I’ve recently started research construction costs due to a desire to build a custom house. Not sure what it’s like in other areas of the country, but in California, everything is negligible compared to labor costs. You would figure that means we get to use all sorts of cool materials and techniques here because the costs of materials are marginal, but no, in fact it’s the other way around. Unless you’re willing to put up with the cheapest and lowest common denominator combination of materials and techniques, people look at you funny and assume you’re okay with your costs blowing up by 10x because now the labor involved is not standard. With the million dollar (and easily higher) house construction costs, instead of the best, we get the absolute worst. That includes using the bare minimum amount of concrete in our shallow foundations that would be a laughing stock anywhere else in the world.
It would be like if every programmer only does 90s style PHP because software developers are expensive enough already and you asking for the latest Python or JavaScript is a desire to pay space rocket numbers.
It would be like if every programmer only does 90s style PHP because software developers are expensive enough already and you asking for the latest Python or JavaScript is a desire to pay space rocket numbers.