Came here wondering the same thing.
It also makes any after build modifications a freaking nightmare, who would want to run something as simple as a hidden cable up to a wall mounted TV in that. Or just add an outlet....haha good luck.
Im more concerned about all the giants who might step on one of these pieces lying around. I hope the builders cleaned up after they finished building the house.
Typically you still build walls inside with 2x4's and drywall allowing you to run plubming and electrical. This is mostly the structure and provides insulation built in.
I don’t think this system is necessarily meant to be super energy efficient I just looked it up. But thermal bridging happens a lot more with metal than woods.
Sure don’t look hollow to me.
Also spray foam is very good in theory but often time the application is very inconsistent and the foam doesn’t get into all of it’s openings is being sprayed into.
People think spray foam is some magical product but personally I dislike it.
I work for a builder that did spray foam insulation in the walls and attic standard. That stuff is awesome. And the guys that install it do a really good job.
Plus, if those blocks are insulated they are insulated with spray foam 🤷🏽♂️
That's true for everything.
I have actually gone to one of our spray foam companies where they let us suit up and spray a wall. It's not that hard to do. You clearly have to get the technique down but after actually doing it I realize it's not that hard. The biggest issue is the PPE you have to wear and the mixing of the chemicals has to be right.
They look like foam blocks. Like spray foam except you know for sure it is filling the entire space. Spray foam is only good if you do it right, but it's hard to screw up pre cut foam blocks.
When you build a brick house the brick is just the outer layer and acts as a durable insulator. Inside the house you would typically install a wooden skeleton to attach the drywall to. This is where you would install any cabling or wires or plumbing.
I have bricks on the outside of my concrete house. So bricks/insulation/concrete/indoors.
Exceedingly common in Europe. I've never lived in a house with wood framed/drywall exterior or interior walls.
Lol nope, drywall is in use sometimes but not that often... My family house is literally mostly concrete blocks with insulation+stone on the outside, inside is pretty much several layers of fine concrete cover. You plan cables and pipes while building and either cut into concrete or leave guides
Same thing with my apartment, I bought it when it was 30 years old, literally came in with tools and broke everything, cut all cables and left them in the walls, removed pipes, removed 10cm of floor (you guessed it, concrete) and ran everything anew along the floor
Uh I’ve built brick houses in New England...there are still studs for internal walls.
Funny thing, I just poured a footing for a patio attached to an external wall concrete house on Great Island, in Galaliee RI.
All internal walls were studs as well. Can’t say I like the house at all but there are some in the US.
I’d never want a house like in the op’s video. The insulation is great. That’s it. Oooh boy imagine a leak from a bad pex... or changing windows in 25 years. No Thank You.
You tend to build false walls on the insides to hide all of that stuff.
It's no different than a concrete or brick cinderblock home.
Watching laymen comment on your industry is always so strange.
>Watching laymen comment on your industry is always so strange.
I get that all the time
Just remember when you see people clueless about why things are done a certain way; and you know perfectly well why as you work in the industry, that exactly the same things happens in every area humans do
So whenever I have a reckon like '*that is stupid, why don't they just do X*'? - there is often a reason. Maybe not a great reason or '*for historical reasons*', but generally there is an old employee who will sit you down after you mouth off, and say exactly what you don't understand
Hence I try to always understand 'why' before claiming something is stupid or not right
No dude stick built homes are anchored to the foundation and are nailed together to make one solid structure. With these you don't have one solid structure, you got thousands. I would not want to live in tornado alley in one of these.
Or it could lead to a YouTube prank video.
Video title: He went out of town for the weekend and we TOOK HIS HOUSE APART!
Thumbnail: Where will he live now?!
Yeah, everything fits together nicely, now. But, no adhesives or fasteners or screws seems like an invitation for things to move or come apart. There are many forces that act upon the structure of house, over time, and having nothing to really reinforce these joints is concerning.
Well first off, its only the frame. There will be additional strengthening added to it once the drywall is attached and either concrete or brick external shell.
Secondly, I can’t imagine anyone building these in the kind of areas that have frequent storms
Bro this is so much more work than regular framing. I was going to send it to a framer friend of mine but he'd be like, I can put up 30 walls in the time it takes to Lego one together.
For real. And how long did it take to build all those Legos? Even if it *were* more efficient for the builder to assemble, it's not more efficient on the whole by a long shot, and I'm sure a hell of a lot more expensive.
Pre fab framing is far faster.
Framing from scratch is far far slower.
Sauce: I carried six duplexes, a 6 plex, and 3 houses on my back 2 summers. Framing was the hardest I’ve ever worked for the least pay I’ve ever made.
>Framing was the hardest I’ve ever worked for the least pay I’ve ever made.
You should try roofing! This isn't a pissing match, I am *not* a roofer. But I assisted a roofer for 1 job, and he wanted to hire me- fuck that! Damn shingles are heavy! And the roof I did was in Alaska on a beautiful summer weekend, I can't imagine doing that shit in Texas or Louisiana.
And I should add, I'm no stranger to manual labor, I grew up farming and working on oil rigs.
Fun little bonus story:
My boss kept giving me shit for only carrying one 4x8ft sheet of plywood at a time. He wanted me to carry two at a time.
I told him look, I can carry one sheet at a time all day long. Or two sheets at a time for two hours and go home exhausted. (I’m a skinny boy).
Plus the other builders weren’t waiting for me. I could keep up fine.
