ysabetwordsmith | Affordable Housing

From:

thatjustwontbreak

Oh no. Disposable housing.

From:

librarygeek

Rather like the disposable public schools that got put up with the Boomers and now need to be rebuilt or demolished and build new again. Asbestos ceiling tiles around here are the worst culprits, Southeast PA.

From:

ysabetwordsmith

At least those lasted longer than 38 years.

From:

ysabetwordsmith

It's all disposable now. Like some utter fuckwits hallucinate that it would be possible, let alone desirable, to replace America's entire housing stock every 27.5 years and entire nonresidential stock every 38 years. Insane. But that is the way modern buildings are constructed. This is one reason why I say that older houses and buildings are so precious: because they cannot be replaced under current conditions.

From:

see_also_friend

From a capitalist standpoint that is brilliant, since it should rive people to buy more.

Practically speaking it is like a book I read once, where genetically engineering allergenic pets didn't make people buy more medicine, it just made them /abandon all their pets/.

From:

From:

ysabetwordsmith - Date: 2025-11-09 05:15 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

siliconshaman

You know, 3D printed houses don't have to be crap... theres a youtube video of Adam Savage visiting one of the companies working on a Mars habitat. It's 3D printed, very obvious extrusion lines, the wall looked to be about 6 inches thick, and only single skin... and they drove a truck into it! Guess which came off worse.

I don't know exactly what they made it out of, some special foamed concrete with an R value of something ridiculous, (better than 18 inches of traditional insulation) and structural properties off the charts.

I mean, vastly overkill for any terrestrial environment. (well, maybe not Hurricane country) But it proves that 3D printed houses do not need to be disposable, and if they're making them that shitty, and charging that much, someone is making one hell of a profit!

Edited Date: 2025-08-15 12:47 am (UTC)

From:

ysabetwordsmith

>> You know, 3D printed houses don't have to be crap <<

That's true, they don't. I've seen 3D printers for both metal beams and extruded adobe that looked quite promising. I based my assessment of this specific case on its ugly appearance and high price.

>> Adam Savage visiting one of the companies working on a Mars habitat. It's 3D printed, very obvious extrusion lines, the wall looked to be about 6 inches thick,<<

Cool.

>> and only single skin <<

I would strongly prefer more redundancy.

>> I don't know exactly what they made it out of, some special foamed concrete with an R value of something ridiculous, (better than 18 inches of traditional insulation) and structural properties off the charts. <<

In fact, there are foam-homes on Earth made of spray insulation, which started back in hippie times; and there are shotcrete monolithic domes that are the sturdiest structures we know how to build with resistance to earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.

>> 3D printed houses do not need to be disposable <<

Neither do conventionally built houses, but the context in America today means they are all built for a 27.5 year lifespan. If you want something else, you must pay for it entirely yourself, build it somewhere without zones, and not expect to insure it.

>> and if they're making them that shitty, and charging that much, someone is making one hell of a profit! <<

Which is doubtless the point.

From:

see_also_friend

I would like to see affordable and quality 3d printed houses. Alas, that seems unlikely in a reasonable timeframe.

From:

ysabetwordsmith

Some of the adobe ones are nice. That material is also sustainable and resilient to climate change, fire, storms, etc.

From:

see_also_friend

As a bonus, adobe is something that can be constructed with low-tech methods.

Now if we could do something about the zoning laws...

Re: Thoughts

From:

ysabetwordsmith - Date: 2025-08-19 05:48 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Thoughts

From:

see_also_friend - Date: 2025-08-19 02:05 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

dialecticdreamer

IF the house lifespan is 27.5 years, and the typical mortgage is THIRTY years... then most people literally have nothing at all to show for paying for a home for three decades, likely more than half their lifetime.

How is this any different than renting?

Oh. They have to pay for upkeep and repairs themselves.

