Cool post.
I'd toss in that the demands of production and efficiency play a role in inferior quality.
Especially when roughing-in an home. You can have a 2500 to 3500 sq. ft McMansion in a
cookie-cutter new subdivision/gated community and those homes are built with the same
mindset that $2 hamburgers at the Drive-thru.
Thank you. Yes, the demands do play a role in inferior quality. But here's the thing:
they don't have to. When I talk about lack of training, I mean that the guys don't have the good production skills these days, like the older guys who I grew up learning under, did.
In the 90's I was a framing contractor, framing custom homes, getting paid by the square foot, at the lowest price point around. Other builders couldn't believe we would "work that cheap," and often asked me how I made any money at those prices. I told them the key wasn't hiring cheap help (in fact, it's the opposite), or cutting corners, or just going as fast as possible, and hell with the quality. I did better than other crews working for the same builder also, because I learned how to be
efficient. And as far as the quality goes, there are so many tasks that can be done,
faster, while at the
same time, turning out a
better product. It's all in the methods and tools you use, and how you order your work. These are the "production skills" I see lacking in the industry today, that generally lead to poor quality.
And it helps to have a good moral compass too. Sure, I had jobs that went sideways, but I'd take the lessons I learned as "paying my tuition", as opposed to sacrificing quality. But I didn't make the same mistake!
One quick example I see over and over: There are many times on a carpentry project where boards have to be ripped (cutting a certain amount off the edge, along its entire length.) The wrong, inefficient, and poorer quality method: Lay the board across 2 sawhorses, one carpenter holds the board, while the other guy cuts it down its length, following a chalk line, basically using his hand/eye coordination to keep the blade on the line. The right, efficient, high-quality method: Either temporarily screw one end of the board to the top of the sawhorse, or better yet, use a screw as a "stop" at the end of the board to keep it from sliding (now the 2nd guy can go do something else!) Buy a $14 attachment for the saw, called a rip guide, and use that to ride the edge of the board. That tool gives you a consistent width down the entire length of the board, while allowing you to cut faster as well. (And yes, I know about table saws, but they're not the right tool in this example.) Go one step further, and plan for all the boards that need to be ripped for the entire job, and do them all at the same time (simple "economy-of-scale" principle at work.) Go one step further: Since this is a very simple task, teach it to your least-expensive guy on the crew, and have
him rip all those boards.
Examples like that
abound in construction. With some thought, you apply that same type of thinking to the entire process, and it is completely possible to make more money than your competitors, complete the job in less time, while at the same time turning out a high quality product. This is what I do in my chosen profession, seeing similarities in my approach to the things that I see here with Fractal. (I also played Clarinet and Sax in high school, best in MD in 9th grade, heading to college to be an electrical engineer, haha.) So I may sound a bit negative when discussing these kinds of things (don't mean to be), since a lot of it truly isn't necessary. And when I see lumber skyrocketing, I know a certain amount of it is only going to get worse, as builders push their crews even harder: "Hurry up!! I'm losing money on this job because I bid it 8 months ago, and now lumber prices are
crazy!" (My attempt to tie this long post back to the original topic, lol!)