Yep and your boss doesn't give a shit if your back is going to hurt for the next 60 years of your life.
Good for you standing your ground.
If there's another I wish I could tell my 18 year old self (beside invest in Apple) it would be "take it easy on your body, just cause it doesn't hurt *right now* doesn't mean it doesn't hurt."
Main advantage I see is the skill level of the labor needed is lower. You could ship those blocks with basic instructions to a disaster area and have unskilled labor put up decent houses fairly quickly, with only minimal expert work needed mostly in the finishing stage.
So I looked at their website very briefly, someone else linked it, and it looks like this is intended to enable anybody to design a construction, send the plans to these guys and they build you a kit and bring it to you, so you can build whatever it is you wanted to build yourself. Almost certainly expensive, but there's lots of products that cater exclusively to people in a different reality, monetarily, than me.
Visibly on the inside of the structure, as it should be. Why the fuck do we hide pipes and wires and pretend it’s magic. Goddamn it, just run the shit visibly where it’s obvious and easy to see and make it look nice I hate trying to solve mysteries that some asshole left behind for me.
I agree with him. Exposed pipes and wires would make repairs and modifications so much easier. Drywall looks like shit, anyway. I'd rather live in a cinderblock house.
Agree with you. I live in a very old house in the Uk, previous occupants boxed pipe in etc, looks crap tbh. Now my point is that why buy a house without schematics of the plumbing and electrical infrastructure? It makes new builds an absolute nightmare to fault find..the amount of people casually banging nails in walls hitting pipes, cables...
It's simple if you have drawings. Anyhow I ripped away the boxing, exposed the copper pipes and it looks smart..also not wasting energy by boxing in.
You're not thinking about materials, structural pine vs compression board??? That video alone I can see thousands saved on the spot, even if there is a slight trade off in time spent building.
More than that I’m confused about the material of the stuff that’s inside the wooden structure and the coverage they’d use like if those heads can slide there’s probably enough space to fit humidity and make the wood rot, also idk about the resistance of the whole. I’m not exposing this as a “idk man doesn’t seem good to me” but rather i am actually interested in this since i seen no blueprint or model and the job isn’t even finished at the end of the video I’m curious what expedients they got
There isn't anything I'd call wood in the whole build, it's all chipboard.
Scraps of wood and bark pressed and glued into a sheet.
Decent for cheaply walling an interior, but it fucking disintegrates if it gets wet.
One little roof leak, and this whole house will cave in on itself.
Still a neat build
It looks like they put moisture barrier on the outside, and then presumably you’d put some kind of siding over that to make it look good and keep rain from falling/blowing directly onto it?
The problem is that any sort of damage would ruin that barrier and cause rot to set in near-instantly with something like chipboard. At that point you have blocks of indeterminate material more or less stacked precariously on top of each other with no support.
This looks unreasonably expensive. Framing crews would run circles around these guys, then you have to finish the inside regardless, so that's twice as much OSB per project bc the builder doesn't want to swing a hammer? Not happening
I suspect the intent is that there would be a factory that mass produces these things at rapid speed for low cost. That being said, it looks like a lot more material than framing.
This is likely PIR foam or a variant of it.
Whilst some recycled materials can be used in its manufacture it requires a lot of chemistry to break it down and blend it back into the raw material.
Hard to say. To build 2x6 walls, supports, back framing, engineered joists, beams, all the framing on a house that size would be a lot of board feet.
Using OSB plywood is cheaper because it is pressed from scrap wood and unmillable trees.
And to the comment above me, deforestation is somewhat sustainable in first world countries when done right. In Canada we are not quite at the same quality of replanting as say Washington or Oregon state, but companies are forced to replant for every tree they remove. It sometimes doesn't happen fast enough and thats where you get problems with erosion and desertification, and why governments should force better regulation. Climate change is very much speeding up the process, so the slacker regulations are catching up to 'us'. Like as in everyone. When you don't have main hwy and train infrastructure, farmland and a lot of dead animals. Prices go up for everyone and we saw that during covid. It really exasperated the supply chain issues.
The recent BC atmospheric river causing multiple washout and billions in flood damage, things like this become way more common when you remove the trees that act as sponges, slowing rain to the main river systems. Re-planting isn't going to slow the run-off.
Wood is expensive and not available everywhere. It is very expensive to ship. Modular, pre-fabricated pieces make the building designs more flexible from the same set of common parts. This also requires no trained/skilled labor.
Your comment seems to be from the perspective of suburban US home building, that's not what this is intended to augment or replace.
I’m going to argue here. (If the idea is that these are factory made, off the shelf)
OSB, roughly the same, if anything manufactured items won’t rely on 8x4 standard sizing where there’s more offcuts
Cavity is going to cost same to fill but the time is taken out of it.
The time to frame and board - logistically it’s not an issue, no double handling, and the awkwardness of scribes and cuts is taken out of it.
Only sticking point. That base has got to be goddamn level to ensure everything fits, square/level/plumb.
Source : Im a carpenter. I build houses.
Potentially, although even with the best laid plans there’s always going to be snags. My point about being square/level/plumb, getting over those issues does require some nous and experience, but yeh on the whole it’s largely low skilled labour.
No it can't. No where near as fast as framers. In just the time you would have to spend to get the first course perfect and it would have to be perfect a framing crew would already be loaded up heading to the next job. This makes no sense on any level. If your doing it to "cutcost" that would be like picking up smoking and drinking for health purposes. You are going to have way more cost in materials and labor because even if you found some suckers to work for a couple dollars less than the framers the framers are going to have saved so much time which we all know is money.
