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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. ruclips.net/video/6FrvdP_OUqE/видео.html
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!
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
@@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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. ruclips.net/video/ItCToQSSdhQ/видео.html as well as cities that are doing great jobs with bikeability and walkability. ruclips.net/video/pUbHGI-kHsU/видео.html and land use reforms. ruclips.net/video/hnFqaRq0XkI/видео.html . j Time will tell what ends up happening as customers, builders and regulators all have complex and varied interests, needs and products.
@@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 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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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..
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.
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 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.
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!!!
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.
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. 🌿🌞🏡💚💚💚💚
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.
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.
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 😂
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.
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 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.
Too arrogant to claim that this has never been done before. One of the guys said a kitchen isn't installed within a short time with pre-made and pre-designed parts assembled. Hello! This is exactly what pantry cupboard makers are doing.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
No that's a good thing because it helps makes home faster and you don't need to adjust anything on site and they use 3D modeling for a reason to make it much more cheaper and make it more effective installing and such is a great idea and good solution to making homes cheaper without making it harder to construct, etc.
I've always wondered why free think has more haters than other such channels. Would you be capable of providing the answer? Why are you so mad? It's a company minding its own business trying to get off and you feel the need to attack it. Are you jealous perhaps? This is very interesting.
@@koiyujo1543 It might make construction quicker but that won't decrease the price that much. The cost of building a home is made up of land, materials and labor. This company is only solving labor costs.
@@sarrormiki3363 im a hater because i don't think this company has any merit and i hate the never ending line of start ups that attempt to solve problems they have no knowledge about
There are other startups that are attempting to be like Ikea for homes, but this actually isn't one of them. It's specifically made to be custom so that, for example, you can design a home around trees on the property as shown in the video. Also, a lot of people are asking for solutions to make housing faster and more affordable: there's a nationwide housing shortage that has pushed up the cost of homes dramatically ( www.npr.org/2021/09/04/1033585422/the-housing-shortage-is-significant-its-acute-for-small-entry-level-homes ) and construction with traditional techniques has gone up in cost significantly, while labor shortages have slowed down the timeframe for delivering them. www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2021-09-20/inflation-forces-homebuilders-to-take-it-slow-raise-prices The land costs are certainly always an issue, and can vary very widely across the country: sometimes they are just a few thousand dollars, sometimes millions. Of course, no homebuilding solution can fix that on their own. But in addition to saving labor, this approach (if delivered as imagined) would save materials as well as labor - traditional homebuilding often generates a lot of unused excess materials - and another factor is time. If you can build a home in days or weeks instead of a year, you don't have to pay living costs somewhere else while you build it. Hope this helps explain things, have a good day y'all.
What do you think of this approach to building houses?
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?
I think its great but the main obstacle is planning/building permission and land price 🤔
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
@@cameronkeenan2043 NICELY PUT. ADAPTATIONS TO DIFFERENT WEATHER AND CLIMATE.
Very cool problem to try to solve.
The founder has the personality and speaking form of a good spokesperson. He really believes in his product and communicates the “why” very well.
For me he has a personality of a genius villain that's going to trick everyone with his intelligence 😂😂
Also show cases traits of grandeur of delusion built on the Silicon Valley bubble brain.
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
Too bad he's a failure
You're crazy until you're successful. Then you're a GENIUS!
Well said!
Crazy is repeating the same thing everyday hoping for different results.
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.
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.
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.
@@pebblepod30 new world economics website has a great series called cheap city about this exact subject JIC you happen to be interested
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.
No way you could get a permit and have it approved if they did not match these things I would think
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. ruclips.net/video/6FrvdP_OUqE/видео.html
"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.
don't worry honey we don't need insulation in the house, we got software.
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!
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.
Yep a house in Detroit u can buy for 200 dollars because it's a leftist cesspool
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.
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.
@@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.
@@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.
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
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.
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?
@@ttopero Because that's what their building. Detached or semi-detached homes for car-dependent suburbia.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. ruclips.net/video/ItCToQSSdhQ/видео.html as well as cities that are doing great jobs with bikeability and walkability. ruclips.net/video/pUbHGI-kHsU/видео.html and land use reforms. ruclips.net/video/hnFqaRq0XkI/видео.html . j
Time will tell what ends up happening as customers, builders and regulators all have complex and varied interests, needs and products.
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.
@@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 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.
Not if it's modular.
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.
@@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.
Amazing, this is one of the best ones yall have created.
Finally, 1st Principle Thinking.
Excellent content, thanks for sharing 💚🌍
I hope these guys change the industry, definitely game changing at scale
Kramarica Industries would be Proud
This sounds Very expensive
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
Is it cheaper or have a long durability ?
No and no
:)
Brilliant. Wish I could get involved.
Awesome
Glad you liked it!
@@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.
I wonder how durable these homes are. How are they going to perform in maybe a hurricane or an earthquake?
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.
Thank goodness for playback speed 1.75.
You're welcome 👍🏼
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.
