Build prefabricated houses

Purple

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The other pre-budget consideration I feel is the complete removal of VAT on new homes -
That would be a disgraceful subsidy of an industry which concentrates on political lobbying rather than just being good at doing its job.
The solution is for the State to buy in factory built homes from major European supplier and have them erect those homes. That would avoid the labour supply constraints on the private sector which would otherwise be caused by a massive State house building program. We'd also end up with a superior quality product.
Have a look at this site for what can be achieved using 21st century building methods (or even 1970's building methods as opposed to the 1870's methods we use).
Look at that site and ask yourself what it would cost if the State was buying 60,000 units based on five or 6 base designs.
 
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How do you increase the supply? Conscript people to enter into the construction industry, force developers to build, unfortunately you can't have ala carte capitalism. People / economic actors have free will.
I've already offered a solution; the State buys houses from Eu suppliers and has those EU suppliers assemble them here. If there aren't enough EU suppliers then use American suppliers. That way we don't put demand pressure, and therefore price pressure, on local labour but rather increase the supply by importing it. That sould depress demand and so reduce local labour costs. We need to be able to build a fully finished 1400 Square food house for well under €60,000. Site costs, taxes, levies etc go on top of that but the construction cost should be less than half what it is at the moment.
 
I've already offered a solution; the State buys houses from Eu suppliers and has those EU suppliers assemble them here. If there aren't enough EU suppliers then use American suppliers. That way we don't put demand pressure, and therefore price pressure, on local labour but rather increase the supply by importing it. That sould depress demand and so reduce local labour costs. We need to be able to build a fully finished 1400 Square food house for well under €60,000. Site costs, taxes, levies etc go on top of that but the construction cost should be less than half what it is at the moment.

Purple see your wedded to this pre-fab EU supplier housing as THE solution. Sounds great as I said, an amazing innovation in house building & supply and I look forward to seeing them all over Ireland in the future because even in the EU where your EU suppliers are they aren't that common, which suggests something about the solution or peoples willingness to live inside the solution, perhaps now or in the future it could supply a few 1000's houses we unfortunately need by some estimates 50,000 per year. Unfortunately we don't live in the future and the focus should be supplying houses in the way we've done so safely and consistently for 100's of years - building them on site while welcoming every innovation we can into the process. As I said I'm not wedded to one solution - VAT removal is an important one but one of many - planning / zoning another, infrastructure spending another, higher density units, increased public transport etc. etc.

*Side note and in jest - Germany makes our cars, lets not have them make our houses too. I like Irish suppliers, Irish labour, Irish profits.....and if not Irish happy for our Eastern European neighbors to come back here in droves and help us solve this problem
 
In some countries particularly the Nordics, houses are assembled in a factory before assembly on site. These houses are far far superior to on site construction techniques found here in terms of quality using modern materials and production control. Its easier to control a right angle using a laser controlled saw than an Irish builder on a Friday morning;).

They are not called modular or pre fab. Just called a house.

Fidel
 
In some countries particularly the Nordics, houses are assembled in a factory before assembly on site. These houses are far far superior to on site construction techniques found here in terms of quality using modern materials and production control. Its easier to control a right angle using a laser controlled saw than an Irish builder on a Friday morning;).

They are not called modular or pre fab. Just called a house.

Fidel

Sounds good - like i said sign me up to factory assembled homes. I love cheaper, quicker, better quality things. Just not seeing it providing 50k homes in 2019/2020 and I guess before it turned into a housing construction methodology thread we were discussing how to meet the demand, through policy, for the 50,000 homes per year Ireland needs from the 5,000 -10,000 housing run rate we have now. Housing production innovation, lets call it that, I'm all for it and more of it.

The oldest trick in the book, however, incentivizing someone to provide housing through the profit motive has proven to work very well indeed over time and that profit motive will work just fine for housing assemblers as well as traditional developers.
 
I think modern mass production facilities can easily gear up to meet demand, much much faster than the Irish building sector can. As well as supplying top quality rather than poor quality housing stock, it addresses the bottlenecks of speed, affordability, lack of tradesmen and so forth.
Oops I forgot, the vested interests!! concrete is better built! And local objections from the snobs, scared from their years schooling in sub standard classrooms.
Purple's idea is a fine one. It therefore doesn't stand a chance.
Fidel.
 
Hard to imagine these 'factory assembled homes' lasting several generations as conventional housing should.
 