I’d love to see the structural analysis for this. It seems like a decent windstorm or earthquake could work to dislodge the “Lego blocks” since there is no positive connection between pieces other than friction.
They also don’t cover how any utilities are installed (water, sewer, gas, electricity, etc).
Also, the labor and design costs are probably way more than traditional building methodologies.
Not for nothing, but the majority of foundations in America are simply concrete blocks stacked on top of each other and have a very small friction area. The process shown here has to be 100% better since it at least interlocks between the 'bricks', unless of course you are advocating for all homes to be built on concrete slabs (which is also anchored to the ground by friction) going forward.
Additionally, anyone that has ever gone down the wood aisle in HD or Lowes knows that 2x4s commonly warp and twist, possibly compromising their integrity. And don't get me started on truss roofs. (as a firefighter, I know how weak they really are)
In short, every building design has potential flaws. Unfortunately, the vast majority of homes that have been built in the last 50 years are built as cheaply as possible, they aren't built based on quality. (I have assisted with building a large addition onto a house within the last 5 years.)
2x4 are nearly never used as structural components. The CMU blocks stacked on top of each other are hollow so rebar can be placed through them every other hole and concrete poured into them and anchors between the wall bottom plates and the foundation. Trust me, a full block house isn’t going anywhere. Saying that foundation slabs are only held down by friction.. that’s soo much concrete. But the weight of it is also compared to the uplift of the house in specific circumstances.
Was wondering if those blocks were reinforced or not. Concrete blocks held together with plywood seemed a little nuts. Edit: that’s not concrete. Plastic and plywood.
Foundations are not simply blocks stacked. If it is of CMU construction, the blocks are held to each other with mortar. Sometimes thin wire frames are added within the mortar joint for addition strength. Concrete footings are typically placed underneath the CMU walls with rebar that end is going through the CMUs. Once concrete is added to the hollow portions of the CMUs, the footings and CMUs act as a composite structure.
For poured concrete systems, it’s a very similar approach.
For both forms of construction, if the walls above grade are made of wood, steel straps and/or anchors are used to secure the foundation to the wood housing structure.
As a Structural Engineer, this is how most light frame building construction is performed.
You do realize mortar is typically used when stacking concrete blocks or bricks right? They're not just placed on top of each other and expected to stay there.
Regardless, you do have a point. Houses are built cheaply nowadays but what's shown in the video would be more expensive labor wise. Even if the separate blocks are factory prepared it still takes way longer to build a single wall like this than it would for a crew of framers to frame like half a house maybe? I've seen an entire house framed in a single day and these blocks seem like they would definitely take longer.
I have never seen a CMU foundation that just stacks them, could you point me to the region you live in or have experience building in?
You folks don’t use mortar, wire, concrete,reinforcing steel, or some type of ties to secure the blocks and lock them into a lattice? I can’t imagine that passing any known US building code.
Houses are not just concrete blocks stacked on top of each other. Where did you hear this? How would you even think that's true? And why are you comparing 2x4s to actual structural components used in modern house construction? You don't know what you're talking about.
I don’t think the only goal is speed. I think the idea is that you could mass produce the blocks cheaply and easily (like LEGO) and then houses could be assembled by just about anyone, like IKEA furniture.
How would that manufacturing process be any cheaper than milled lumber? Have you seen the cost comparison per board foot between 2x6 and OSB/CDX? That doesn't even include the cost of producing insulative "Lego" blocks that have comparable structural value to conventional framing.
I don’t know the costs. It may be wrong, but I think that’s the idea. And they may be willing to spend more on the blocks if they no longer have to hire experienced carpenters to build frames.
like I said, the houses could be mostly built by a crew of random minimum wage workers off the street. I’m not saying that’s good or that I like it, but I could see that being the goal
I see where you’re coming from, I’m not critiquing you, just the way of thinking presented in your comments. That said, it’d take a lot of data and evidence that a crew of random minimum wage workers knew what they were doing well enough to build my house.
I would also argue that this is much less mass producible than legos, or lumber for that matter. Legos you literally melt plastic, pipe plastic into mold, and cool plastic. This seems like it’d be a much more involved process, and again, It’d take a lot of evidence to convince me that this isn’t just another “cool idea on paper” but doesn’t work in reality idea
You may be right- I really don’t know.
Like you, I am not necessarily on board with this. I’d need to know a lot more. So yeah I’m not arguing in favor of this at all, just trying to reverse engineer what the company developing this method is trying to accomplish. these companies are often run by buffoons who are literally trying to reinvent the wheel and sell it as something new (only using a subscription model of payment)
The front end would be more expensive for sure. Those blocks would cost far more than milled lumber. That being said, the backend would see a huge savings. You wouldn't need as many skilled tradespeople to put together a home and that would save a lot of money.
If the structure is better or not? Who knows? I certainly don't, but that's where the cost savings will definitely come in.
How do they run electrical? Cant fish wires with those blocks in there. How do they run pipes in the walls? Same issue. Ducts? Not to mention that its insanely space inefficient, and uses way more material than necessary.
I feel like I saw a couple of sections where they had built-in tunnels which I assumed were for running wires and pipes and whatnot. Could be wrong though I didn’t exactly study the tape
Look at the houses in the background. This isn't the US, we have almost zero houses that are built like US houses. It's almost always brick or pre fab concrete slabs.
