Also most ppl don't need or want a car every trip, only some, which would make Car Apps more affordable when you want a private car/van/campervan/ute etc. Much more transport diversity benefits everyone.

"Were solving that with software." A mantra I have heard a million times, I guess we'll see, guy seems a bit inexperienced and soft handed tho.

@d3r4g45

2 жыл бұрын

don't worry honey we don't need insulation in the house, we got software.

@freethink

2 жыл бұрын

Haha, it's definitely easier said than done. But you have to imagine at some point that if we can put a man on the moon (or to be more current, design and land reusable rockets), at some point we'll have software that can do a bunch of physical design calculations people currently do manually automatically. Time will tell whether this implementation is the one that can deliver it!

Amazing, this is one of the best ones yall have created.

All they're doing is adding customization to manufactured homes. He's trying to create cheaper housing but it makes these houses more expensive when they get customized as you need to come up with entirely new plans.

@Mr_Battlefield

2 жыл бұрын

Not if it's modular.

@freethink

2 жыл бұрын

That's the key advantage - their software does all the adjustments automatically. So if it works as promised, they'll be able to generate custom homes without the traditional cost increase.

@wovasteengova

2 жыл бұрын

@@freethink ahhh ok. Makes sense now.

In sunny california you could live in a cardboard box and you'd be fine. And that is what I see they offer, shiny, polished, good looking cardboad boxes. Not even green as you d'need to spend a ton of electricity in cooling/heating with such a poorly insulated space.

I hope these guys change the industry, definitely game changing at scale

@Freethink Was all the video footage in the video taken at Cover facilities? It looks like some stock shots of office space didn’t jive with the rest.

Just build tall, dense housing with panels. All this does is subsidize single-family housing that creates urban sprawl and unhealthy car-dependent urban environments.

@TheAutumnNetwork

2 жыл бұрын

Yeup, people are tired of that suburbia hellscape and want an urban life with reliable and cheap public transit to get around the city, and walkable cities as well.

@d3r4g45

2 жыл бұрын

Urban city centers have a lot of issues starting with politics, even more so in the US. On top of that the concentration just makes prices of housing go artificially up, people outbidding themselves to live as close to the center as possible. Making shoebox housing. It all affects human psycological well being. Living in a house can be eco-sustainable, zero footprint living, while living in a condo in a crowded city cannot. Fixing the politics around public transports and urban living, that does not depend on a single person. So chosing to live outside of the city is the solution, not the problem.

@freethink

2 жыл бұрын

We definitely need more dense housing to allow sustainable environments and transportation, so your point is well taken. Currently there's a big need to create a lot more homes quickly, and there are a lot of people testing out different approaches. While this is starting out with single-unit houses, as you are probably aware that's all that's allowed in many places in the US and is a simpler approach to working out a new construction process than trying to jump to apartments. Hopefully if it works, they will quickly be able to scale to things like duplexes, fourplexes, or customized ADUs that can help make existing sprawl-style neighborhoods more dense as restrictions get gradually loosened as they are beginning to be in California at the moment. We've been covering some other approaches like larger-scale modular construction. kzread.info/dash/bejne/e6h3ttGKg7bKmLQ.html as well as cities that are doing great jobs with bikeability and walkability. kzread.info/dash/bejne/oomWqqmCXc6uo7g.html and land use reforms. kzread.info/dash/bejne/mqJ608OLoZO-m6w.html . j Time will tell what ends up happening as customers, builders and regulators all have complex and varied interests, needs and products.

@jzk2020

2 жыл бұрын

Problem is people don't want neighbours :D Walls are too thin, I don't want to be heard while I'm in the bathroom or rubbing one out.

@h.d.h

2 жыл бұрын

@@jzk2020 You clearly have not been in a new apartment with modern soundproofing. You cannot hear your upstairs neighbor stomping on the floor anymore.