Hard to imagine these 'factory assembled homes' lasting several generations as conventional housing should.

Done right, they can outlast them while all the time significantly out-performing them in thermal efficiency and air quality.
 
Which is why I said "The building sector is only currently driven by crony capitalism and self interest groups because government over-regulation has forced so many independent builders out of the market."

I think you'll find, and you should know, the reason for so called builders going bust is the Irish Financial crash starting in 2007. Only certain ex Taoisigh would assert "over regulation" as being a cause, whether that applies to building regulations or the financial sector. Phrases such as "sustainable development is development which can be sustained" come to mind.

It may be true, the housing stock in the GDR was of poor quality, brought on by a corrupt inefficient system. Sounds familiar?
If your fortunate to live or visit cities like Berlin or indeed Dresden, you'll find they, unlike ourselves have excellent, modern house's with high comfort levels.
At least they are not gifting their wealth to our " friends" in Riyadh, when you pay your winter gas, electric bills due a housing stock which has the prize of by far, the worst thermal efficiency in kWh/m2 than any, of the north & western European countries, Britain included.

Purple its time to give up. Your idea is a good one to overcoming the local impediments. The reaction here only validates the statement "it doesn't stand a chance".

19 months is time quoted by Dublin city manager on RTE interview to build a "modular" house in Dublin. You must be having a laugh.

Fidel.
 
gives more info on Modular and Panel Built Homes. One in every 4 homes in the USA is built this way.
 
From this article;
“Against a backdrop of rising costs, contractors and clients need to look to new technologies and methods, as well as better use of data and programme management techniques, to unlock savings.”
 
High property prices are bad for the economy. They cause wage inflation, they cause insurance inflation, they reduce labour mobility, they cause a transfer of wealth from the young to the old (even though the old hold most of the wealth anyway) and they funnel capital into a non-wealth generating sector (construction) from real wealth generating sectors (internationally traded goods and services).
It is in that context that the government can and should do whatever it can to keep prices low. The Central Bank lending limits are a really good thing, though they should not have been relaxed. Property tax is also a good way of limiting prices. Tax relief on mortgages should also be removed. That deals with the demand side.

Now what to do on the supply side. The problem is that our construction sector is fat and structurally inefficient after decades of massive margins and cronyism which feathered the nest of everyone in the sector. They are like a fat couch potato being told they have to play 80 minutes at a final in Croke Park. Try as they might it just isn't going to happen any time soon. We need a ringer; we need someone else's construction sector to play the match while fatty tried to do star jumps on the sideline.
 
Hi Purple

There is a programme on BBC Radio 4 tonight on this topic. It will be available to listen back after it's broadcast.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001vll

Home Truths
In Business
Does the house building industry need to change? Manuela Saragosa meets the disruptors, the companies trying to transform how the vast majority of residential property is built. Across the country new factories are springing up - in a bid to manufacture our homes in much the same way as we do our cars. The risks are huge.

Significant investment is required to get things moving and demand for these new homes has yet to be tested. But the disruptors claim that the house building industry must modernise or die. Productivity is falling and traditional skills are in short supply - something that is likely to get worse as immigration reduces. Other countries, too, already build huge numbers of homes off-site, claiming that this results in quicker and cheaper construction. So, just how many of the hundreds of thousands of homes that we need to build might end up being factory produced?
 
Purple

Your message is gradually getting out there


And clearly the fragmented nature of the sector is also an issue – as is the way houses and apartments are designed, generally on a bespoke basis for a particular project as opposed to any kind of modular approach which could allow more efficiency.

The McKinsey study pointed to areas such as design and engineering processes, supply chain management, management on site and the use of digital technologies, advanced materials, and construction automation as offering opportunities for the sector internationally.

Much of this relates to how houses are planned, the availability of standard templates and the use of digital technology in planning and delivery.

Here , the conundrum of how to built and fund multi-unit developments in city centres efficiently and affordably must be solved – and the construction industry will have a big role here , drawing on what has happened internationally.
 
That's good news.
I missed this thread originally, but I agree with the idea of modular houses. Huffhouse in Germany, Deltec in US etc.
I remember being in Australia and my brother brought me to a house construction company. They had a showhouse of each type of house they built. You choose the one you wanted, specified the details, e.g. plug points etc. They built it and shipped it to site.

Does seem like a good way to go.
 
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