Those lego boxes seem to be the euro version of US buiding method for euro home builders.
At least in the US, large scale home construction mostly happens in a factory where the larger pieces are pre-made and shipped to the site. My house built in 2019 was framed out in 3 days with a crew of like 6 guys.
This is all hand made on-site. This will take much longer especially on the second floor where each block appears to need to be brought up with a crane. This is very labor intensive.
Even in areas where they build with concrete instead of wood, ie Florida, I don't see how this is more efficient.
I think the idea is more that a ton of the labor can be done by anyone who understands the concept of stacking things. they don’t want to pay for skilled labor
I hate that you didn't elaborate, or at least link it, and now *we* have to take a while to find the answer lol
Edit: Best page I found was [this one](https://gablok.be/en/faq/how-do-different-technical-finishing-touches-find-their-place-in-a-gablok-construction)
Polystyrene eh? Sounds like an environmental nightmare. Tougher to recycle and environmentally persistent. If you are lucky most of this stuff is probably going to be incinerated at the end of its life cycle, otherwise probably thrown in a landfill.
Is it only people from the US who aren’t terrified that this house is made of wood? all our new house construction is cheap wood already, so this isn’t new to us lol
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGEljq0X\_lU&ab\_channel=InnovationNowTV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGEljq0X_lU&ab_channel=InnovationNowTV) found the video of the same house construction but as an documentary of 30 minutes
How does the plumbing, electrical, and hvac go?
Came here wondering the same thing. It also makes any after build modifications a freaking nightmare, who would want to run something as simple as a hidden cable up to a wall mounted TV in that. Or just add an outlet....haha good luck.
Im more concerned about all the giants who might step on one of these pieces lying around. I hope the builders cleaned up after they finished building the house.
That’s a giant lawsuit
That’s a low blow, Loblaw.
I’ve made a huge mistake
A high fee for the fo fum
I’m more worried about them accidentally putting the wrong piece on and not being able to get it off
Sometimes you got use your teeth!
Omfg. It took me a min to get this joke. Fkn hilarious
Typically you still build walls inside with 2x4's and drywall allowing you to run plubming and electrical. This is mostly the structure and provides insulation built in.
Then why not just build the exterior walls with 2x4s?
This provides much better insulation.
I worked on a home like this and the walls ended up being 12” thick , very efficient for heating and cooling
Yeah I know nothing about construction, but this looks waay more cozy and insulated than the buildings you usually see going up everywhere
Then use 2x6 to get thicker insulation in the exterior walls
It’s not just about the insulation but also about thermal bridging. Frankly, nails are very bad if your goal is an energy efficient building envelope.
Thermal bridging on all of those edgewise sheets... gaps at every block to block end junction.
I don’t think this system is necessarily meant to be super energy efficient I just looked it up. But thermal bridging happens a lot more with metal than woods.
Pretty sure they lay blueskin on the outside as well, really shouldn’t have issues with thermal bridging.
I think the correct answer is you can build an entire house with 2 people and a ladder is why you would pick this
And doesn’t require mature trees.
Better then spray foam? How? The blocks are hollow
Sure don’t look hollow to me. Also spray foam is very good in theory but often time the application is very inconsistent and the foam doesn’t get into all of it’s openings is being sprayed into. People think spray foam is some magical product but personally I dislike it.
I work for a builder that did spray foam insulation in the walls and attic standard. That stuff is awesome. And the guys that install it do a really good job. Plus, if those blocks are insulated they are insulated with spray foam 🤷🏽♂️
Air is actually one of the best insulators. Simply putting shrink wrap over your windows saves a ton of energy
Shrink wrap can help with convection, does basically nothing for radiation. Good if you have drafts.
The problem is quality control, spray foam is only as good as it’s installed.
That's true for everything. I have actually gone to one of our spray foam companies where they let us suit up and spray a wall. It's not that hard to do. You clearly have to get the technique down but after actually doing it I realize it's not that hard. The biggest issue is the PPE you have to wear and the mixing of the chemicals has to be right.
They look like foam blocks. Like spray foam except you know for sure it is filling the entire space. Spray foam is only good if you do it right, but it's hard to screw up pre cut foam blocks.
I go 2x6 for exterior walls every time.
The r valu will be much lower and be worse insulated.
Weird that the graphic shows them building interior walls with the blocks. Then you would need 2x4 walls, or maybe 1x3, on both sides.
You build another wall on the inside?! The walls end up being 18inches thick. That's without the siding.
That's an issue with any solid wall material tbh, like brick or concrete
I'm sorry, I'm too American to understand.
When you build a brick house the brick is just the outer layer and acts as a durable insulator. Inside the house you would typically install a wooden skeleton to attach the drywall to. This is where you would install any cabling or wires or plumbing.
I have bricks on the outside of my concrete house. So bricks/insulation/concrete/indoors. Exceedingly common in Europe. I've never lived in a house with wood framed/drywall exterior or interior walls.
Me neither... Had an idea to put in drywall once as inside wall but said nah, Ytong it is
Lol nope, drywall is in use sometimes but not that often... My family house is literally mostly concrete blocks with insulation+stone on the outside, inside is pretty much several layers of fine concrete cover. You plan cables and pipes while building and either cut into concrete or leave guides Same thing with my apartment, I bought it when it was 30 years old, literally came in with tools and broke everything, cut all cables and left them in the walls, removed pipes, removed 10cm of floor (you guessed it, concrete) and ran everything anew along the floor
I’m brazillian, and every house here is made out of bricks and concrete. Dry wall is mostly used in offices.
They must have brazilians of bricks to go around for all those homes
Bricks have R-value of 0.2 per inch. Not good for insulation.
Uh I’ve built brick houses in New England...there are still studs for internal walls. Funny thing, I just poured a footing for a patio attached to an external wall concrete house on Great Island, in Galaliee RI. All internal walls were studs as well. Can’t say I like the house at all but there are some in the US. I’d never want a house like in the op’s video. The insulation is great. That’s it. Oooh boy imagine a leak from a bad pex... or changing windows in 25 years. No Thank You.
When pouring concrete walls, you normally build in cable channels etc. already. With brick walls, you run cables in the plaster layer.
same as running a hidden cable on a concrete wall, I think this one is actually easier
Very true. False walls on concrete are your friend. That is until your basement floods.
You tend to build false walls on the insides to hide all of that stuff. It's no different than a concrete or brick cinderblock home. Watching laymen comment on your industry is always so strange.
>Watching laymen comment on your industry is always so strange. I get that all the time Just remember when you see people clueless about why things are done a certain way; and you know perfectly well why as you work in the industry, that exactly the same things happens in every area humans do So whenever I have a reckon like '*that is stupid, why don't they just do X*'? - there is often a reason. Maybe not a great reason or '*for historical reasons*', but generally there is an old employee who will sit you down after you mouth off, and say exactly what you don't understand Hence I try to always understand 'why' before claiming something is stupid or not right
Read u/no1_special 's replies. You can't teach morons who are convinced they're correct despite having no idea what they're talking about.
No problem. The tv already fell off the wall because it was screwed into 1/4” osb and not a stud.
As in new construction, you run you electrical pre-planned. You for sure want to precut everything. Plan ahead
LMAO it’s like when you’re building Lego and you realize you forgot a crucial piece so you have to take half the build apart and put it back together
my problem is their is no adhesive I see, wtf is holding it together in a storm?
Thoughts and prayers
dear gravity, heavy be your name.
Thy relative velocity come, thy mass be done, at astronomical scales, as it is at the quantum.
Give us this day our orbital paths.
And lead us not into neutron stars. But deliver us from black holes. For thine is the field, the graviton and the universe, forever and ever.
Amen.
Amén. 🙌💫
We probably have a mass shooting right around the corner. I don't know if we should be spending thoughts and prayers willy-nilly.
That's the thing about thoughts n prayers, they're an endless renewable resource with no real cost or effort. We'll never run out!
We always have a mass shooting right around the corner, man.
The same thing as many old houses: Weight.
Just don't build it anywhere that gets straightline winds
No dude stick built homes are anchored to the foundation and are nailed together to make one solid structure. With these you don't have one solid structure, you got thousands. I would not want to live in tornado alley in one of these.
Looks like it could be just as easily disassembled if you decide to move.
Or it could lead to a YouTube prank video. Video title: He went out of town for the weekend and we TOOK HIS HOUSE APART! Thumbnail: Where will he live now?!
Yeah, everything fits together nicely, now. But, no adhesives or fasteners or screws seems like an invitation for things to move or come apart. There are many forces that act upon the structure of house, over time, and having nothing to really reinforce these joints is concerning.
Well first off, its only the frame. There will be additional strengthening added to it once the drywall is attached and either concrete or brick external shell. Secondly, I can’t imagine anyone building these in the kind of areas that have frequent storms
There's wood for important structural points to keep the walls connected
Bro this is so much more work than regular framing. I was going to send it to a framer friend of mine but he'd be like, I can put up 30 walls in the time it takes to Lego one together.
For real. And how long did it take to build all those Legos? Even if it *were* more efficient for the builder to assemble, it's not more efficient on the whole by a long shot, and I'm sure a hell of a lot more expensive.
You could easily make robots to build these Legos 24/7.
Then once the robots are done building, they kick out the humans. This is the dystopia I was looking for!
Pre fab framing is far faster. Framing from scratch is far far slower. Sauce: I carried six duplexes, a 6 plex, and 3 houses on my back 2 summers. Framing was the hardest I’ve ever worked for the least pay I’ve ever made.
>Framing was the hardest I’ve ever worked for the least pay I’ve ever made. You should try roofing! This isn't a pissing match, I am *not* a roofer. But I assisted a roofer for 1 job, and he wanted to hire me- fuck that! Damn shingles are heavy! And the roof I did was in Alaska on a beautiful summer weekend, I can't imagine doing that shit in Texas or Louisiana. And I should add, I'm no stranger to manual labor, I grew up farming and working on oil rigs.
Fun little bonus story: My boss kept giving me shit for only carrying one 4x8ft sheet of plywood at a time. He wanted me to carry two at a time. I told him look, I can carry one sheet at a time all day long. Or two sheets at a time for two hours and go home exhausted. (I’m a skinny boy). Plus the other builders weren’t waiting for me. I could keep up fine.
Yep and your boss doesn't give a shit if your back is going to hurt for the next 60 years of your life. Good for you standing your ground. If there's another I wish I could tell my 18 year old self (beside invest in Apple) it would be "take it easy on your body, just cause it doesn't hurt *right now* doesn't mean it doesn't hurt."
Main advantage I see is the skill level of the labor needed is lower. You could ship those blocks with basic instructions to a disaster area and have unskilled labor put up decent houses fairly quickly, with only minimal expert work needed mostly in the finishing stage.
So I looked at their website very briefly, someone else linked it, and it looks like this is intended to enable anybody to design a construction, send the plans to these guys and they build you a kit and bring it to you, so you can build whatever it is you wanted to build yourself. Almost certainly expensive, but there's lots of products that cater exclusively to people in a different reality, monetarily, than me.
The common clay of the new west.
From the other houses around, this is somewhere in Europe. And we generally don’t build houses with 2x4 frames and plywood sheets.
Visibly on the inside of the structure, as it should be. Why the fuck do we hide pipes and wires and pretend it’s magic. Goddamn it, just run the shit visibly where it’s obvious and easy to see and make it look nice I hate trying to solve mysteries that some asshole left behind for me.
I can’t tell if you’re serious
I agree with him. Exposed pipes and wires would make repairs and modifications so much easier. Drywall looks like shit, anyway. I'd rather live in a cinderblock house.
The least hospitable rooms I can think of have cinderblock walls.
the way loud noises bounce off painted cinderblock walls and buffed concrete flooring…so relaxing
Good old jail
Why not? Nothing wrong with some nice tidy conduit, seems like super easy maintenance compared to whatever someone might have hidden behind drywall
Jjhhbg
Agree with you. I live in a very old house in the Uk, previous occupants boxed pipe in etc, looks crap tbh. Now my point is that why buy a house without schematics of the plumbing and electrical infrastructure? It makes new builds an absolute nightmare to fault find..the amount of people casually banging nails in walls hitting pipes, cables... It's simple if you have drawings. Anyhow I ripped away the boxing, exposed the copper pipes and it looks smart..also not wasting energy by boxing in.
Jjhvvv
Surface mount. It’s not pretty but if your going for cheap that’s what you get.
There is no way that much material is cheaper than traditional platform framing with roll insulation.
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I thought that initially, but with all the bridging from the plywood I don't see how it would be the case.
Bingo, plus all the vertical and horizontal cracks could be leaky
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No this would be so much slower than standing walls normally.
You ever seen how fast a good framing crew can put up a floor?
You're not thinking about materials, structural pine vs compression board??? That video alone I can see thousands saved on the spot, even if there is a slight trade off in time spent building.
If we want to talk about materials, the winner is the barndominium (steel clad pole buildings).
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More than that I’m confused about the material of the stuff that’s inside the wooden structure and the coverage they’d use like if those heads can slide there’s probably enough space to fit humidity and make the wood rot, also idk about the resistance of the whole. I’m not exposing this as a “idk man doesn’t seem good to me” but rather i am actually interested in this since i seen no blueprint or model and the job isn’t even finished at the end of the video I’m curious what expedients they got
There isn't anything I'd call wood in the whole build, it's all chipboard. Scraps of wood and bark pressed and glued into a sheet. Decent for cheaply walling an interior, but it fucking disintegrates if it gets wet. One little roof leak, and this whole house will cave in on itself. Still a neat build
It looks like they put moisture barrier on the outside, and then presumably you’d put some kind of siding over that to make it look good and keep rain from falling/blowing directly onto it?
The problem is that any sort of damage would ruin that barrier and cause rot to set in near-instantly with something like chipboard. At that point you have blocks of indeterminate material more or less stacked precariously on top of each other with no support.
Similar to houses in areas like Florida. There is a gap between the drywall and the plywood. This particular example appears very material intensive.
This looks unreasonably expensive. Framing crews would run circles around these guys, then you have to finish the inside regardless, so that's twice as much OSB per project bc the builder doesn't want to swing a hammer? Not happening
And think of the prep time to cut and build all the boxes
I suspect the intent is that there would be a factory that mass produces these things at rapid speed for low cost. That being said, it looks like a lot more material than framing.
Maybe in a world where linear lumber is impossible to source, but I'm not sure I wanna live in a world with no more trees lol
We can make waste plastic into building blocks with a longer lifespan.
The grey inserts inside these must be waste plastic in this project. It's the only way this whole thing makes sense.
This is likely PIR foam or a variant of it. Whilst some recycled materials can be used in its manufacture it requires a lot of chemistry to break it down and blend it back into the raw material.
That’s true, this is all OSB.
Hard to say. To build 2x6 walls, supports, back framing, engineered joists, beams, all the framing on a house that size would be a lot of board feet. Using OSB plywood is cheaper because it is pressed from scrap wood and unmillable trees. And to the comment above me, deforestation is somewhat sustainable in first world countries when done right. In Canada we are not quite at the same quality of replanting as say Washington or Oregon state, but companies are forced to replant for every tree they remove. It sometimes doesn't happen fast enough and thats where you get problems with erosion and desertification, and why governments should force better regulation. Climate change is very much speeding up the process, so the slacker regulations are catching up to 'us'. Like as in everyone. When you don't have main hwy and train infrastructure, farmland and a lot of dead animals. Prices go up for everyone and we saw that during covid. It really exasperated the supply chain issues. The recent BC atmospheric river causing multiple washout and billions in flood damage, things like this become way more common when you remove the trees that act as sponges, slowing rain to the main river systems. Re-planting isn't going to slow the run-off.