From:

ysabetwordsmith

>> IF the house lifespan is 27.5 years, and the typical mortgage is THIRTY years... <<

Also, the finance industry is now pushing 40-year and 50-year mortgages, obviously because almost nobody can afford the terms of a 30-year mortgage now. But that's always a scam if the house's life expectancy is only 30.

>> then most people literally have nothing at all to show for paying for a home for three decades, likely more than half their lifetime. <<

Well, they do typically own the land the house in standing on.

>>How is this any different than renting? <<

Advantages:

* It's harder to evict a homeowner than a renter.

* They are subject to general inflation, but not a landlord jacking up rent astronomically.

* They can do what they want with the house / land.

>> Oh. They have to pay for upkeep and repairs themselves.<<

And that's where one of the serious dangers is. Everything in a modern house is designed to last no longer than 27.5 years. Builders want to hit as close to that target as possible. So think about it -- the carpet, the plywood under it, the insulation in the walls, the window seals, the plumbing, the roof, all designed to fail at the same time. If built properly, which few are anymore but if you pay a premium it could happen, the house will look nice for 10 years or so before the heaviest-use items start to wear out. By 20 years, it probably looks shabby even if you have been trying to keep up with maintenance, unless you can afford to replace everything as soon as the wear shows. The killer is that last 10 years. It's not a normal rate of a thing here, a thing there, needing attention. It is a cascade failure as as all the major things -- which were designed to last right up to the cutoff before breaking -- wear out very close together. Those are all expensive to fix, if you can afford to fix them, if you can even find someone to fix them when nobody wants to do trade work anymore.

So then what?

* If you want to sell the house, either you have to do a lot of expensive repairs first or you get little or nothing for it. You may have to take just the land value. It may not pass inspection at all, if they care enough to look closely.

* If you want to keep the house, you have to rebuild it almost from scratch, which is ruinously expensive.

* If you can't afford all those repairs, then you're stuck in a house that's falling apart around you.

* Or maybe you just give up and demolish the damn thing, either selling for the land only or putting a new house on the land. If you're in an area where land prices have skyrocketed, this might actually pay off.

* You may not be able to get or keep insurance, especially as repair costs mount up and given the tendency of insurance companies to demand repairs that cost more than the claim if you file a claim -- and most lenders will void a mortgage if you don't have insurance.

What's worse, with a 30-year mortgage, most people will be near or past retirement age when a bought-new house's lifespan runs out. That's a very bad time to get hit with a lot of major expenses, just to keep the house from becoming uninhabitable.

With a modern house that is not bought new, which is common because people now move around much more, there's a different problem: the house is only meant to last 27.5 years but some of that is already used up. If it's only 10 years old, you'll hit the cascade failure in 10-20 years. If it's already 20, major things will start going wrong immediately.

You also don't have a good asset to pass down to your children. With a house lifespan of 27.5 years, people will need 2-3 such houses during a human lifespan, if they were starting with a new house; or have to shuffle between many houses, most in some state of wear.

It is, of course, completely impossible for America to replace its whole housing stock every 27.5 years, as we don't even have enough affordable housing already -- but that is what this insanity assumes. It's a ticking time bomb.

The Surfside collapse involved a condominium building that was 40 years old, just past the 39-year threshold for commercial buildings. When a house fails, it's a family problem; when a large condo or apartment building fails, that can take out many people simultaneously, like a fire does. And while fire protections are required in such buildings, there's no real protection from planned obsolescence. Buildings aren't condemned the moment they cross the threshold. So that kind of incident will likely become more popular.

From:

dialecticdreamer

Remember when Disney murdered a bunch of lemmings to convince viewers that they were just that stupid?

Too many people believed that lie, and the others that piled atop it.

From:

dialecticdreamer

You have heard me complain before about the destruction of actual ownership. This is just one more step, obvious and irrevocable, on the same road to destruction.

From:

see_also_friend

That's one reason I daydream about owning a tiny house trailer.

Alas, those are probably too unaffordable as well.
:/

The Writing & Other Projects of Elizabeth Barrette

Links

Page Summary

Active Entries

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags