Factory-built homes are in the election spotlight as a fix for Canada’s housing crisis. It’s a faster, easier way to build, and less polluting than traditional construction methods. So why aren’t neighbourhoods packed with prefab homes?
This can work in some places (mostly looking at the prairies), but will do close to zero in others (like eastern Canada+BC). The simple problem is that the land the house is built on is often worth something like 80% the cost of buying property. The cost of a new house can be zero, but that will do little to help people afford new homes. Only slightly better than the tax cuts PP is proposing, which will have just as weak of an effect helping those who don’t already own six houses.
The solution is to use the land we already use for homes more efficiently, and the only way to do that is to build condos and apartments. Make them mixed use and you can add the rental fees of a grocery store and several other services to the mix to subsidize the cost even further. A single grocery store that’ll take up half the ground floor paid something like a million in rent a year, and that was before COVID. Add a convenience store, a couple fast food restaurants, a bar, and a dentist or salon, and you’ve got a mini-mall that’ll rake in several million in rent that has a captured clientele in those that live above and near them. And that number will be in the hundreds for a 30 story apartment in the space of half a city block, since there’d be more than ten units per floor, even if it only has two-four bedroom units.
Such buildings can’t be built in a factory, even partially. Not if we want them to last more than ten years, since that’s the problem with the quick condos China tried to build.
If I remember right, that was basically what they did to make commie blocks.
If the building isn’t too tall, maybe 5 stories or less, that is proven to work, though I don’t know about the quality, at least it’s durable. But I strongly doubt that it would work for skyscrapers. I don’t think there’s any way to get beyond single large support struts to go throughout the entire building, and concrete walls feel too heavy to be used. Maybe prefab concrete floors could work, but I don’t work construction.
This can work in some places (mostly looking at the prairies), but will do close to zero in others (like eastern Canada+BC). The simple problem is that the land the house is built on is often worth something like 80% the cost of buying property. The cost of a new house can be zero, but that will do little to help people afford new homes. Only slightly better than the tax cuts PP is proposing, which will have just as weak of an effect helping those who don’t already own six houses.
The solution is to use the land we already use for homes more efficiently, and the only way to do that is to build condos and apartments. Make them mixed use and you can add the rental fees of a grocery store and several other services to the mix to subsidize the cost even further. A single grocery store that’ll take up half the ground floor paid something like a million in rent a year, and that was before COVID. Add a convenience store, a couple fast food restaurants, a bar, and a dentist or salon, and you’ve got a mini-mall that’ll rake in several million in rent that has a captured clientele in those that live above and near them. And that number will be in the hundreds for a 30 story apartment in the space of half a city block, since there’d be more than ten units per floor, even if it only has two-four bedroom units.
Such buildings can’t be built in a factory, even partially. Not if we want them to last more than ten years, since that’s the problem with the quick condos China tried to build.
You might not be able to pre construct the whole building, but there’s a lot of new technology out there that pre builds very large parts.
I’ve seen 15m pre fabricated concrete walls placed with cranes before.
There’s a lot we could probably do like that which would speed up build times.
If I remember right, that was basically what they did to make commie blocks.
If the building isn’t too tall, maybe 5 stories or less, that is proven to work, though I don’t know about the quality, at least it’s durable. But I strongly doubt that it would work for skyscrapers. I don’t think there’s any way to get beyond single large support struts to go throughout the entire building, and concrete walls feel too heavy to be used. Maybe prefab concrete floors could work, but I don’t work construction.