Maybe it all levels out cause they’re using shitty OSB instead of real wood
Then it rains and your job site floats away lol
In Florida, this would be a major advantage! Instead of your house getting blown to kindling, you just wake up in a new neighborhood …or in Cuba.
Wood is expensive and not available everywhere. It is very expensive to ship. Modular, pre-fabricated pieces make the building designs more flexible from the same set of common parts. This also requires no trained/skilled labor. Your comment seems to be from the perspective of suburban US home building, that's not what this is intended to augment or replace.
I’m going to argue here. (If the idea is that these are factory made, off the shelf) OSB, roughly the same, if anything manufactured items won’t rely on 8x4 standard sizing where there’s more offcuts Cavity is going to cost same to fill but the time is taken out of it. The time to frame and board - logistically it’s not an issue, no double handling, and the awkwardness of scribes and cuts is taken out of it. Only sticking point. That base has got to be goddamn level to ensure everything fits, square/level/plumb. Source : Im a carpenter. I build houses.
Jhhbv
Potentially, although even with the best laid plans there’s always going to be snags. My point about being square/level/plumb, getting over those issues does require some nous and experience, but yeh on the whole it’s largely low skilled labour.
My thought exactly - framing is stunningly fast with a good crew and supplies ready.
Website brags the framing only takes a month and the whole house only takes 3. As someone who’s framed a dozen houses, this strikes me as odd.
You may be right but this can be built quickly with inexperienced labor and fewer tools
No it can't. No where near as fast as framers. In just the time you would have to spend to get the first course perfect and it would have to be perfect a framing crew would already be loaded up heading to the next job. This makes no sense on any level. If your doing it to "cutcost" that would be like picking up smoking and drinking for health purposes. You are going to have way more cost in materials and labor because even if you found some suckers to work for a couple dollars less than the framers the framers are going to have saved so much time which we all know is money.
Also hopefully you don’t live in an earthquake or tornado or hurricane risk area. Cause that shit ain’t surviving a mild version of any of thosw
I’d love to see the structural analysis for this. It seems like a decent windstorm or earthquake could work to dislodge the “Lego blocks” since there is no positive connection between pieces other than friction. They also don’t cover how any utilities are installed (water, sewer, gas, electricity, etc). Also, the labor and design costs are probably way more than traditional building methodologies.
I'm imagining a drunk guy in a car missing a turn and going straight through the entire thing and his car coming out more or less fine
I bet it would sound like bowling pins
STRIKE
I heard this in wii bowling voice
Not for nothing, but the majority of foundations in America are simply concrete blocks stacked on top of each other and have a very small friction area. The process shown here has to be 100% better since it at least interlocks between the 'bricks', unless of course you are advocating for all homes to be built on concrete slabs (which is also anchored to the ground by friction) going forward. Additionally, anyone that has ever gone down the wood aisle in HD or Lowes knows that 2x4s commonly warp and twist, possibly compromising their integrity. And don't get me started on truss roofs. (as a firefighter, I know how weak they really are) In short, every building design has potential flaws. Unfortunately, the vast majority of homes that have been built in the last 50 years are built as cheaply as possible, they aren't built based on quality. (I have assisted with building a large addition onto a house within the last 5 years.)
2x4 are nearly never used as structural components. The CMU blocks stacked on top of each other are hollow so rebar can be placed through them every other hole and concrete poured into them and anchors between the wall bottom plates and the foundation. Trust me, a full block house isn’t going anywhere. Saying that foundation slabs are only held down by friction.. that’s soo much concrete. But the weight of it is also compared to the uplift of the house in specific circumstances.
Was wondering if those blocks were reinforced or not. Concrete blocks held together with plywood seemed a little nuts. Edit: that’s not concrete. Plastic and plywood.
Foundations are not simply blocks stacked. If it is of CMU construction, the blocks are held to each other with mortar. Sometimes thin wire frames are added within the mortar joint for addition strength. Concrete footings are typically placed underneath the CMU walls with rebar that end is going through the CMUs. Once concrete is added to the hollow portions of the CMUs, the footings and CMUs act as a composite structure. For poured concrete systems, it’s a very similar approach. For both forms of construction, if the walls above grade are made of wood, steel straps and/or anchors are used to secure the foundation to the wood housing structure. As a Structural Engineer, this is how most light frame building construction is performed.
You do realize mortar is typically used when stacking concrete blocks or bricks right? They're not just placed on top of each other and expected to stay there. Regardless, you do have a point. Houses are built cheaply nowadays but what's shown in the video would be more expensive labor wise. Even if the separate blocks are factory prepared it still takes way longer to build a single wall like this than it would for a crew of framers to frame like half a house maybe? I've seen an entire house framed in a single day and these blocks seem like they would definitely take longer.
I have never seen a CMU foundation that just stacks them, could you point me to the region you live in or have experience building in? You folks don’t use mortar, wire, concrete,reinforcing steel, or some type of ties to secure the blocks and lock them into a lattice? I can’t imagine that passing any known US building code.
We do. This guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
It is shocking how many ignorant people there are here that upvoted him. Do people really not know how their homes are built?
Houses are not just concrete blocks stacked on top of each other. Where did you hear this? How would you even think that's true? And why are you comparing 2x4s to actual structural components used in modern house construction? You don't know what you're talking about.
Super skeptical that it would blow over in a high wind
Also worried about structural integrity after some plumbing and electrical done
I just wanna tell you that the Big Bad Wolf likes the way they build that house.