That's capitalism for ya, where money means power, instead of Democratic vote on the issue or something like that.
🌟 Genius 🌟
Hey I love this and would love to learn more, and the statement Intersecting interests with observations really hit me hard
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.
This guy is Amazing!
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.
This entire channel is insane, amazing production quality
Thanks so much, really appreciate it!
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?
These guys haven't heard of Industrialised Building System before.
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...
This is brilliant
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..
Impressive. I do a lot of home improvements. I’d be working with y’all if If I could.
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.
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.
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
It solved all the other problems...
@@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.
What materials used for panels?
Waooo❤️
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!!!
Make your hobby a profession and success will follow
What, no
Its great idea and the design is very good but the price tag from 380000 Dollars is not affordable for every one!
Cool. Does this work in other places than California. In areas that are hotter and colder?
No good in a closed market where developers own the councils that set the building regulations to prevent cheaper housing.
Watch out boys, Ikea would like to have a word with you.
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.
But is it affordable?
Something about the clips of them working makes it seem like they actually take forever to get any work done
There are numerous companies that build this way for @ least 50 years.
Mobile homes, prefab homes and modular homes have been around a long time. It has been done may times already.
@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.
Remember Katerra?? A Startup that received a BILLION dollars for the Vision fund from masayoshi Son and who recently declared bankruptcy....
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. 🌿🌞🏡💚💚💚💚
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.
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.
If this was a sales video for their house I wouldn't buy one. Info was far too little.
Did he say that he wants to build homes that are stunning and brave?
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.
Imagine buying your own house at IKEA 😂
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 😂
Bro... But what do you do? How do you make it better?
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.
There is no problem to build homes, there is problem with goverment to build infrastructure for it. Roads, schools, hospitals
Katerra had the same arrogance. RIP Katerra.
I really hope he can get to scale.
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.
Keep it up im on you
Hi Sir, how much money for 4meter x 5meter house? thank you
This video should have been like 2 hour's long.
I like this
I really want to make better home were I live this might be useful to me
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Thank You for focusing on this problem!
However, The Venus Project would be a better Society; easier to replicate and maintain.
wow i have not heard someone bring up the venus project in years lol bring me back to the 2000s
so what new way of building you have? We use software. ah ok
At $350 a foot, this isn't doable.
Very interesting concept, this could be a serious answer to the affordable housing problem
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
When the figure out how to do curves that's when they'll really change things.
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.
Too arrogant to claim that this has never been done before. One of the guys said a kitchen isn't installed within a short time with pre-made and pre-designed parts assembled. Hello! This is exactly what pantry cupboard makers are doing.
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.
这也太有趣了吧
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.
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.
It’s a start
No specifics whatsoever mentioned in the video. Tons of buzzwords tho.
So are they going to make their patents free for use to people who will need those houses?
Seen this done many times 😂
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.
Not the first.
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
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
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.
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.
What does English mean to you?
probably more expensive than mobile homes. so make 'better' mobile homes.
I love how these really just catch up to what communism did it first and did it arguably very successfully.
ok so they made ikea for homes...nobody asked for this, it doesn't make housing any more accessible, and all the designs are cookie-cutter. dumb lmao
No that's a good thing because it helps makes home faster and you don't need to adjust anything on site and they use 3D modeling for a reason to make it much more cheaper and make it more effective installing and such is a great idea and good solution to making homes cheaper without making it harder to construct, etc.
I've always wondered why free think has more haters than other such channels. Would you be capable of providing the answer? Why are you so mad? It's a company minding its own business trying to get off and you feel the need to attack it. Are you jealous perhaps? This is very interesting.
@@koiyujo1543 It might make construction quicker but that won't decrease the price that much. The cost of building a home is made up of land, materials and labor. This company is only solving labor costs.
@@sarrormiki3363 im a hater because i don't think this company has any merit and i hate the never ending line of start ups that attempt to solve problems they have no knowledge about
There are other startups that are attempting to be like Ikea for homes, but this actually isn't one of them. It's specifically made to be custom so that, for example, you can design a home around trees on the property as shown in the video.
Also, a lot of people are asking for solutions to make housing faster and more affordable: there's a nationwide housing shortage that has pushed up the cost of homes dramatically ( www.npr.org/2021/09/04/1033585422/the-housing-shortage-is-significant-its-acute-for-small-entry-level-homes ) and construction with traditional techniques has gone up in cost significantly, while labor shortages have slowed down the timeframe for delivering them. www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2021-09-20/inflation-forces-homebuilders-to-take-it-slow-raise-prices
The land costs are certainly always an issue, and can vary very widely across the country: sometimes they are just a few thousand dollars, sometimes millions. Of course, no homebuilding solution can fix that on their own. But in addition to saving labor, this approach (if delivered as imagined) would save materials as well as labor - traditional homebuilding often generates a lot of unused excess materials - and another factor is time. If you can build a home in days or weeks instead of a year, you don't have to pay living costs somewhere else while you build it.
Hope this helps explain things, have a good day y'all.