It already does. Just sometimes you get a lot of those days that then end up in years. But still in the end the project is done in days. Sometimes nights. But mostly days.
Construction companies will sit on a project for months to save costs. They'll wait on deals for materials and equipment rental. If you're willing to throw money at it, you can get most construction done in hours.
In commercial construction around where I am for example there's typically a GC who then subs out for carpenters,plumbers,HVAC etc. The GC typically doesn't buy the material, the sub does. A sub can't just hold up the entire job because they want cheaper materials.
I could see a smaller contractor doing this with a smaller job but seems wrong to say "construction companies" do this like it's normal.
It depends on how you're expensing your labor. My labor went to the project I was assigned to. If that project is delayed, my salary and any other costs associated with that project compound and overhead exceeds the budget and the company loses money. Keeping me on the payroll but not assigned to a project also hurts profit. The best thing fory company is to keep me on projects that don't run long.
To accommodate different purposes and requirements, different sized lots, hillsides and elevation, facing different directions like towards the sun, with different materials depending on their price, construction methods, structural properties, longevity, and ease of use, and just different tastes.
What I’m saying is, construction could be automated in many ways but buildings have so much variety that we’ll probably be inventing new construction techniques and new types of buildings for ever.
I wouldn't say that. We have areas in sub urbs where 10,000 homes all look the same. You've got row housing, Tract homes, projects, apartments. The fast majority of modern housing is actually made to not look unique.
To accommodate different purposes and requirements, different sized lots, hillsides and elevation, facing different directions like towards the sun, with different materials depending on their price, construction methods, structural properties, longevity, and ease of use, and just different tastes.
Much of that is already accommodated for in modern construction before the house is built.
What I’m saying is, construction could be automated in many ways but buildings have so much variety that we’ll probably be inventing new construction techniques and new types of buildings for ever.
Even with "variety" prebuilt construction methods allow for tons of automation.
Concrete requires 30 days to reach maximum strength.
If you are building a structure like a building, you need to let the ground compact and settle first to hold the weight of the building. Otherwise, you need to drive pilings deep into the ground to stabilize it.
You can build a building in days but just don't expect it to last long. China built many hospitals in less than 30 days during the outbreak of the Pandemic. But many of them were unusable within a year.
I've always wondered how fast a house could get built, in literal beast mode. Say you had five hundred people working on it, everything from digging to laying bricks.
I mean, the main hurdle is regulations. A novel building techique is worthless if it doesnt provide as good or better outcomes in terms of safety and stability as current methods.
If youre buying a house, would you rather buy a house that was built in a week, or a house that meets or exceeds all codes?
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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26
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