All I heard was, "no one is doing it like us" but not much on what they are doing that is so much different

Very rarely can a person bring truly new creativity to an industry when they are not viscerally versed in the methods and traditions of that industry

This isn't a new idea. It has been done before in the 70s and 80s by companies like Boise Cascade and US Home. They used mostly manual labor as modern automation did not exist at that time. Those companies mostly failed because of resistance from contractors who felt threatened to their traditional 'stick built' livelihoods. They went to city and county council meetings and pushed for bans on modular, factory made homes being erected in their areas. US Home had a factory in North Salt Lake, Utah. It was divided into two divisions. One half of the plant built mobile homes on trailer frames. The other half of the plant built what was called modular units. using traditional 2x4, 2x6, 2x12 etc. and could be customized to the customer's needs. They were built in sections and shipped out to site on special built trailers and lifted onto foundations by crane and bolted together. Very little assembly was needed at the site. Only the foundations, water and sewer lines, concrete flat work that was unique to each location was required on site. Those homes were stronger than any traditional 'stick built' home. Those companies failed due to individual contractors uniting in resistance to a perceived threat to their way of life and convincing city councils that homes built in factories were inferior and would be bad for each the cities reputation. The concept of automating custom built homes is not new. But maybe time and technology can alter the way builders and buyers look at how factory efficiency can benefit us. Europe has been way ahead of us. The US Home story is quite a lot more than this paragraph can list. Hotels, Motels, shipped by rail from Salt Lake City to Arizona, Colorado, California, Texas, even as far away as New Jersey via railroad. That took some effort getting cooperation with unions allowing hotel/motel sections that were built by non union workers in a 'right to work'' state like Utah. Oh to return to the 80s, when I was 27 for the first time. Life was good. I was healthier and much more attractive than my 27th year of today. I forget how many times, it's a complicated formula . . .

Finally, 1st Principle Thinking. Excellent content, thanks for sharing 💚🌍

I love it, i had the same idea but this is on whole new level, i do believe in them and i even want to work with them if i got a chance...

Hey I love this and would love to learn more, and the statement Intersecting interests with observations really hit me hard

Kramarica Industries would be Proud

Homie literally just described building a house.

Brilliant. Wish I could get involved.

Is it cheaper or have a long durability ?

@d3r4g45

2 жыл бұрын

No and no :)

I wonder how durable these homes are. How are they going to perform in maybe a hurricane or an earthquake?

Cool. Does this work in other places than California. In areas that are hotter and colder?

This is brilliant

Lots of that Alexis guy say "I" as if he's the source of these ideas. Every first year architect processes the accessibility and modular concepts.

What materials used for panels?

No room for error also means long term adhesion to the producing company, including ability to remodel, or getting screwed because your ultra special proprietary house manufacturer goes bust.

Okay, these are young urbanite kids doing this, looking at $1,000,000 homes as their standard, so homes that cost a third of that seem affordable to them. They are not. No teacher, fireman, or retail worker is ever going to afford such a home, let alone maintain it when it is built in a climate harsher than California.

These guys haven't heard of Industrialised Building System before.

The problem they have to deal with is big construction companies lobbying governments to add unnecessary regulations or even shut them down in order to protect their own interests.

@pebblepod30

2 жыл бұрын

That's capitalism for ya, where money means power, instead of Democratic vote on the issue or something like that.

I'm always concerned when someone who has never used a hammer all day thinks that a computer is somehow going to solve all the problems of construction

@wovasteengova

2 жыл бұрын

It solved all the other problems...

@SKYxNINE

2 жыл бұрын

@@wovasteengova also created new ones like destroyed our society and resources. See what I did there? Reply with something more thoughtful or keep your empty comments.

🌟 Genius 🌟

Alleyway and backyard homes.

I want to see 3D printed houses made of hempcrete with a space in the walls filled with local earth for insulation. You'd have a fireproof home that doesn't need much HVAC because it's so insulated. If 3D printing won't work with hempcrete then we should make a robot that stacks the blocks and bonds them so fireproof super insulating hempcrete blocks covered with stucco creates houses that last 1000 years.

Awesome

@freethink

2 жыл бұрын

Glad you liked it!

@koiyujo1543

2 жыл бұрын

@@freethink thank you do much! I love your peoples content and I'm glad I'm able to learn things I've never thought I would be able to know with so much searching, I'm a need for learning new technology and more and this channel saves me time for that which is a blessing and thank you so much, hope to see a lot more content.

Soon you will be able to customize your home how you see fit, the size, the flooring the walls the furniture etc etc. I guess IKEA may have to co-join with these prefab firms..

Mobile homes, prefab homes and modular homes have been around a long time. It has been done may times already.

Bro... But what do you do? How do you make it better?

No good in a closed market where developers own the councils that set the building regulations to prevent cheaper housing.

This guy is Amazing!

Add an option for people to install it themselves and skip the onsight labor costs. I'd happily follow ikea instructions for a month to pay half price for a house.

The person said it all in one simple sentence (I put it a bit differently, but leave the meaning the same) @1:49: the problem with construction is that it is soooooooooooo fragmented!!!

Watch out boys, Ikea would like to have a word with you.

Thank goodness for playback speed 1.75. You're welcome 👍🏼

I'd buy some of their stock. But I don't think they are public yet. Is it true Elon Musk is a private investor?

This entire channel is insane, amazing production quality

@freethink

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks so much, really appreciate it!

Something about the clips of them working makes it seem like they actually take forever to get any work done

Hi Sir, how much money for 4meter x 5meter house? thank you

Waooo❤️

Its great idea and the design is very good but the price tag from 380000 Dollars is not affordable for every one!

There are numerous companies that build this way for @ least 50 years.

If this was a sales video for their house I wouldn't buy one. Info was far too little.

Remember Katerra?? A Startup that received a BILLION dollars for the Vision fund from masayoshi Son and who recently declared bankruptcy....

Only solves the labor costs to some degree for real-estate, does nothing to address the actual costs of land. While this would help a family looking to build a new house on cheap property, doesn't address land ownership in densely populated regions.

Make your hobby a profession and success will follow

@jimmyryan5880

2 жыл бұрын

What, no

Did he say that he wants to build homes that are stunning and brave?

Now is fhe time for COVER Build to be present all over Americas, as people deserve and need a house with all essentials included, like safe climatization, lighting and sonorization: I would call it COVER Unified & Healthy Comfort Services. 🌿🌞🏡💚💚💚💚

Eventually these guys will realise it's easier to own the neighbourhood infrastructure with plug and play plots you can put these modular houses on.

Impressive. I do a lot of home improvements. I’d be working with y’all if If I could.

This is cool but the main determiners of the price of a home are the land its sitting on and the infrastructure around it. So this tech is cool and it make make home building cheaper one day if it works, but it will never be the game changer this video makes it out to be.

I really hope he can get to scale.

But is it affordable?

Imagine buying your own house at IKEA 😂

Keep it up im on you

When the figure out how to do curves that's when they'll really change things.

This sounds Very expensive

Hair cuts are 30 dollars now use to be 20 when I was little something gotta change if I had 3 sons that's 90 dollars every month or two.

so what new way of building you have? We use software. ah ok

这也太有趣了吧

i think customizability and the ability to be mass produced are at odds with one another. also people who desperately need housing dont care about uniqueness they just want somewhere to live.

Well that was kinda disappointing. Sears kit houses are over a hundred years old. This isn't a new idea, it's just new software. Making a passivhus standard one would be a significant improvement and the higher cost would pay for itself in the energy savings. Foundations need to be custom designed, but even that can be iterations on something done right next door. These are mostly one story houses with no basement. Why aren't they just offloading the pre-engineered structural panels from a truck, and then putting on a custom facade. If they are getting push back on sameyness they just have 20-30 different designs with 10-20 colors. They are trying to compete with custom built high end home contractors on price. That's a losing battle.

