Why Now?

Our FUTURE ECONOMY                    

The Speed of Technological Change    

The observations made in the following, abbreviated, article point out that remarkable technological progress applies to almost every product or industry category EXCEPT Home Building. In North America, cutting lumber to size at the site, nailing the pieces together and filling dumpsters with waste is still essentially the same labor-intensive construction method used for the past two centuries and results in a terrible waste of energy at every level.

The purpose of E-Tech Home Systems is to introduce modern manufacturing technology to one of the world’s dominant industries so that quality is improved while costs are reduced and the environment is respected. The following technology excerpts from this thought-provoking article are revealing. 

 The following data is taken from Future Economy by Joe Aaron, an economic futurist. He states that the most significant economic trends are in demographics and technology. (See his full FUTURE ECONOMY article on YouTube for some shocking demographic statistics and predictions).

 The dominant trend in the technologies impacting our economy is called Moore’s Law. Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel Corporation, in 1965, postulated that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles every two years while being reduced in size by an equal factor. Since then, this prediction has held true and as a result, year after year, a new computer is twice as fast and it often can cost half as much. It is now generally accepted that this same “law of change” covers most technologies.

 The law of change was around long before Gordon Moore, we just didn’t know it. For example, at the start of the 20th century, agriculture provided half our jobs; today it is 2 percent. Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone 10 years ago and today smart phone use has grown from 100 million to 6 billion. The cellphone industry predicted sales growth to average 13 percent per year. In fact, it went up 50 percent year over year.

 When the decision to sequence the human genome was made in 1990 it was completed 13 years later at a cost of $2.7 billion. Last year it cost $1,000 to sequence your personal genome. This year it will cost you $100. Technology reduced this from 13 years to 13 days; from $2.7 billion to $100. This means we will soon be able to tailor medications to fit the genetics of the individual, revolutionizing how we fight disease.

 These examples prove that consumers welcome and quickly accept a new technology which adds to their comfort while saving time and money. However, with energy costs rapidly escalating and E-Tech homes able to produce all needed energy on site why are homes still constructed in a totally obsolete, energy wasteful way? Maybe it is because no one before E-Tech has offered the home buyer a viable choice.

 This is the world’s future; mind-boggling changes at a mind-boggling pace and E-Tech is committed to bringing new, proven technology to the construction of homes.

 Join us, the time has come!

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Definition of Home Construction Types

  • Stick-Built: Everyone in the industry is clear as to what the term means and millions of such homes have been built by using this now obsolete method. Due to rapidly rising material and labor costs, environmental and other issues, this method is facing increasing negative pressure for reasons that are unlikely to overcome.
  • Prefabricated (Prefab): As it is becoming a more accepted method, it describes totally factory built “box(s)” shipped to the site and craned into place. Fixed factory overhead and transportation of fabricated units are inherent limitations.
  • Kit Homes: Over 100,000 kit homes were built in the United States between 1908 and 1940, Sears Corp. stats show that they provided 70,000 of those kits. Although Sears had the muscle to survive they and almost every other Kit Home provider shut down around the end of WWII when large tract builders came on the scene. This term is often used to describe several more minor methods such as Panelized and other methods where certain walls, roof and other major parts of a home are made in a single factory and trucked to the jobsite and craned into place. This wood Panelized method saves some on-site labor and is used extensively in Europe.
  • Modular: This term is often used to describe what used to be called “trailer houses”. The prefabricated structure is mounted on wheels and towed to the trailer park (or other) site, often to be placed on cement pads and connected to existing utilities. Although initially intended for owners who expected relocation, many are left in place for very extended periods.
  • Unusual Methods: Straw bales, rammed earth, canvas, mud, used auto tires, and many other minor methods are developed with the intent to compete in the open market but have never gained traction.
  • E-Tech Homes: High rise office and warehouse buildings have been constructed with steel structural frames and metal and glass curtain walls since the late 1800’s so the concept has been well tested. This method of producing a superior quality home should capture a very large percentage of the prevailing stick-built and prefab market and conditions have evolved to make the shift opportune.

RELEVANT FACTS

The Broad Group, a Chinese construction company, specializes in sustainable architecture. Their latest project is a 30-story tall, 183,000-square-foot hotel built in just 360 hours or 15 days! Their previous record was a smaller 15-story building constructed in just six days.

They use steel components which are mounted on a steel structure. The hotel is so solid that it can resist a 9 magnitude earthquake which is five times more earthquake-resistant than conventional buildings. The company also says that it is five times more energy efficient. So, obviously, we did not invent the concept of a steel frame with curtain walls, nor did The Broad Group. They simply employ the same outsourcing concept that we adopted.

There have been several reasons why previous attempts of providing this superior construction method have not succeeded. The difference is that we employ the same outsourcing method used by Apple computer (except we prefer U.S. sources). Almost all major consumer products use outsourcing to keep their cost down and their quality controlled.

Some of the other reasons why this home construction method has not yet predominated are:

  • The Home Building Industry is very resistant to change. If change to an up-to-date method is to happen, it will have to come from a combination of Architect and Consumer demaning a more efficient way of building and very forward thinking Builders moving to modern construction methods (which will actually prove to be more profitable).
  • With initial efforts, the final aesthetic has been very ”commercial warehouse” in appearance and thus not acceptable to most home buyers.
  • Their product has been “designed in house” and has precluded broad architectural firm involvement. Prefab factory production discourages new designs and methods of production as they interrupt their manufacturing process and training quality employees is an ongoing issue.
  • Because of the compulsion to “control” production in house, at least two other major problems are inherent. One is material and/or labor difficulties and the other is that once a trained factory labor force is in place, there is substantial internal resistance in adopting new production technology as employees fear losing their jobs and management hates to fire and retrain its labor force.
  • Finally, even though a metal frame and curtain wall produces an obviously superior structure, the cost of setting up a complete in-house manufacturing process is substantially greater than outsourcing components from existing plants already equipped with automated presses. Therefore, pre-fab facilities are typically set up to utilize a version of wood based stick building and hand labor. So, an inherently compromised product is created.

Outsourcing production is the method now demanded by almost every present mass-produced consumer product. Using outside production sources who amortize expensive, automated equipment by producing for a variety of customers allows for substantially reduced costs and no large factory force retraining is necessary. Not having factory fixed cost overheads makes the inherent housing market (feast and famine) vagaries just an irritation rather than an economic disaster as is the case with totally “in house” factory construction which is regionally based because of the need to transport large boxes over highways to a home site. E-Tech enjoys a limitless production capability as multiple suppliers are scattered across North America and all would love to be our suppliers so delayed deliveries due to in-house factory production limits are avoided.

Finally, almost all present methods of mass building of homes precludes the involvement of talented architects. E-Tech firmly believes that excluding the broad architectural community limits the advancement of the industry so we Welcome Architects!