The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-28)

5

EZ

THE

WASHINGTON

POST

.

SATURDAY,

MAY

28, 2022

for homeowners include redoing

bathroom plumbing, fixing roof

shingles and replacing electrical

panels, according to a personal

injury attorney consulted by the

researchers.

While the number of injuries

doesn’t necessarily suggest home-

owners should skip DIY projects,

it does shine a light on the need

for extreme care when tackling

household projects.

Lacerations, fractures and con-

tusions were the most common

injuries, while fingers, hands and

eyes were the most typically in-

jured body parts.

What tools caused the most

injuries? Manual workshop tools,

power home-workshop saws and

miscellaneous workshop equip-

ment took the top three spots.

The overall number of home-

improvement-related injuries

that required an ER visit fell in

2020 compared with 2019 even as

the percentage rose, which the

researchers say may be attributed

to people avoiding hospitals be-

cause of the coronavirus pandem-

ic.

According to their research,

more than 290,000 home-im-

provement injuries required an

ER visit, and more than 24,000

required a hospital stay in 2020.

The study doesn’t review exactly

which projects cause the most

injuries, but it revealed the most

common types of injuries, the

most commonly injured body

parts and the tools that caused

the most injuries.

The most dangerous projects

searchers analyzed data from the

Consumer Product Safety Com-

mission’s National Electronic In-

jury Surveillance System.

It showed that the percentage

of ER visits related to home-im-

provement projects in 2020 was

the highest in a decade and

spiked in early spring that year,

leading with April at 4.09 per-

cent, followed by May and June.

The lowest percentage was in

January 2020 at 1.9 percent.

BY MICHELE LERNER

Injuries related to home-im-
provement projects accounted
for 3 percent of all emergency
room visits in 2020, according to
a recent analysis by Clearsurance,
a platform for customer-generat-
ed reviews and ratings of insur-
ance companies owned by 360
Quote.
To find out how risky DIY
projects can be, Clearsurance re-

TOWN SQUARE

Percentage of ER visits related

to home projects rose in 2020

changed. Like today, primary

roadblocks then were rising

direct and indirect construction

costs; constrained availability

and cost of mortgage financing,

for builders and for home buyers;

and limited land availability with

high land costs due to restrictive

zoning regulations.

In the 1960s, prefabricated,

factory-made housing was

thought to be the technological

innovation promising to save

money and increase the supply of

American homes. Plant assembly

lines could manufacture homes

at a very high rate. But factory

production rates greatly

exceeded rates at which finished

homes could be shipped and

inventoried, subdivisions

created, improved lots prepared,

mortgage loans obtained and

sales closed. It was clear that

innovation roadblocks were

systemic rather than

technological.

Only the mobile-home

industry has successfully

sustained volume production of

reasonably affordable

manufactured housing. But

trailer-like homes deployed in

exurban, dedicated mobile home

parks cannot significantly

address the country’s residential

needs.

The roadblocks reported to

Congress 54 years ago remain

and are still nontechnological.

While possibly enabling cost-

effective fabrication of some

construction pieces and parts,

3D-printing technology is

unlikely to do much to mitigate

persistent, systemic housing

challenges in the United States.

Roger K. Lewis is a retired practicing

architect and a professor emeritus of

architecture at the University of

Maryland.

constrain housing types,

residential densities and

intermixed land uses within

urban, suburban and exurban

areas. More-flexible regulations

would reduce per-unit land costs

for building housing.

These challenges are not new,

just as technological exploration

and invention are not new. There

is a long history of efforts in the

United States to study and

address real estate and housing

challenges, starting in the early

20th century. I participated in

such an effort 54 years ago as co-

author of a congressionally

funded report titled “Roadblocks

to Innovation in the Housing

Industry.”

Our findings in 1968 have not

construction costs are rising

rapidly because of price inflation,

supply-chain problems and

increasing interest rates.

Clearly, all these real-world,

interdependent costs associated

with real estate development and

construction impede home-

building innovation. They are

why demand exceeds housing

supply in many areas of the

country, driving up home prices.

And they explain why producing

affordable housing, whether for

rent or sale, keeps getting harder,

more expensive and more

dependent on public subsidy.

Making matters worse are

state and local growth and

development policies —

especially zoning — that

costs: regulatory processing and

compliance related to rezoning

and building permit issuance;

legal fees; construction loan

interest; insurance; advertising

and marketing; and project

management and administrative

overhead.

The challenge for home

builders is that an incremental

cost saving in one component of

direct house construction can be

suddenly offset and made

inconsequential by

unanticipated increases in other

cost components, both direct and

indirect. This impairs financial

feasibility, happens often and, in

fact, is happening right now.

Today, previously planned

projects and budgeted

A recent
television news
report showed a
prototype house
in California
being built using a
large-scale 3D printer, visually a
gee-whiz moment. A special
nozzle at the end of a large
robotic arm steadily tracked
along and extruded straight lines
of material, layer by layer, to
form the home’s exterior walls.
The accompanying voice-over
speculated about how this
innovative technology could
change how we build, promising
to greatly reduce the time and
cost for constructing housing.
Well maybe not. The prospect
of 3D printing of a house,
ingenious as it sounds, is yet
another in the long list of
technological home-building
ideas whose time has not come
and probably never will come.
It’s also an idea that carpenters
and masons may not appreciate.
Home builders, practicing
architects and engineers know
that labor and materials for the
structural frame — walls, floors,
roof — of a house represent a
small fraction of the total cost of
a completed home ready for
occupancy. Even if framing costs
were cut in half, total building
costs and selling price would be
affected by an insignificant
percentage, if at all.
This is not rocket science. Just
think about everything needed
beyond framing: windows and
doors, insulation, plumbing and
related fixtures, HVAC systems,
cabinetry, appliances and
finishes. Add to this the cost of
the lot and its improvements:
grading, foundation excavation,
utility connections, landscaping.
On top of these costs are the
homebuilder’s multiple indirect

Home Improvement

3D-printed homes sound ingenious, but their time may never come

Shaping

the City

ROGER K.
LEWIS

SUPRUN/GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCK

A 3D rendering of a home. The challenge for home builders is that an incremental cost saving in one

part of direct house construction can be made inconsequential by other unanticipated cost increases.

NAVEED ANJUM/GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCK

Cuts, fractures and contusions

were the most common

injuries, researchers say.