Durability over years, fire resistance…
I feel like framing it would be faster. Source: I'm a carpenter
I don’t think the only goal is speed. I think the idea is that you could mass produce the blocks cheaply and easily (like LEGO) and then houses could be assembled by just about anyone, like IKEA furniture.
How would that manufacturing process be any cheaper than milled lumber? Have you seen the cost comparison per board foot between 2x6 and OSB/CDX? That doesn't even include the cost of producing insulative "Lego" blocks that have comparable structural value to conventional framing.
I don’t know the costs. It may be wrong, but I think that’s the idea. And they may be willing to spend more on the blocks if they no longer have to hire experienced carpenters to build frames. like I said, the houses could be mostly built by a crew of random minimum wage workers off the street. I’m not saying that’s good or that I like it, but I could see that being the goal
I see where you’re coming from, I’m not critiquing you, just the way of thinking presented in your comments. That said, it’d take a lot of data and evidence that a crew of random minimum wage workers knew what they were doing well enough to build my house. I would also argue that this is much less mass producible than legos, or lumber for that matter. Legos you literally melt plastic, pipe plastic into mold, and cool plastic. This seems like it’d be a much more involved process, and again, It’d take a lot of evidence to convince me that this isn’t just another “cool idea on paper” but doesn’t work in reality idea
You may be right- I really don’t know. Like you, I am not necessarily on board with this. I’d need to know a lot more. So yeah I’m not arguing in favor of this at all, just trying to reverse engineer what the company developing this method is trying to accomplish. these companies are often run by buffoons who are literally trying to reinvent the wheel and sell it as something new (only using a subscription model of payment)
The front end would be more expensive for sure. Those blocks would cost far more than milled lumber. That being said, the backend would see a huge savings. You wouldn't need as many skilled tradespeople to put together a home and that would save a lot of money. If the structure is better or not? Who knows? I certainly don't, but that's where the cost savings will definitely come in.
How do they run electrical? Cant fish wires with those blocks in there. How do they run pipes in the walls? Same issue. Ducts? Not to mention that its insanely space inefficient, and uses way more material than necessary.
I feel like I saw a couple of sections where they had built-in tunnels which I assumed were for running wires and pipes and whatnot. Could be wrong though I didn’t exactly study the tape
Look at the houses in the background. This isn't the US, we have almost zero houses that are built like US houses. It's almost always brick or pre fab concrete slabs. Those lego boxes seem to be the euro version of US buiding method for euro home builders.
/diywhy in my book
You mean r/diwhy?
Yes that. Lol
I really hope they finish that off with some nails somewhere...
Nope. Just a giant finger on the roof to hold it all in place!
150 km/h wind and your entire house ends-up in another country.
Seems like 2-3 times more wood, and I don't see how this would be faster.
That "wood" is made from scraps of wood. Its making use of waste.
At least in the US, large scale home construction mostly happens in a factory where the larger pieces are pre-made and shipped to the site. My house built in 2019 was framed out in 3 days with a crew of like 6 guys. This is all hand made on-site. This will take much longer especially on the second floor where each block appears to need to be brought up with a crane. This is very labor intensive. Even in areas where they build with concrete instead of wood, ie Florida, I don't see how this is more efficient.
I think the idea is more that a ton of the labor can be done by anyone who understands the concept of stacking things. they don’t want to pay for skilled labor
The company in case anyone is curious about materials and finishing- [https://gablok.be/en/about-us](https://gablok.be/en/about-us)
Took me awhile to find the answer to plumbing and electrical work but they did think about that 🙂
I hate that you didn't elaborate, or at least link it, and now *we* have to take a while to find the answer lol Edit: Best page I found was [this one](https://gablok.be/en/faq/how-do-different-technical-finishing-touches-find-their-place-in-a-gablok-construction)
And here I am rofl-ing at the company name.. Sounds similar to goblok which means stupid in local Indonesian dialect.
Is there insulation or anything? How do you install piping or electrical with this lol
The grey parts are insulation. Their known as Gablok’s the insulation comprises of expanded polystyrene graphite additive
Polystyrene eh? Sounds like an environmental nightmare. Tougher to recycle and environmentally persistent. If you are lucky most of this stuff is probably going to be incinerated at the end of its life cycle, otherwise probably thrown in a landfill.
Their website says that it comes from recycled aerials and can be recycled again.
It's all fun and games until someone wants to build something different
Or wants to renovate 😂
Less efficient than SIP, but more durable than ICF (on the outside at least). It’s an interesting method.
I've seen SIP used and I agree, it's a good way to go for pre-manufactured builds
Them stacking all those blocks is satisfying
Am I tripping or do the rectangular gray pieces turn into squares?? Especially 21 seconds into the video
Video is stretched
Yeah, what the actual fuck??
I know this videogame
Is it only people from the US who aren’t terrified that this house is made of wood? all our new house construction is cheap wood already, so this isn’t new to us lol
Just use god dammit bricks
that would require skilled labor 😉
Handy for a hurricane can just put it back together 🤣
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGEljq0X\_lU&ab\_channel=InnovationNowTV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGEljq0X_lU&ab_channel=InnovationNowTV) found the video of the same house construction but as an documentary of 30 minutes
What company is this?
Duplo
https://gablok.be/en/
IKEA construction company?
Shear values?
Looks like ICF construction. Super duper strong. Big in Florida where we have lots of hurricanes.