Seen this done many times 😂

I hope they succeed but damn I'm tired of overconfident silicon valley types thinking that everything can be done so muuuuch better by adding some software to the mix. Personally I can think of equally many things that have become worse or hardly changed by adding code to the process.

looks like a good idea but how does it stack up to a fully 3D printed home, modular designs can be taken apart, extended, replaced, but are limited in design by what modular components are available and results are somewhat repetitive and blocky. whereas a 3D printed home can take any architectural form but is without the ability to easily modify it without getting the tools out. perhaps modular homes could fit in at the lower end of the housing market and custom printed homes would sit slightly above in price range. whats nice is that both methods promise cheaper homes for all in the future

@1MinuteFlipDoc

2 жыл бұрын

3D printed homes on site are even more expensive than this. MAYBE 3D print sections in a factory (and move them on site) could be an option.

But he/they didn't really say anything the whole video though? Like... *How* do you do that? What is your method? There's lots of platitudes but not a lot of examples.

All these modular home companies are overcomplicating it, there's already a model for how to make cheap houses: mobile/manufactured homes. All it needs is a little prettying up to distance itself from the negative associations, crank up the efficiency and reducing labor a little more, hell if you need to add your recycled plastic beams for the environment or whatever sure and a way to make apartments too then you're done. You don't need all this folding hinge, lego connector, sliding panels, 3d printed, cnc milled nonsense, just focus on keeping it under 120$ per sq foot. Honestly some of these tech start ups feel like the brink and mortar version of pump and dump fade crypto coins 😂

I like this I really want to make better home were I live this might be useful to me Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Boxabl is also a cool company, they already have a functioning factory and aim to produce thousands of home with just this factory and will open more in the future.

Katerra had the same arrogance. RIP Katerra.

mass production of prefab houses does already exist, the only problem most of homeless people (including middle-class!) have, is the lack of space and money, as simple as that.

There is no problem to build homes, there is problem with goverment to build infrastructure for it. Roads, schools, hospitals

At $350 a foot, this isn't doable.

This solution is not helping the housing crisis if you can't stack the buldings to become Appartments. Low rise urban sprawl is main offender in both housing crisis & congested traffic.

What does English mean to you?

Thank You for focusing on this problem! However, The Venus Project would be a better Society; easier to replicate and maintain.

@vic5201992

2 жыл бұрын

wow i have not heard someone bring up the venus project in years lol bring me back to the 2000s

Home building is fine. Its the lack of ability to buy land thats a problem. Its very rare for someone to own land and not be able to build a basic house. The first sentence is wrong.

He talks like Zuckerberg

No specifics whatsoever mentioned in the video. Tons of buzzwords tho.

Not the first.

i really think they need an engineer on that team with them. they need a perspective on making buildings an architect simply cannot provide. for example: sure they were able to build very close to that tree but, is that practical? no not really because the tree looks like it will grow into the building over time. so OBVIOUSLY there is a reason people don't build that close to trees normally. i mean sure anyone with common sense could have spotted that problem but i feel like a lot of their property customisablity problems could use the perspective of a structural engineer.

Very interesting concept, this could be a serious answer to the affordable housing problem

@sanbetski

2 жыл бұрын

this will be tricky in the long run, because once repair and maintenance comes into the picture, you will come back to the original creator for so call customized parts as alluded in 2:10

This video should have been like 2 hour's long.

It’s a start

So are they going to make their patents free for use to people who will need those houses?

Ok , but what's actually different about this company? What are they doing that every other prefab home building company isn't? I know other companies are, at least in some capacity, allowing the buyer to customize the home. 2:51-2:56 That is a lie. Saying "Homes have been built the same for a hundred years" is, at the very least, misleading. Yes, there has not been a massive jump in how we make most homes, however, how we make homes now is nothing like how we made homes a hundread years ago. It evolves over time. I'd argue that building all the supports and inner workings in a factory and building the supports and installing the prefabricated objects on site aren't that different. They're a cost saving measure. Also, What's the R value for those thin walls? I know you're in L.A but that is a very small area where it doesn't get that cold.

probably more expensive than mobile homes. so make 'better' mobile homes.